You can sign a petition urging ICANN to not give GAC veto power over domain names here.
Tell the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) that you oppose a U.S. Commerce Department proposal to give the world’s governments arbitrary power over the Internet’s domain name system.
A U.S. Commerce Department proposal would give national governments the right to block the creation of new web site addresses. Proposals for new top level domains could be vetoed by the Governmental Advisory Committee (GAC) of ICANN “for any reason.” This means that governments could object simply because the name is controversial, or because one or two governments don’t like the applicant, or because an authoritarian government wants to suppress the kind of content that might be published under a specific top level domain name.
A veto could take place regardless of whether a proposed domain name violated an international law, and regardless of whether its expression was protected by the U.S. Constitution, the European Convention on Human Rights, or other national and international laws or treaties prohibiting censorship. There would be no transparency and no right of appeal.
Interwebitudes is clearly an interstate activity if not international activity and clearly is subject to whatever regulations the gov wants to impose.
Simple as that.
So what?
The Internet wasn’t invented by private industry.
Hello China!
And which government are you referring to?
Although it was started by government and educational institutions the government should stay the eff OUT of it now. They’ll only eff it up beyond repair. I don’t want my connectivity FUBARed thanks.
#4–Marc==seriously?
We must protect children from evils like this one:
http://horribleville.com/d/20060702.html
#2 – since the postal system was also not invented by private industry the British post office should have a veto on the names of US towns?
If they find Intercourse PA or Hell Mi offensive they should be allowed to block all mail deliveries there.
8, Nobody,
I had no idea the British Postal service had control over town names within the UK since its inception. 🙂
Progressives in action. There will be NetNeutality for all sites permitted by the BigNannyGovt.
So you guys want government control? Is that what I’m hearing? More government regulation?
“You can sign a petition urging ICANN to not give GAC veto power over domain names here.”
No thanks, I much rather change my twitter icon pink or click the “like” button on facebook.
11, Marc Perkel,
Since when did government “give up” control? Unless the government hands the keys to the castle over, then much of the discussion is rather moot.
It’s not a matter of wanting. Go get your ears cleaned out.
#11–Marc Perkel==which government are you referring to? Evidently from the later post 2-3 spots from here: YES I want South Korea to control my internet. Then just make Net Flix stream at 1GB a second. Let’s see how Comcasst Infinity likes that.
Who here doesn’t think government has many evils but that private enterprise has all the same evils plus a direct financial motive that is missing in government? Please don’t get stupid when posting about government this and that. The same and worst applies to Big Corps.
The Internets is becoming something we cant live without, like electricity. And yet because there are no rules regarding the behavior of ISPs we are often at their mercy.
If you are late paying your electric bill, the electric company will gently remind you to pay up, and it might be a couple of months before they actually cut you off and if they do cut you off, and you pay what you owe, your electricity is back on within a couple of hours.
If you are late paying your internet bill, the internet company will immediately cut you off, and close your account. If you pay what you owe, then because your service was “disconnected”, you have to sign up for service again, and wait 5 business days before they can get a tech to turn you on, then once you are back on you have to spend another half an hour re-registering just to get back online.
The electric company treats you fairly, because they are obligated to do so by the government.
The ISPs treat you like crap, because they can.
I’m not in favor of government censorship of the internet, but I am in favor of government regulating the internet the way they regulate all the other essential utilities.
Just as the economy shuts down with no electricity, the economy also shuts down with no internet. So why are we not protecting the internet at all costs? There are also barriers to economic growth and internet speed and availability is one of them.
Keep track of customer complaints! Make sure high speed internet is available everywhere in the country (even the unprofitable places)! Why the hell are we happy about 6MB speed when we should be getting 10 times that by now?
14, Bobbo,
You forgot one thing. Private corporations are immune to Freedom of Information Act requests for things they do on the government’s behalf.
17, ArianeB,
So start paying your bills on time or learn how to use automatic web bill pay. Problem solved.
Because it’s a necessity and depending on the time of year, not having it can be a life or death issue.
Because Internet service is not a necessity (even though you may feel it is). If you don’t like your ISP then go camp out at McDonalds, Barnes & Noble, Panera Bread, or some other similar place to get FREE Internet to pay your bills you should have been paying to begin with.
They are. They just don’t protect delinquent bill payers.
Competition is solving your gripes… you need to realize that the USA is a tiny bit larger than South Korea.
# 8 Nobody said, “If they find Intercourse PA or Hell Mi offensive they should be allowed to block all mail deliveries there.” Of course. And all mail to the people who live on Fanny Avenue since fanny means vagina to you Brits. Oh, wait – Fanny Ave is in Sheffield. Never mind.
# 14 bobbo, “a direct financial motive that is missing in government?” I’m just not sure that’s true. It ought to be but how come so many noddle income candidates become wealthy politicians?
As we are now in the age of the internet, isn’t it time the ISPs became regulated as a public utility? The telcos are investing the bare minimum in upgrading their systems and wringing out every last penny of revenue they can sop up. Text messages cost you to send and me to receive – even if I didn’t want it. Strange: in most of the world SMS is free because it uses excess capacity and costs the telco essentially nothing. Bandwidth caps? Nobody would be considering them is the amount of bandwidth use was not increasing. Yeah for NetFliz. Boo to At&T for saying you can only have 2 movies a month. Speed should be metered. Not bits.
No! No Government control whatsoever !!! The Internet represents that latest form of “Press” and as such should enjoy “Freedom of the Press” – without Government interference !!!
It does not matter if people have apple computers. They never see the real inter-net any way, but for people who can do their own thinking, the thought of a controlled inter-net seems scary. The government will sell it under the guise of lost revenue do to tax loss, but its really one more step of control (apple people excluded).