US is giving up control over the Internet this October

in #news8 years ago (edited)

Unlike other countries in the world, The United States of America has more saying on the functioning of the Internet than any other nation, not the whole Internet but the most important part of it.

The US control the IANA (Internet Assigned Numbers Authority) which activity fall into three main categories, Domain names, Number Resources and Protocol Assignment. The most important activity is managing the Domain Name System Root.

The DNS is the reason you are able to type steemit.com into your browser instead of the IP address of the server that runs the steemit website.

Currently, NTIA(National Telecommunications and Information Administration ) which is part of the department of commerce has control of IANA function, but this will change this October 1st, when the NTIA will hand over IANA completely to the not-for-profit organization ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers).

ICANN is run by a multiple stakeholder of countries, businesses and group who have vested interest in controlling the internet. ICANN has already been doing the IANA job since its creation in 1998, but that was under contract that was renewed every year, so for most users of the Internet nothing will change.

Some republicans fear that the US handing over of the IANA to ICANN may result in abuse of the Internet by foreign government even though the NTIA said that the prospect of government interference is "extremely remote".

even though The US made sure that the power it had over IANA get shifted to ICANN, not to the UN as some foreign countries want it to be, some suggest that the Obama administration have no plan on how to allow ICANN to keep its antitrust exemption, which allow it to be as a legal monopolist which mean that ICANN would look for another governmental group to control it, so it can retain that exemption, if that was the case ICANN could fall under UN control.

If you liked this post follow me @arnoldwish.

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I am not surprised some Republicans fear the handing over an integral part of the internet.

After all the main thing Republicans promote is Fear and Misdirection . . .

Reality says if Republicans are suggesting something is possible or true, then it is almost guaranteed not to be a problem . . .

The only things that scare Republicans more than Democrats is the truth and having to apply for a j-o-b : )

/ hugz ; )

It has always been my understanding that United States Department of Defense (DoD) both created and owns the worldwide web, long before it was worldwide. ICANN seems to be a DoD contractor, carrying out a military agenda.

IMHO IF they COULD and DID shut down the Inet, the US would crash, PLAIN & SIMPLE ! I believe it is too LATE for the US.Gov to do this, it is Systemic to communication in the US & probably in the world now.

This is pretty huge and needs to be stopped immediately. Well, unless you like the idea of living in Orwellian's 1984.

Well not sure how any international group could be a bigger danger than American government. Lets just say the American order has not been overly concerns about legal obligations or social responsibilities in the last few decades. The more Congress is removed from responsibility; the safer American citizens will ultimately be : )

/ hugz ; )

Not to mention it has been a long time since the Media tried to use the First Amendment to help ordinary Americans . . .

Damn I can truly understand why the insecure, power hungry egomaniacal Republicans would hate to give up control of anything : )

If our internet has to flow through systems not in our country, content may no longer be constitutionally protected by the right to free speech. What we write and talk about may have to be approved by a foreign entity and its laws and regulations..

The US govt protecting the right to free speech on Internet? That's ridiculous.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_In_Our_Sites

http://www.digitaltrends.com/web/us-govt-claims-right-to-seize-any-com-domain/

The US have tried very hard to take down piratebay.se and thepiratebay.se as well ...

The internet is different already all over the world, the major search engines already tailor results fed back to certain internet search inquires. For example; if you do searches in America for certain controversial things the results are " sanitized " by big business simply so they do not end up in conflict with government policy and procedures.

The Government would never call this ' censorship ', now would big business. I myself have seen these different results and you can check yourself. Simply send a particular controversial search phrase word for word to a friend in another country. That same company will deliver different results due to location.

We are here on Steemit to learn things and to have a fun time; so I will choose not to mention some of the things that are very not nice that are simply facts available to citizens of other countries but are far more restricted around the United States.

After all, the Real World can be depressing enough already without thinking about it the majority of the time : )

/ hugz ; )

very interesting, and no telling how it will effect the internet overall, really... Hopefully this is for the better, but as always, I have my skepticals on when it comes to actions carried out by statist.

So very true! Hope for the best, but expect the worst. My guess is that alternative media will be wiped out when it's handed over.

I really like your information so i chose to follow you, good work,regards Gezzazoom.

Really nice post, kindly up vote my post as well... Thanks

I fear this a lot. The US sets precedence over most Internet laws, and I hope the voices the people are heard and followed.

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