2005 will be forever seen as the year in which the US government managed to keep unilateral control of the internet, despite widespread opposition by the rest of the world.

However, while this very public spat went on, everyone failed to notice a related change that will have far greater implications for everyday internet users and for the internet itself. That change will see greater state-controlled censorship on the internet, reduce people's ability to use the internet to communicate freely, and leave expansion of the internet in the hands of the people least capable of doing the job.

At that meeting, consciously and for the first time, ICANN used a US government-provided reason to turn over Kazakhstan's internet ownership to a government owned and run association without requiring consent from the existing owners.

ICANN then immediately used that "precedent" to hand ownership of Iraq's internet over to another government-run body, without accounting for any objections that the existing owners might have.

When the US government took over Afghanistan in 2001, it was fortunate in that the current ccTLD owner was killed during bombing of Kabul. It simple forged the man's signature on a piece of paper handing over control to the US-created authority and the job was done.

Linden Labs, the creator and owner of the online game Second Life, have announced that they have turned to the FBI to investigate attacks carried out against the virtual world. The attacks were characterized as "Denial of Service" attacks, but they were unlike any kind of DoS attacks that network admins normally think about.

These attacks were carried out entirely in-game, using the same scripting tools available to anyone else in the Second Life world. Some virtual parties were bombed with pixellated explosives, while others were teleported randomly around the world. The attacks allegedly culminated in a "grid crash," which effectively denied game access to other players. This last attack was the event that prompted the call to the FBI.

Early on in the history of the game, player Randy Farmer made an invisible repeating auto-cannon that fired a hundred rounds per minute and teleported people away, just to illustrate what could be done with the scripting tools available.

ZDNet is reporting that the FTC announced in a recent report to Congress [PDF Warning] that the Can-Spam act is 'effective in providing protection for consumers.' The report boasts that the substantive provisions of the Act have mandated adoption of a number of commercial email "best practices" that many legitimate online marketers are now following. Second, the Act has provided law enforcement agencies and ISPs with an additional tool to use when bringing suit against spammers. The more than 50 cases brought to date by the FTC, the Department of Justice, state Attorneys General, and ISPs demonstrate CAN-SPAM's enforcement efficacy.

The continued control of the internet's organisational structure by the US government - in particular the Bush administration - could result in the splitting of the Net, one of the leading Arab internet voices has warned.

The US government's "de facto monopolistic control" over the internet combined with the "serious and growing unpopularity of the Bush administration internationally" could "lead to serious forms of balkanisation", Fattal warned.

Four billion out of the six billion people on the planet use a non-Western (ASCII) alphabet, Fattal stressed. Everyone recognises the need to make the internet more of a global medium, especially with efforts in China and elsewhere starting to step outside the existing internet infrastructures to provide the services they want.

However, Fattal told us that he felt the issue of US government control had to be dealt with openly. It would be in everyone's benefit - including the US government's - to pool resources and create a multi-lingual internet in the same hub, he said.

But at the same time he warned that the "double standards" set by the US government - he cited in particular recent revelations that US president George Bush had considered blowing up the headquarters of Arab news station Al-Jazeera - had dealt the US' claims of freedom of expression on the Internet a "serious blow".

ICANN is well aware of the problems for many across the world caused by continued US government control, and is pushing forward several reforms that will redress the balance for other world governments.

The British "Permanent Secretary of Government Communications" has been working on a new government communications plan in the wake of some scandals there, and he's come up with a new idea for the government to get its message to the people: spam -- or rather, "direct marketing". This would include sending anti-drug text messages to kids (another sterling example of adults communicating with kids, surely), and what the BBC calls "targeting messages directly to companies' own internal communications". It's not all that clear exactly what that means, but it sounds like they want to spam companies' internal email systems or somehow post news on their intranets. This sounds great, because if there's anything people like better than government spin, it's being spammed with it. While the British government may try to act tough on spam, this seems like another example of a government hating spam -- except when they use it.

Three lawmakers in the U.S. House of Representatives called on Friday for the Internet's core infrastructure to remain under U.S. control, echoing similar language introduced in the Senate earlier this week.

"Turning the Internet over to countries with problematic human-rights records, muted free-speech laws, and questionable taxation practices will prevent the Internet from remaining the thriving medium it has become today," said California Republican Rep. John Doolittle in a statement.

U.S. lawmakers have backed the Bush administration's stance, arguing that a U.N. group would stifle innovation with excessive bureaucracy and enable repressive regimes to curtail free expression online.

"The United States is uniquely positioned in the world to protect the fundamental principles of free press and free speech, upon which the Internet has thrived," Goodlatte said in a statement.

Sen. Norm Coleman, a Republican from Minnesota, said his nonbinding resolution would protect the Internet from a takeover by the United Nations that's scheduled to be discussed at a summit in Tunisia next month.

"The Internet is likely to face a grave threat" at the summit, Coleman said in a statement on Monday. "If we fail to respond appropriately, we risk the freedom and enterprise fostered by this informational marvel and end up sacrificing access to information, privacy and protection of intellectual property we have all depended on."

At the heart of this international political spat is the unique influence that the U.S. federal government enjoys over Internet addresses and the master database of top-level domain names--a legacy of the Internet's origins years ago. The Bush administration recently raised objections to the proposed addition of .xxx as a red-light district for pornographers, for instance, a veto power that no other government is able to wield.

A battle has erupted over who governs the internet, with America demanding to maintain a key role in the network it helped create and other countries demanding more control.

The European commission is warning that if a deal cannot be reached at a meeting in Tunisia next month the internet will split apart.

Viviane Reding, European IT commissioner, says that if a multilateral approach cannot be agreed, countries such as China, Russia, Brazil and some Arab states could start operating their own versions of the internet and the ubiquity that has made it such a success will disappear.

Just before the meeting in Tunis, there will be a three-day gathering of bureaucrats to try to thrash out a deal on internet governance. Getting the parties - especially the US - to agree to anything looks like a near impossible task but Mrs Reding believes it is crucial to find common ground or see the global communication network disintegrate.

Yahoo chat rooms are being closed to anyone under 18. That's an announcement made today under an agreement between Yahoo and the New York State attorney general's office.

Both the state of New York and the state of Nebraska started investigations earlier this year after reports of children having unrestricted access to adult chat rooms, making children easy prey for adults of a certain persuasion. Mr. Spitzer's office told of an investigator who posed as a 14-year old girl in the Yahoo Chat area, and received 35 sexually explicit messages within 25 minutes.

According to a Yahoo spokesperson, "Yahoo is taking further steps to enhance user safety by restricting Yahoo Chat to users 18 and older and removing the Teen category. Yahoo will continue to strongly support law enforcement in their work, as well as continue to provide support for several nonprofit organizations committed to online safety."

It is seen as arrogant and determined to remain the sheriff of the world wide web, regardless of whatever the rest of the world may think.

It has even lost the support of the European Union. It stands alone as the divisive battle over who runs the internet heads for a showdown at a key UN summit in Tunisia next month.

The stakes are high, with the European Commissioner responsible for the net, Viviane Reding, warning of a potential web meltdown.

"The US is absolutely isolated and that is dangerous," she said during a briefing with journalists in London.

"Imagine the Brazilians or the Chinese doing their own internet. That would be the end of the story."

Icann was to gain its independence from the Department of Commerce by September 2006. But in July the US said it would "maintain its historic role in authorising changes or modifications to the authoritative root zone file".

America's determination to remain the ultimate purveyor of the internet has angered other countries which believe it is time to come up with a new way of regulating the digital traffic of the 21st century.