IP: Contest U.S. Internet Body

[Dave Farber <dave () farber net>]

Europeans Contest U.S. Internet Body
Thu Jun 27, 5:21 PM ET
By ALISON MUTLER, Associated Press Writer

BUCHAREST, Romania (AP) - The Internet ( news - external web site)'s key
oversight body is coming under fire from Europeans and others who want more
independence from the U.S.-based organization.

Domain name managers in some countries want more autonomy than the Internet
Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, or ICANN ( news - web sites),
is willing to yield. Many, speaking at the organization's meeting here,
have refused to pay membership dues.

"Some of us feel that we should stand up for our reasonable rights and not
give in to a U.S corporation," said William Black, chairman of Nominet,
which operates the popular ".uk" address system for the United Kingdom.

To date, the only countries that have signed contracts with ICANN are
Japan, Australia, Burundi, and this week, Malawi. More than 240 codes are
assigned for the world's countries and territories.

ICANN gets its authority over domain names through a 1998 agreement with
the U.S. government, which built the Internet and retains control of a
computer in Virginia that serves as the Net's master directory.

Responding to its critics, ICANN officials say national registries  the
corporations or nonprofit organizations that run country-code domains such
as ".fr" for France  need to be accountable to somebody, starting with the
local communities they serve.

Andrew McLaughlin, vice president of ICANN, said he wants to add controls
to the current informal system with national registries. For example, he
said, if a country wanted to change managers for its registry, ICANN should
ensure that person is technically competent and that the change has the
support and agreement of the local Internet community.

"Every registry should be accountable to somebody," McLaughlin said.

Last week, an ICANN reform committee proposed giving the national
registries greater influence over ICANN policies by granting them their own
supporting organization. The board was likely to adopt the proposal on
Friday.

Peter Dengate Thrush, chairman of the Internet Society of New Zealand,
which runs ".nz," said the proposed reforms won't work because ICANN would
still be trying to impose global solutions to what are essentially local
problems.

Thrush and others say the proposal skirts the question of what to do about
all the dissent and the inability of ICANN to reach agreements with
national registries.

ICANN is also grappling with the formation of domain names using
non-English characters. McLaughlin said the technical work would be
completed within a year, and then ICANN would decide how to create and
assign such names.

Some 700 delegates were attending the weeklong conference, the first for
ICANN in eastern Europe. This country of 23 million has about 2.5 million
Internet users, many of whom use Internet cafes that charge 45 cents to
$1.50 an hour, more than the hourly minimum wage of 34 cents.

------ End of Forwarded Message

For archives see:
http://www.interesting-people.org/archives/interesting-people/