USA to give up root control of internet

Troubled negotiations in Geneva have yielded an unprecedented result: the US may have to give up control of the internet to a coalition of governments. That sounds great, right? OK, well -- some of those governments are countries like China, Iran, and Syria, who have horrible human rights records and would be expected to impose greater government control. Freedom to wiretap, censor, and firewall? Eh, not so great -- not that the US doesn't have experience with those activities, or an increasingly troublesome human rights record of its own. Snip:

Old allies in world politics, representatives from the UK and US sat just feet away from each other, but all looked straight ahead as Hendon explained the EU had decided to end the US government's unilateral control of the internet and put in place a new body that would now run this revolutionary communications medium.

The issue of who should control the net had proved an extremely divisive issue, and for 11 days the world's governments traded blows. For the vast majority of people who use the internet, the only real concern is getting on it. But with the internet now essential to countries' basic infrastructure - Brazil relies on it for 90% of its tax collection - the question of who has control has become critical.

And the unwelcome answer for many is that it is the US government. In the early days, an enlightened Department of Commerce (DoC) pushed and funded expansion of the internet. And when it became global, it created a private company, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (Icann) to run it.

But the DoC retained overall control, and in June stated what many had always feared: that it would retain indefinite control of the internet's foundation - its "root servers", which act as the basic directory for the whole internet.

Link to Guardian UK story. Declan McCullagh wrote a related column -- Link to "Power grab could split the Net". See also this related politech post.