THE IMPERIAL GOVERNMENT of the former British Colony of Virginia has decided to relax its iron grip over the World Wide Wibble.
According to the BBC, the US government will sign an agreement that gives the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) more authority to rule its own affairs.
For a while the world has been slightly concerned about US rhetoric claiming that since it invented a small research network that later grew into the Internet it owned the whole thing.
The worry was that the US might switch off the Internet to any nation that did not do what it was told. It could also demand that the rest of the world adopt some of the quaint religious attitudes and censorious proclivities of its Bible Belt.
Requests that the US hand over control of the Internet to a world body such as the UN were rebuffed. Successive US administrations fretted about losing control of the Internet to those nasty socialists that seem to be everywhere these days.
However there was not much support for the US view that it owned the Internet. The Internet is pretty much a world wide effort these days and is owned by the community of nations rather than exclusively by the US defence establishment.
Earlier this year, the EU called on the US to relinquish its control and for ICANN to become "universally accountable". The "affirmation of commitments" will reportedly give ICANN autonomy to govern its own affairs for the first time.
The current agreement between ICANN and the US Commerce Department's National Telecommunications and Information Administration is due to expire on Thursday.
The regulator has not yet released details of the new agreement with the US government, however the Beeb says there is a considerable relaxation of the rules controlling its decisions.
The new deal does not have a fixed term. It identifies a number of groups, including representatives of foreign governments, which will conduct regular reviews of ICANN's work.
The international oversight panels will focus on competition among generic domain names, how domain-name registrants' data are handled, network security and transparency, and accountability with regard to the public interest.
The US will reportedly retain a permanent seat on the Internet governing body, but that is not the same as having veto power over everything.
A formal announcement about the deal is expected tomorrow.
The US government will not sever its links with ICANN completely. Rod Beckstrom, president and chief of the organisation, said in a letter to the US Congress last week that it would seek to maintain a "long term, formal relationship with the United States Government".
ICANN also has a separate agreement with the US government to run the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA), which expires in 2011. µ
"It could also demand that the rest of the world adopt some of the quaint religious attitudes and censorious proclivities of its Bible Belt."
Gezzz, You act like Billy Bob, That is in the Great State of Mississippi. Has a Hair Trigger on all U.S. name servers. Just because he see the word F*ck in a
Euro Trash web site.
Hmmm, So You are saying That, your concern is that The Bible belt has control or a great influence on the Internet.
Ya, that has happen, I would be so concern on that one.
Tell me the example of that going on.
Ok, I will give into your socialistic antics ..
This is how it would go down..
A call place to President Obama.
Hello, This is Pres Obama
This is Billy Bob and Cletis.
Yes, sup?
Wheel, we wuz surfin n our mobile condo with wheels
and and um we typeed in google rednecks
and all we see is jokes like this
Alabama Farmer
What do you call an Alabama farmer with a sheep under each arm?
A pimp.
We takes ofence to this n bez not good.
Oboma
OK, Done... All web site that has the word redneck.
Is now Tore up from the Floor up.. History... Gone
Thanks dude... That was easy.. I say a prayer for 2nigh. amen brother cletus tha 1....
Purna, just because you Indians love your former British overlords (and previous gay lovers) doesn't mean us in the U.S. are willing to submit to the vagarities of an inbred British 'aristocracy'.
BTW, we will keep our guns, in fact, since the Marxist Obama regime was established, gun sales have skyrocketed.
The last thing this planet needs is a global structure of nobility, gentry, corporate chiefs, sporting celebrities, and children of elected officials posing as elitist 'leaders'.
Hopefully, your comment was sarcastic. If not, please, for your own personal safety, do not utter such comments while in the U.S.
As we all know, since US President Obama told the world, the US also invented the automobile - cough.
Before he put somebody's other eye out.
In World as Definable in Shape as Any Cloud. Drashek Sole Owner of Whirling columns of Wet Cold Dry ice & Light, heat Night & kept warmth Thru Out shalomic world. In conservative ner 'd well world, where Ownership of even Imagination IS Suapect. DRASHEK OWNS AL GORE ESQ.
Its Simple thangie. Al Baldie by Heart. DRASHEK Service Officer. Now World Leader. COMPUTERS RULES
BTW telcom from EAST Invented Internet or point to point Selective contact, Wan & television, Radio & Anything switchable, Yet Still ALL draSHEK.
Multivondrashek posting to cover tsdrashek loses, APPROVED.
ed note: GET DRASEHK.
New Internet Overlords.
It is high time that the British Colony of Virginia cede its illegitimate sovereignty back to its lawful monarch.
The colonists need to stop associating with cheese-eating surrender monkeys, and to cease stoking the fires of seditious libel against Her Majesty's government. These rebelious gits seek to promulgate their freedom on the entire world. Such hate groups as the NRA, the GOP, Neo-Nazis, Political Action Committees, the MPAA and FOX News, should acknowledge that Americans are not more equal than others, and that every gun is not sacred. Giving sweeping police powers against ALL of the US bill of rights, not just the 2nd amendment, to the UN's IANSA, will enable a global structure of nobility, gentry, corporate chiefs, sporting celebrities, the children of elected officials, to all flourish in the face of the lower caste gun carrying dissenters.
It just doesn't ring the same.
The US DID invent the internet. It DID shepherd it along to make it what it is today. And it DOES control the majority of DNS servers.
American invented.........check!
American built............check!
American governed.........check!
Given free to the world...check!
Uncensored by US gov't....check!
I don't understand what the problem is. Surely it's not a matter of principle?!
As an aside, Mr. Farrell, though I find your vitriolic rants against the US government entertaining, I truly hope you don't think that the internet would be better governed by an international bureaucracy. The UN is quite corrupt, and while I'm sure the EU nations would be fine stewards of the internet, in principle, the layers of bureaucracy are profoundly deeper on the eastern side of the Atlantic than on the western side.
quote "to those nasty socialists that seem to be everywhere these days" ..
That is so true. There is a movement now in the states to have Obama to be tried for treason and executed just for that reason... him being socialist and bending over at the g20 thingy.
Go start your own internet anytime you want. Sarcasm aside, you're right. We DON'T trust a bunch of socialist weenies.
Oh hell no. Call me arrogant or ethnocentric, but the less riff-raff we allow on the internet, the better. I just hope we don't see "internationalized" initiatives such as unicode URLs and other crap that's going to result in even more exploits and misdirection. Many places cannot be trusted to maintain the freeflow of information on the internet. Do we trust China to control regional nameservers? Who gets the Middle East one? I don't even trust a Western country such as Germany to do it right with their record of modern day conditional free speech.
Also, why do people want the UN to control anything? It's made up of arguing current and former powers who can't even agree on "condemnations," let alone administering something as vital as the internet. Too many cooks stirring the broth.
right give the UN more power it will never use good idea.
The UN is the most impotent organization ever, even beating the senior citizen's wii bowling league.
Don't be so paranoid we don't abuse are power that much.