US Ready to 'Hand Over' the Internet's Naming System
The US has confirmed it is finally ready to cede power of the internet’s naming system, ending the almost 20-year process to hand over a crucial part of the internet's governance
Dave Lee | August 18, 2016
It pairs the easy-to-remember web addresses - like bbc.com - with their relevant servers. Without DNS, you’d only be able to access websites by typing in its IP address, a series of numbers such as "194.66.82.10".
More by circumstance than intention, the US has always had ultimate say over how the DNS is controlled - but not for much longer.
It will give up its power fully to Icann - the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers - a non-profit organisation.
Technically, the US is doing this voluntarily - if it wanted to keep power of DNS, it could. But the country has long acknowledged that relinquishing its control was a vital act of international diplomacy.Other countries, particularly China and Russia, had put pressure on the UN to call for the DNS to be controlled by the United Nations’ International Telecommunication Union.
The initiative to transfer internet regulation to the non-US government company has been met with a strong opposition from many American officials. Republicans have been especially fierce, insisting that by the giving up its oversight of the internet, the US would open a way for countries like Russia and China to control and censor the Web that has always been “protected” by Washington.
ICANN has set up various bodies to hammer out a transition plan, which was formally announced in March [2014] -–after 33,000 emails and 600 meetings.
 |
| Source: https://www.apc.org/en/system/files/Civil-Society_ICANN.pdf |
 |
| Showing: page 1 of 3. [Click to Enlarge] Source: https://www.icann.org/en/system/files/files/functions-transfer-faqs-14mar14-en.pdf |
No comments:
Post a Comment