ICANN and the Future of the internet. (No Spam)

[Xandax]

Just a quick reaction.

This would not be a bad thing, but this could be arranged through a (or multiple) multilateral treatie(s). I do not see a need to set up an extra body or organisation or whatever to do this. The problem of any body/institution/organisation/... is that it invariably suffers from Mission Creep. They seldom give up authority without being pressured to do so and rather have a tendency to increase their jurisdiction/mandate/field of operations/... little by little. Or at least, that is my experience.
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Well - something needs to be there to facilitate multilateral treaties. You don't just get standard policies defined unless something is there to define it, to work towards them and to gather the results.
Sure everything could - in theory - be handled by existing government departments working together across the borders of all the nations, but this is not how it works in reality. Because if it did we'd never have need for any international/inter-govermental workgroups/organisations of any kind.
The reason is that each nation and/or department have differnet views of what wants and needs, as you say yourself....

They seldom give up authority without being pressured to do so and rather have a tendency to increase their jurisdiction/mandate/field of operations/... little by little. Or at least, that is my experience.

This goes for all departments and governments, which is excatly why I'd rather have one international organisation/taskforce/workgroup set up then a multitude of national governments and departments all trying to capitalize and gain most for themselves or a single government controling a world wide ressource because said government will mainly have its own interests at heart.

It is still in my view the lesser of two evils having an international body to define policies and govern worldwide intersts, then trusting each single national government/departments with the best interest of all others, which I'm sure will be neglegted for their own best interest as per your statement.
Also in the case of for instance ICANN, and related technological issues.

[asdfjklsemi]

Just a few random thoughts on this thread:

If the idea is to find apolitical or consensus oversight of the Internet/web to ensure free speech and internationalism, that's never going to happen. Any oversight body will be inherently political, and a political body will always want to assert itself at some point. I also find it highly unlikely that the US gov't would consider giving up something it invented, at least for the foreseeable future. But some sort of compromise system could be created; the UN itself is headquartered in the US, after all (yes, yes, technically not US soil, but c'mon). I actually think ICANN is pretty good structure in general, in terms of being an international non-profit, but obviously much more needs to be done in terms of accountability, transparency, etc.

I also think fears of US meddling are overblown, and certainly no greater than any other gov't meddling would be. Less, in fact. Let's not confuse US cultural conservatism with actual legal restraints; the US continues to be by far the most legally free society in the world and there is the strongest sort of legal recourse for attempts to restrict free speech. Denmark or whatever can claim to be more free because its homogenous society allows it the luxury of faux tolerance, but nothing matches the US Constitution in this respect. (Whatever ICANN's abuses, note that it has been successfully sued in the US to force it to releases its records, something that in the same year would have been illegal in, say, the UK.) Furthermore, the US gov't is crazy about global trade, and since the net is a huge driver of that, serious restrictions and shutdowns are extremely unlikely. In my opinion, the overcommercialization of the Internet is where the battle has already been lost in many ways--corporations control it much more than any gov't. But that is indeed another issue.

The internationalist model of the Internet doesn't seem like a be-all-end-all to me anyway, though it has certainly been awe-inspiring. Balkanized sub-Internets could be just as influential and likely much more free, with only the most minimal forms of oversight. I tend to think upstart DNS's and rival non-profits bidding on the contract could be much more effective than an attempt to centralize further. But that's *way more* instinct than knowledge on my part.

[Xandax]

[QUOTE=asdfjklsemi]<snip>Let's not confuse US cultural conservatism with actual legal restraints; the US continues to be by far the most legally free society in the world and there is the strongest sort of legal recourse for attempts to restrict free speech. Denmark or whatever can claim to be more free because its homogenous society allows it the luxury of faux tolerance, but nothing matches the US Constitution in this respect.<snip>[/QUOTE]

Funny how well you know other countries constitutions to be able to declare that while they also delacre freedom of religion, speech and such human rights, they aren't "worth" as much as the US one .

[Phreddie]

wow, ive never actually been able to take something form a class room and apply to the world in such an exact manner, my civics n econ class is pretty much talking about the problems you ppl have in debating here, political and cultural bias, one thing the world cant get over is the my country is the best mindset, thats why, for big international things, to make an international country, test tube babies taught by computers, the interact with humans somewhat, no bias introduced into their life, and they are taught to do what they need to, they can basically hold loose power ovr international affairs, this will never happen, but we do need some sort of unbiased international body that can handle affairs like these, that also will most likely never happen, pessimism sux.... !!!