What do you think of the US Government handing over control of IANA to ICANN?

[mrblockchain]

What is the Bitcoin community's opinion about the US Government, Department of Commerce, officially handing over control of the DNS system to ICANN? The contract IANA (Internet Assigned Numbers Authority) going fwd will be fully managed by ICANN.  

I don't support the hand over mainly because ICANN operates with such bureaucracy and such little transparency. While there are things I don't like about the US Government, I'm ok with them having some say so in matters related to the DNS system. Seems I am not the only one.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/07/19/blocking_iana_transition_republican_policy/

What are your thoughts?

UPDATE - If you want to make your voice heard the .COM contract renewal you can leave a comment about it here.

https://www.icann.org/public-comments/com-amendment-2016-06-30-en

[Spoetnik]

Interesting.. not an expert on this stuff though.
Need some guys who know this well to chime in..
I will look at the link you gave me a little later though.

[mrblockchain]

Interesting.. not an expert on this stuff though.
Need some guys who know this well to chime in..
I will look at the link you gave me a little later though.

It is a confusing. This is what ICANN likes.

IANA is a contract between ICANN and the US Government to handle IP allocation and all the domain extensions. This includes .COM, .NET, .ORG, and ccTLDS as well as new gTLDs.

Since the NTIA and DoC created the IANA and ICANN they have ultimate control over them. Going fwd ICANN wants to be a completely private entity without any US Government control. While this sounds like a good idea it isn't. ICANN claims to to take comments from the public because we've seen registries try to raise prices.

Currently the wholesale .COM price is frozen because the DoC stepped in and prevented Verisign from raising it. Technically the .COM and .NET contract are supposed to come up for competitive bidding. ICANN put into the contract an automatic renewal with the .COM and .NET operated Verisgn. Plenty of companies can operate the zone files and root servers.  Google, Amazon, IBM, Softlayer, etc. would likely be bidding.

ICANN doesn't allow any freemarket competition and isn't a "non profit" as they claim.

Btw .ORG prices are increasing next month by $1. No reason for the increase PIR, .ORG registry, just wants to make more money. 

Ted Cruz is spearheading efforts to stop the transition.

https://youtu.be/IrWHeVy003c
https://www.cruz.senate.gov/?p=press_release&id=2730
https://www.cruz.senate.gov/?p=press_release&id=2677

Here is some more info.

https://www.ntia.doc.gov/press-release/2016/iana-stewardship-transition-proposal-meets-criteria-complete-privatization

Perhaps someone else wants to chime in?

[Spoetnik]

This is pretty major news for all internet users !
Thanks for the added info too.
I still did not read that link LOL

[mrblockchain]

This is pretty major news for all internet users !
Thanks for the added info too.
I still did not read that link LOL

Yes @Spoetnik this is huge for all internet users. Would be nice if more people knew about it and cared.

Especially when there are prices increase on legacy extensions.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1559945.0

I'll try link up to some more articles. Hopefully you will have time to read them. 

[mrblockchain]

Here is why I don't support the ICANN hand over.

Back in 2005, Verisign used its financial and legal advantage over ICANN to push it into an agreement where Verisign retained the dot-com contract on very favorable terms: it retained control, plus a presumptive renewal of the contract, and was given the ability to increase prices by seven percent in four of the six years of the contract term.

In return, it gave ICANN what it wanted: recognition that ICANN had authority over the domain name system.

Internet users attempted to halt that agreement and even filed several lawsuits in an effort to open it up to public scrutiny. Where Verisign at the time charged $6 wholesale per dot-com domain, other companies in the industry said they could run the registry for a third of that price – just $2 a domain.

When the contract was renewed again in 2012, ICANN was planning to give Verisign the exact same deal including the same price-rising rights, but the US government intervened and said the contract should not include any price increases.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/07/01/verisign_retains_dotcom_cash_cow_until_2024/

More article about the NTIA, ICANN, IANA, etc.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/06/29/icann_rirs_ip_addresses/
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/06/09/us_government_green_lights_transition_of_internet_to_private_sector/

French don't support it.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/03/24/france_slams_us_govt_internet_transition/
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/04/05/cruz_slams_dns_overseer_icann_again/
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/02/22/icann_final_transition_plan_from_us_government/
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/02/04/cruz_questions_icann_chinese_censorship_role/

ICANN spent a ton of money on lobbying.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/11/19/real_icann_lobbying_expenses/

More articles.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/09/28/ted_cruz_questions_entire_iana_transition/
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/10/22/internet_community_icann_accountability/
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/10/19/congress_tells_icann_quit_escaping_accountability/
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/10/15/iana_sla_for_the_internet/
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/09/26/commerce_secretary_pleads_with_icann_meeting/
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/11/19/real_icann_lobbying_expenses/
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/02/04/cruz_questions_icann_chinese_censorship_role/
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/04/05/cruz_slams_dns_overseer_icann_again/

ICANN makes ridiculous claims too.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/10/08/icann_fires_fear_fuzzy_logic_iana_transition/