Will the govt. take over the internet?

[cynatnite]

The Commerce Department provisionally handed over control of those servers in 1998 to the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), a private organisation.

In its June 30 declaration, the Commerce Department formally asserts its oversight of ICANN.

"Given the Internet's importance to the world's economy, it is essential that the underlying DNS of the Internet remain stable and secure," assistant secretary Michael Gallagher said. "As such, the United States is committed to taking no action that would have the potential to adversely impact the effective and efficient operation of the DNS and will therefore maintain its historic role in authorising changes or modifications to the authoritative root zone file."

The decision has led some commentators to speculate we may be heading for a huge division in the Internet, as countries begin carving out their own Internet space, with their own referring root servers.

Worse, the US could skew the development of the Internet toward favouring its own policies and businesses to the exclusion of others.

http://www.theroyalgazette.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050713/BUSINESS/107130062