While most of America was distracted by the missing Malaysian jetliner last Friday night, the Obama Administration quietly announced that it intends to give up control of the organization that manages the Internet to the international community, a move that many fear could invite censorship and stifle free speech on the World Wide Web.
The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) is reporting that the U.S. will give up control of the body that manages Internet names and addresses, known as the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers.
Otherwise known as Icann, this body “manages a number of technical functions that serve as signposts to help computers locate the correct servers and websites,” WSJ reports.
Icann has been in existence since 1998 when Jon Postel, a computer scientist at the University of Southern California and one of the early pioneers of the web, passed away. After his death, “the Commerce Department issued a contract to Icann to take over those functions, making Icann the primary body in charge of setting policy for Internet domains and addresses,” WSJ explains.
But the NSA spy scandal caused increasing concern over whether or not the US could be trusted with so much control over the Internet and pressure began to build in the international community about allowing them to become more involved in its management.
In response to their concerns, the Obama Administration announced that it would begin the process of creating a new oversight structure involving more global cooperation when the current Icann contract expires in September 2015.
However, this handoff of control is not sitting well with experts who say it could allow the introduction of censorship to the web.
“If you hand over domain-name registration to someone who doesn’t want certain classes of domains registered, then you’re setting up a censorship structure” said Bill Reinsch, president of the National Foreign Trade Council, to the WSJ.
Reinsch is merely restating concerns the U.S. has long had about relinquishing control of the Net – that it could allow dubious international actors to repress free speech.
Larry Strickling, administrator for the Commerce Department’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration, is trying to waylay those fears by insisting that the new governance model must ensure that Icann is free from government influence as well as fulfill other conditions to keep it open and free.
These stipulations are hardly reassuring to many because they will be difficult to enforce, which means we may all be experiencing limitations on where we’re permitted to surf in the near future.
As former House speaker Newt Gingrich tweeted: “What is the global internet community that Obama wants to turn the internet over to? This risks foreign dictatorships defining the Internet.”
Rep. Marsha Blackburn, a Tennessee Republican, called the announcement a “hostile step” against free speech.
“Giving up control of ICANN will allow countries like China and Russia that don’t place the same value in freedom of speech to better define how the internet looks and operates,” she said in a statement.
Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee told Fox News he doesn’t like the idea either. “People want to use our ideas, fine. We will share them. But, we’re going to own them. Because if we develop it, it’s ours. And if you want to accept that, fine. If you don’t, then develop your own internet and spend the resources to do it.”
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