back to article First Congress, now top govt watchdog digs into ICANN's internet grab

It's not just US Senators digging into ICANN's takeover of the internet's control panel. America's powerful Government Accountability Office (GAO) has been asked to interview key people in Washington DC over the proposed move – and the results are likely to form the basis for a number of hearings in the new year. And we …

  1. Paul McClure

    Fear

    In an earlier time the US government feared that turning over the Panama canal to the locals would be a risk. The transition occurred and live moved on. Strangely, the new managers used the same economic opportunities and constraints to make the same decisions. Much the same can and likely will happen to the internet. Not expecting a rash of duplicate names or addresses with a non US administrator.

  2. Yes Me Silver badge
    Paris Hilton

    Hegemony once again

    > To recap, domain-name system overseer ICANN is paid by the US government

    Absolutely not - it's a zero cost contract, not one penny of US taxpayers' money is involved, and has not been since about 1998.

    > American politicians claiming ownership of a global network that is run almost exclusively on private networks

    Not to mention that, although the US DoD did fund ARPANET back in history, the idea of an internet (originally called a 'catenet') came from a Frenchman, Louis Pouzin, in 1974, and a very large part of the development of the Internet after TCP/IP became generally available in 1983 was done outside the USA.

    Paris, 'cos that's where Louis Pouzin studied.

    1. Yes Me Silver badge

      Re: Hegemony once again

      Afterthought:

      > ... the Defending Internet Freedom Act has served to irritate large sections of the internet community [but] it has some merits.

      Unfortunately it also has at least one major error that makes it pretty useless: it fails to recognise the large majority of IANA's work, which has nothing to do with domain names.

  3. Pascal Monett Silver badge

    As far as I'm concerned

    The sooner the US has no more control over the Internet the better.

    The Internet is a world-wide tool, it should not be administered by only one country.

    And it should definitely not be in the hands of some jerkoff that thinks he can do what he wants with it.

  4. WatAWorld

    US Republicans supporting big government and socialism ... again

    US Republicans supporting big government and socialism ... again.

    Not that US Democrats are any better.

    They're both for US hegemony over the world and all for massive US hypocrisy "US exceptionalism".

    They're both for welfare, provided it is corporate welfare for huge corporations or mid-sized corporations located in their own district.

    They're both for extravagant civil service wages, provided the civil servants being extravagantly overpaid are in the military, as opposed to the engineers, clerks and teachers serving and safeguarding the public without killing foreigners.

    And they're both engaged in a "War on the Middle Class".

    1. Fatman

      Re: US Republicans supporting big government and socialism ... again

      I see you managed to get a copy of RMoney's 'talking points' (albeit those for private benefactors).

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitt_Romney_presidential_campaign,_2012#Video_of_private_fundraiser

      and the video itself:

      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MU9V6eOFO38&feature=iv&annotation_id=annotation_786897

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