U.S. Won't Cede Control of Net Computers
Jun 30, 6:51 PM (ET)
By ANICK JESDANUN
"NEW YORK (AP) - The U.S. government will indefinitely retain oversight of the main
computers that control traffic on the Internet, ignoring calls by some countries
to turn the function over to an international body, a senior official said Thursday.
The announcement marked a departure from previously stated U.S. policy.
Michael D. Gallagher, assistant secretary for communications and information at the
Commerce Department, shied away from terming the declaration a reversal, calling
it instead "the foundation of U.S. policy going forward."
"The signals and words and intentions and policies need to be clear so all of us
benefiting in the world from the Internet and in the U.S. economy can have confidence
there will be continued stewardship," Gallagher said in an interview with The Associated
Press.
He said the declaration, officially made in a four-paragraph statement posted online,
was in response to growing security threats and increased reliance on the Internet
globally for communications and commerce.
The computers in question serve as the Internet's master directories and tell Web
browsers and e-mail programs how to direct traffic. Internet users around the world
interact with them every day, likely without knowing it. Policy decisions could at
a stroke make all Web sites ending in a specific suffix essentially unreachable.
Though the computers themselves - 13 in all, known as "root" servers - are
in private hands, they contain government-approved lists of the 260 or so Internet
suffixes, such as ".com."
In 1998, the Commerce Department selected a private organization with international
board members, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, to decide
what goes on those lists. Commerce kept veto power, but indicated it would let go
once ICANN met a number of conditions.
Thursday's declaration means Commerce would keep that control, regardless of whether
and when those conditions are met.
"It's completely an about-face if you consider the original commitment made when
ICANN was created," said Milton Mueller, a Syracuse University professor who has
written about policies surrounding the Internet's root servers.
ICANN officials said they were still reviewing Commerce's statement, which also expressed
continued support of ICANN for day-to-day operations.
The declaration won't immediately affect Internet users, but it could have political
ramifications by putting in writing what some critics had already feared.
Michael Froomkin, a University of Miami professor who helps run an independent ICANN
watchdog site, said the date for relinquishing control has continually slipped.
Some countries, he said, might withdraw support they had for ICANN on the premise
it would one day take over the root servers.
In a worst-case scenario, countries refusing to accept U.S. control could establish
their own separate Domain Name System and thus fracture the Internet into more than
one network. That means two users typing the same domain name could reach entirely
different Web sites, depending on where they are.
The announcement comes just weeks before a U.N. panel is to release a report on Internet
governance, addressing such issues as oversight of the root servers, ahead of November's
U.N. World Summit on the Information Society in Tunisia.
Some countries have pressed to move oversight to an international body, such as the
U.N. International Telecommunication Union, although the U.S. government has historically
had that role because it funded much of the Internet's early development.
Ambassador David Gross, the U.S. coordinator for international communications and
information policy at the State Department, insisted that Thursday's announcement
was unrelated to those discussions.
But he said other countries should see the move as positive because "uncertainty
is not something that we think is in the United States' interest or the world's interest."
Gallagher noted that Commerce endorses having foreign governments manage their own
country-code suffixes, such as ".fr" for France."
A little bit more Remote Control, or RC, and what is with the 'foreign governments'
shouldn't that read other State Governments? Each to his or her own I say.
America would do well to dismantle the Federal government and cede Federal Government
to State Governors in my opinion.
Each State would then be independant and have it's own flag.
America is too much like Rome with its House of Representatives and its Senate.
Local State and County Government where Friends can meet is a much better proposition.
Each State would then have its own Bank and its own Church, instead of relying on
the Federal Bank and just the one man.
With a system of Church by State the over-generalised catholic system would cease
to exist.
