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Internet Group ICANN Defends Its Stewardship
UNITED NATIONS (AP) -- The U.S. government-sanctioned organization that oversees the Internet's all-important "telephone book" defended its work Friday as diplomats and computer companies considered a greater role for the United Nations.
Paul Twomey, the chief executive of the Internet Corporation of Assigned Names and Numbers, said the organization is already trying to modernize and allow participation from other countries.
ICANN critics have complained that the organization is slow in making decisions and too close to the U.S. government, which funded the Net's early development through the 70s and 80s.
"We're looking at opening regional offices, internationalizing, hoping to address these issues," Twomey said on the sidelines of the U.N. meeting.
About 200 diplomats, activists and companies like Hewlett-Packard and Cisco met this week to discuss whether the United Nations should help oversee security, copyright law, technical standards and business disputes involving the Internet.
ICANN's authority, granted by the U.S. government in 1998, formally covers the Internet addressing system but extends to related trademark disputes and security of the Net's core directories.
ICANN chooses the organizations and companies that operate the directories for the various domain name suffixes such as ".com" and ".fr." Those directories help guide Web browsers to the correct sites and e-mail to the correct inboxes.
Because it reports to the U.S. Department of Commerce, some countries are nervous that in a worst-case scenario, the United States could force ICANN and its contractors to disrupt Internet traffic to entire countries by deleting them from central computers - like ripping out pages of a telephone directory.
But Twomey said the U.S. government has taken a hands-off approach. He also said ICANN was working hard to recruit a more international board.
Source : http://www.rednova.com/news/stories/3/2004/03/26/story005.html
