[Blogger]

Buh bye sovereignty.

[DuncanWaring]

If they don't like the way we run it, why don't they build their own?

[Politicalmom]

WHY do we have to "acquiesce"?

[decal]

"Breaking America's grip on the net"

They wish.

[Chuckster]

$$$ Ca-Ching!! $$$

[Czar]

Any American representative who is stupid enough to attempt to make any agreement diluting American control over the internet will be quickly ID'd and trashed accordingly, right along with any of the other crapweasels in Washington who want to sign on.

[Jim_Curtis]

They can start their own internet and control it any way they want.

[SaveTheChief]

I sometimes wonder where we would be today if we stopped doing nice things for the rest of the world and started to focus on problems at home. It has become painfully obvious that we are just another "resource" the rest of the world uses whenever they need money, or a friend when it becomes necessary.

I'm afraid that if I had control of the Internet, I would unplug it to everyone outside of the United States and tell the ungrateful bastards to either start appreciating what America and Americans have done for the world, or just shut up.

But first, I would close down the U.N. headquarters, turn it into cheap housing for those in need, and make sure each and every last foreign diplomat is escorted to an airplane on it's way out of the country.

It's time to start working with individual countries on our own. Enough of this "one world government" garbage.

[sourcery]

But the refusal to budge only strengthened opposition, and now the world's governments are expected to agree a deal to award themselves ultimate control. It will be officially raised at a UN summit of world leaders next month and, faced with international consensus, there is little the US government can do but acquiesce.

Absolutely false. Anyone who wants to can set up a root server, and that's always been the case. There have actually been previous attempts to do just that. All have failed. It's not a matter of law. It's not even a technical issue. It's a social one. You can't force anyone to use any particular root server. Each internet user has the power to use whatever root servers he or she prefers (although few know anything about this, or how to do it.)

So this dispute will be decided by the market.

[denydenydeny]

It will be officially raised at a UN summit of world leaders next month and, faced with international consensus, there is little the US government can do but acquiesce.

The Guardian hippies are high again. This is the cybernetic equivalent of Kyoto.

[MississippiMan]

...Hendon explained the EU had decided to end the US government's unilateral control of the internet...

And HOW, pray tell, did the EU get the authority to end our control over a system WE built?

MM

[Wuli]

Hendon is the Department for Trade and Industry's director of business relations and was in Geneva representing the UK government

Hendon is also adamant: "The really important point is that the EU doesn't want to see this change as bringing new government control over the internet. Governments will only be involved where they need to be and only on issues setting the top-level framework."

Mr Hendon and the rest of the EU are fools, and the people in the EU will live to regret what their leaders foolish attitude, based on envy of the U.S., brings down on them.

The internet, untrammelled by government's and politicians is one of the greated modern forces for freedom. The EU is now going to allow tyrants to start setting back the clock to the 1950s and before. The United States really will become that one shining beacon on the hill, where all who yearn to be free will long to be allowed to go.

The U.N. must now become dead to the U.S.

[Myrddin]

We invented it. We have been kind enough to share it with the world. If they don't like it, we can snip the connections outside of the US. The 3rd world $hitholes can use what is left as they see fit.

[Ramius]

Hey France! I got Yer root right here!

[wildwood]

i don't get what they are going to do. the EU is going to make their own internet, set up their own internet?

where are they going to get the cash for THAT, considering universal health care, rooms with vews, guaranteed college tuition, and twenty five dollar pizzas?

[airborne]

This is bad but....

Maybe it will get John Q. Public worked up enough to get off of his a$$ and out the door, down to his local Representative.

In the end, I think it's going to come down to "people in the street", shutting things down until we get our elected deadbeats to start protecting us.

They don't seem to be willing to do it on their own!

[cyberdasher]

I hate it when the media talks so generally about a subject ("control over the internet"). Are they talking about control over the '.com' root?

[TheBattman]

Uh-oh. Folks had better consult with Al Gore. As the inventor of the internet, he SHOULD have some say in the matter, shouldn't he??? [/sarcasm]

Seriously, though - where and how was the internet developed? Wasn't the US a if not THE major player in the creation of it many years ago? That should, at minimum, give us some say i the matter.

But leave it up to the "world", probably meaning the Euro dorks - then you can BET there will be some sort of increased cost (taxes).

[Ray66]

When the point comes where I can talk on my cell phone and post a picture or post to my blog from anywhere on the planet without "fear" of where I am, who I am, or what I say than we can think about having the UN involved. Not a day sooner.

[operation clinton cleanup]

A number of countries represented in Geneva, including Brazil, China, Cuba, Iran and several African states, insisted the US give up control

The usual suspects! Are they suggesting we give up naming standards, or that all the backbone servers reside in the basement of the U.N.?

[konaice]

This story is so full of inconsistencies and ignorance that one hardly knows where to begin.

In one place they tell us Brazil relies on the Internet for its taxes and therefore US must give up control. In another they point out that China filters what their Internet users can access. Wouldn't that imply China already has control?

The US "Controls" the net by hosting the root level domain servers, but these servers are not essential for local use of the Internet. Every ISP and their up-stream provider hosts copies of these domain server. The root level servers could go down for a week and not many people would notice. Joe user never uses these servers.

All these servers to is convert www.freerepublic.com to 209.157.64.200. Thats it. Nothing more.

And your local ISP does this for you unless their server has never heard of freerepublic.com because they don't keep it up to date. In which case it asks its upstream provider, and so on up the chain to the root servers. Joe user never gets to use the root servers directly.

Once your machine is told the IP of Freerepublic it contacts it directly to get a web page without going through any US government facilities.

Some countries host their own top level servers for in-country use. China, for example. Brazil could do the same and thereby assure its tax system would never fail.

Other than that, there is no infrastructure that is in the hands of the US government that is not also replicated elsewhere.

There is no filtering that can be carried out by the US government to prevent a tax payer in Buenos Aries from contacting the tax headquarters in Brasilia, because that transaction never leaves Brazil.

And China can prevent their citizens from ever seeing www.whitehouse.com if that is what they fear, by simply null-routing that domain in their top level domain servers or blocking that particular IP.

What are these fools going on about?