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Countries don't own their Internet domains, ICANN says
- qwerta 12y agoI think it is good move. Otherwise many countries would see DNS as something worth controlling (and forking).
- CompuHacker 12y agoI concur. The official response should have been, "Nope".
- markdown 12y agoOnly USA should have the power to seize domains. ICE FTW! Merika! Fuck Yeah!
- hadoukenio 12y ago> Otherwise many countries would see DNS as something worth controlling It's funny. I think the irony was lost in qwerta's comment.
- Karunamon 12y agoEven at ICE's worst they only grab a handful of domains at a time. Trying to grab an entire TLD at once is insanity.
- forgottenpass 12y agoHas ICE ever seized a TLD? Could a registrar that operates outside the US not be compelled by that nations laws w/r/t the domains under it's control? Because as far as I'm aware, that's how ICE does in the US. Not saying I like it, but I don't know that your characterization is accurate.
- tankenmate 12y agoICE don't compel the registrar, they compel the registry normally; in the case of .com and .net that is Verisign.
- forgottenpass 12y agoOops, that's what I meant. I tend to mix those up.
- tokenizerrr 12y agoSo instead the US is the only country that "owns" domain names, since ICANN is an American company? If the domains aren't property then how can they be seized? Is a distinction made between domain names and ccTLDs? edit: Downvotes? Really? For asking a question that seems perfectly on-topic.
- neohaven 12y agoThe TLDs are not property, they are assigned by virtue of a physical space, like a postal code or an address. Domains are property, are bought by virtue of wanting a specific name, and can be sold.
- tokenizerrr 12y agoSo what about, for example, .co.uk? The ccTLD is .uk, but almost everyone uses the .co.uk subdomain, which itself is a regular domain.
- lmm 12y agoThe UK registrar decides how subdomains of .uk are allocated. They might well declare that .co.uk is an administrative division like .uk, but mycompany.co.uk is property that can be bought and sold. I don't see any particular issue with this, and it would match how they're used in practice (modulo some weirdness like police.uk).
- mattzito 12y agoICANN is not "American" necessarily, other than it's incorporated in America. Transition of ICANN from the US government to a fully private organization happened years ago.
- tokenizerrr 12y agoThey are American much in the same way that Google and Facebook are American, are they not?
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- dragonwriter 12y agoICANN documents on the case: https://www.icann.org/resources/pages/icann-various-2014-07-30-en https://www.icann.org/resources/pages/icann-various-2014-07-...
- walshemj 12y agoHow to realy realy piss off the ITU and the UN and give it ammunition to take over ICANT's job
- opendais 12y agoSeriously, fuck the people that want to seize 3 countries worth of ccTLDs. That isn't reasonable or rational behavior. You can't seize top level domains. You shouldn't be allowed to, regardless of the reasons. You break the human-readable internet and DNS if this is allowed. Some countries will go along with such a seizure, some won't, and the internet will fragment.
- sp332 12y agoWell, ccTLDs anyway. Verisign is authoritative for .com and .net, and generates the root zone file. Control of that could (but probably won't) be transferred for a large amount of money.
- forgottenpass 12y agoI entirely agree with you in principle, but can't bring myself to be angry about it anymore. For the last few years I've been pessimistic about the long term viability of the unary root zone anyway. At one point the users of the internet were collaborative enough to decide "lets just let Jon Postel run this shit." Almost half the world is online now, and depending on the Internet more and more. That kind of collaboration still works (in a more formal manner) for big things if they fly under the user's radar (like the switch to IPv6). Outside of a few flamewars, things gets done (slowly, it's a lot of work, but done nonetheless). How much of the planet relies on and has daily visible interaction with the root zone? A forth? At least? There is already monkeying around in resolvers to add, remove or change records but those are generally isolated and/or purpose specific. Can ICANN, governments, and big ISPs all coordinate and keep their personal interests in check well enough to persevere the the root zone's position as the one and only source of authority?
- spindritf 12y agoWhat about a phone prefix, like +963 for Syria? Can it be "seized"? Bizarre.
- adestefan 12y agoYes. They are assigned and controlled by the ITU much like ccTLDs are assigned and controlled by ICANN. The same is true for radio and television prefixes.
- dragonwriter 12y agoFrom a quick read-through of the documents I can find on this, it seems most likely that the ownership issue won't be reached because it looks like much clearer jurisdictional and procedural issues that ICANN also raises are likely to be dispositive as to the validity of the writs of attachment at issue.
- 13throwaway 12y agoLooks like countries need to look into decentralized DNS. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Namecoin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Namecoin
- logfromblammo 12y agoThey are assigned names and numbers. You have as much ownership over a domain as you do over the name of the street your home is on. Given the importance of assigned names and numbers to business, similar to trademarks, you have a certain amount of administrative control and protection against arbitrary reassignment. Think about this: (800) 588-2300. Some of you reading this will automatically and involuntarily hear the end of the jingle: "Empiiiire." That number is not owned. It has just been continuously in use by the same company for decades. 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. That address is not owned. It's just how the USPS identifies the White House mailbox. Changing assignments for a TLD makes about as much sense as renaming the postal code for California from CA to QM, or assigning the 777 area code to any place in the US other than the Las Vegas Strip. That code isn't even in use yet. It's not about ownership, its about making sense and being intuitive for people trying to find the information they need. Purposefully ruining the addressing system for information is as much a dick move as heading to the public library and demolishing their card catalog terminals with a fireman's axe just because you don't want people to be able to check out any copies of a certain book.
- johnnydogma 12y agoIF they want to seize domains in the country that is one thing. They want to seize, basically, the right to identify yourself as that country/origin online, as if to erase it from existence. Doesn't anyone see the de-humanizing aspect of this?