2005: The year the US undermined the internet

Found on The Register on Friday, 30 December 2005
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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.

"We need to stay in control to ensure freedom of the internet". Wasn't it something along those lines the US said when other countries wanted a more open control of the root servers? How ironic. The original article is pretty long, so I strongly suggest to pay a visit to The Register and read it completely.