Posted on 02/14/2014 1:33:51 PM PST by Olog-hai
The European Commission wants to end US control over the governance of the internet, according to a report published Wednesday (12 February).
The EU paper on “Europe’s role in shaping the future of Internet governance” calls for an international group to replace the California-based Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), which manages the assignation of domains such as .com, .co.uk and .org to new websites.
At present, the United States is the center of power behind the structure of the internet. ICANN currently has an exclusive contract with the US government, with whom a number of jurisdictions complain it has a too-cozy relationship.
EU digital agenda commissioner Neelie Kroes called for “a timeline to globalize ICANN” and warned that the web should not be allowed to “unravel into a series of regional or national networks.” …
(Excerpt) Read more at euobserver.com ...
They seem to lobby for this about every year.
Suppose you have a business, say, Mybiz, Inc. You set up a website mybiz.com. next thing you know you have a hundred websites named mybiz.cc, mybiz.tv, mybiz.this_that_and_the_other_thing, all squatting on your trademark.
You then either have to let them run wild or try to buy them up. Even if you succeed in acquiring all the clone sites, you still have to pay protection fees to Icann or whomever forever to hold onto the names.
Even that doesn't solve the problem because they'll just stuff the internet with more domains, thus expanding the problem.
I voted your comments up at the EU Observer site. I recommend that all Freepers do so and add your own comments if you want to.
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