Posted on 14-6-2002
ICANN
Can't?
by Alan Marston
The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN)
is the body
setup in 1998 by the the country that originated the Internet,
the USA,
with powers in the US to administer the domains that don't have
a country
code, eg. .com and .net and .org and etc. Most people associate
these sorts
of domains not with the USA, but as being `global'. The US is
in a very
powerful position in respect of Internet maintenance and growth
and control
and the US Government intends to keep it that way. However,
ICANN is
proving to be a wild card that won't easily give in to direct
US Government
control.
U.S. lawmakers said on Wednesday that they would step up oversight
of the
nonprofit group that oversees the Internet's domain-name system,
but
stopped short of saying the United States should run the controversial
body
directly - though this is a real possibility. Several senators
and a Bush
administration official said ICANN would have to change the
way it operates
if it wants to continue to oversee the system that allows Internet
users to
navigate using easy-to-remember domain names like 'www.example.com.'
and of
late a whole raft of new top level domain names like .biz, .tv,
.name - dot
dot dot ... But Montana Republican Sen. Conrad Burns, who two
days before
called for the United States to exert more direct control if
ICANN did not
clean up its act, said the Department of Commerce should renew
ICANN's
contract when it expires in September. ``My feeling right now
is the
(contract) should be extended,'' the Montana Republican said.
``There are
some things that we have to iron out.'' A Commerce Department
official
declined to say whether or not ICANN would win a contract extension,
but
said she stood behind ICANN's approach. Though reforms are needed,
``the
department continues to be supportive of the ICANN model,''
Assistant
Secretary Nancy Victory told the Senate science, technology
and space
subcommittee.
ICANN has been a magnet for controversy since it was created
in 1998 to
assume control of the domain-name system from the U.S. government.
Domain-name businesses complain that ICANN moves too slowly
and imposes too
many restrictions, while grass-roots ``cyber-citizens'' complain
that their
voices are not heard. Charges that the nonprofit organization
operates in
an opaque and arbitrary manner come from all quarters. ICANN
has not yet
won full control of the domain-name system because it has not
met a number
of requirements laid out in the original contract, such as establishing
formal agreements with volunteers who run much of the system.
A
congressional investigator told the Senate that ICANN was unlikely
to meet
those requirements any time soon, and said the Commerce Department
needed
to assert a firmer hand, political-speak for `tow the line or
else'.
ICANN President M. Stuart Lynn touted the group's accomplishments,
noting
that it has encouraged competition among domain-name sellers,
bringing down
prices for a one-year registration from $50 to $10. The group
itself has
recognized the need for reform, Lynn said, and will take up
a comprehensive
restructuring proposal when it next meets in Romania at the
end of the month.
Critics told the committee that any reorganization should strictly
limit
ICANN's capabilities so that it does not try to regulate Internet
content,
or get into other areas such as consumer protection which it
was not
designed to handle. ICANN's decision to abandon direct elections
will also
mean that consumer and users interests will not be represented,
said Alan
Davidson, an associate director at the Center for Democracy
and Technology.
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