Shocker! Internet History in the Making! US Agrees to give up control of ICANN!

[mandy]

In a meeting that will go down in internet history, the United States government last night conceded that it can no longer expect to maintain its position as the ultimate authority over the internet.

Having been the internet's instigator and, since 1998, its voluntary taskmaster, the US government finally agreed to transition its control over not-for-profit internet overseeing organisation ICANN, making the organisation a more international body.

However, assistant commerce secretary John Kneuer, the US official in charge of such matters, also made clear that the US was still determined to keep control of the net's root zone file - at least in the medium-term....

full article: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/07/27/...n_meeting/

[jezebel]

With the Commerce Department out of the picture .XXX might get approved. 

[mandy]

Update: it will be at least 2011 before the US Commerce Department cedes control of ICANN

The agency that supervises Internet domain names, Icann, has renewed its contract with an arm of the U.S. Department of Commerce to administer the technical workings of the global computer network...

Icann's relationship with the U.S. government has been a continuing source of friction for other countries, some of which protest that the link politicizes what is essentially a neutral global computer network.

The U.S. government has said for years that it intends to sever its ties to Icann and to privatize the agency.

But the new contract, a one-year agreement renewable for four additional years, means there could be U.S. involvement until at least 2011...

full article: http://www.iht.com/bin/print_ipub.php?fi.../icann.php

[jezebel]

[quote author=jezebel link=topic=4524.msg18824#msg18824 date=1154036412]
With the Commerce Department out of the picture .XXX might get approved. 
[/quote]

See I told you so! 

Critics of renewing the memo of understanding say lingering government ties will let American influence determine issues like whether to start a domain name that ends in .xxx for pornographic sites.

In May, Icann rejected the .xxx proposal after the Commerce Department objected.

[mandy]

Update: ICANN expected to become free of government control on 1 October 2008

Internet overseeing organisation ICANN will become an autonomous body, free from any form of government control, on 1 October 2008, if plans drawn up between it and the US government go according to plan.

The current agreement between ICANN and the US Department of Commerce (DoC) is due to expire next week, but speculation has been mounting for months over what will happen to management of the internet's vital domain name system (DNS)...

More signficantly however, at the end of that agreement, the expectation is that ICANN will finally become an autonomous body, 10 years after it was first created and eight since it was supposed to break free from government control. The issue of control over ICANN has become a topic of international controversy because of the US government's failure to stick to a promise to remove itself from ICANN's structure...

full article: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/09/22/icann_free_mou/

The U.S. Commerce Department said Wednesday it will extend its oversight of the California organization that handles domain name policies, while finding ways to improve the group's accountability and transparency...

Commerce plans to renew a memorandum of understanding with ICANN, but it will likely add provisions designed to address complaints that the group is sometimes too secret and makes decisions that don't reflect the Internet community at large, Kneuer said.

The current agreement expires at the end of the month, but neither Kneuer nor Paul Twomey, ICANN's president and chief executive, provided details about the length of such an extension or about any changes...

full article http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercuryne...565105.htm