ICANN wants to flee the US

According to News.com, a recent report prepared for the board of ICANN (the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) says the outfit should "explore the private international organisation model".

Basically it would become largely immune from civil lawsuits, police searches and taxes, and its employees would have quasi-diplomatic privileges if it got the hell out of America.

The Bush administration has been tightening its grip on ICANN lately. Recently it ordered the outfit to listen to a handful of complaints from church groups about setting up a porn domain. While ICANN did not go ahead with the .XXX idea on technical grounds, the fact that the government decided to intervene directly in its operations spooked committee members.

One option is it could relocate to Switzerland, where it's far easier to obtain the privileges of an international organisation, the report says.

More here.