Associated PressObama will release control of the internet to the United Nations this October.
The Obama White House will allow bylaws to expire that hand internet power to global parties. The internet is tied to ICANN because ICANN is an American-controlled organization. ICANN has certain antitrust exemptions under the US Commerce Department. After October 1, the contract securing antitrust exemption expires.
ICANN defined:
The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) is an American private nonprofit organization. – Wikipedia
ICANN registers domain names and keeps the internet stable and secure.
Wall Street Journal’s L. Gordon Crovitz explains the danger of ICANN’s upcoming handoff. He shows how ICANN will be handed off unless it keeps its antitrust exemption because ICANN needs state sponsorship in order to keep antitrust exemption.
Obama either doesn’t know or doesn’t care about this requirement. There are no efforts to retain exemption. Obama has shown no intent to block the transition and has not spoken out. He probably has no clue of its possible outcome. It seems like the internet could be falling toward disaster.
Crovitz illustrates the danger:
Authoritarian regimes have already proposed Icann become part of the U.N. to make it easier for them to censor the internet globally.
United Nations control over ICANN could inflame global speech debates because internet speech might become governed by countries like Saudi Arabia or China. The ‘free speech’ culture of America may diminish to a diplomatic suggestion as a result. The greatest free speech platform might die due to global diplomatic gridlock.
Crovitz details the failure to properly oversee ICANN in its current state:
As the administration spent the past two years preparing to give up the contract with Icann, it also stopped actively overseeing the group. That allowed Icann to abuse its monopoly over internet domains, which earns it hundreds of millions of dollars a year.
An independent review said ICANN failed “to exercise due diligence” and hence “failed to fulfill its transparency obligations…”
The review claims ICANN staffers were “intimately involved” because staff refused to give .gay domains to global LGBT groups and rejected community applications for registered companies.
First of all, the management and oversight of ICANN has been a failure. It’s almost ridiculous to expect the United Nations to improve this. Totalitarian countries would be the most noteworthy problem. Who expects Saudi Arabian domain registrants be kinder to .gay domain applicants than corrupt ICANN staff?
ICANN has already abused its antitrust exemption and it seems the United Nations will gain control on October 1. Would the United Nations clean the corruption or add to it, because powerful nations would gain influence over global speech. Saudi Arabia is especially relevant due to its execution of gays and oppression of women. Should they be given power to censor and regulate our internet?
America needs answers because we want to know why Obama would relinquish American sovereignty of our greatest invention. It seems that Obama has failed America again.
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