An idea for the 'delete' file
With the World Summit on the Information Society starting tomorrow in Tunis, some governments think that since the Internet was made for everyone’s use, there is no reason why the United States should have control over it through ICANN. Therefore that control should be handed over to the United Nations.
That seems perfectly logical to me. After all, it’s not as if the U.S. invented the Internet or something. Similarly, the French didn’t invent Champagne and this is why anyone in the world can produce white wine, with or without bubbles, and sell it as Champagne.
Anyway, USA Today has a nice analysis of the subject in U.N. control of Internet? An idea for the ‘delete’ file and I share their point of view (if it wasn’t clear from the above sarcasm):
The common, mistaken wisdom is that the United States runs it. But it doesn’t. Nobody does. The closest anyone comes is the non-profit ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers), headquartered in the same coastal California building where Postel had his office.
ICANN is little more than a technical coordinator with an internationally diverse board of directors. For the past seven years, under a system Postel helped shape, it has assigned Internet addresses and made sure the vital infrastructure functions. The U.S. Commerce Department audits ICANN but, for the most part, in hands-off fashion.
The whole article is worth a read.