<font class="Apple-style-span" face="tahoma, sans-serif">Hi Tim,</font><div><font class="Apple-style-span" face="tahoma, sans-serif"><br></font></div><div><font class="Apple-style-span" face="tahoma, sans-serif">No, it is not posted and will not be until I believe next week. </font></div>
<div><font class="Apple-style-span" face="tahoma, sans-serif">Apparently The Economist found a
source that would share considerable detail on 'the Affirmation".</font></div><div><font class="Apple-style-span" face="tahoma, sans-serif"><br></font></div><div><font class="Apple-style-span" face="tahoma, sans-serif">Was miffed too :-).</font></div>
<div><font class="Apple-style-span" face="tahoma, sans-serif">ar</font></div><div><font class="Apple-style-span" face="tahoma, sans-serif"><br></font></div><div><font class="Apple-style-span" face="tahoma, sans-serif"><br>
</font><div class="gmail_quote">On Thu, Sep 24, 2009 at 6:09 PM, McTim <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:dogwallah@gmail.com">dogwallah@gmail.com</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex;">
HI,<br><br>Is the "Affirmation" published yet?<br><br>I can't find it online.<br>-- <br>Cheers,<br><br>McTim<br>"A name indicates what we seek. An address indicates where it is. A route indicates how we get there." Jon Postel<br>
<br><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div><div></div><div class="h5">On Thu, Sep 24, 2009 at 7:26 PM, annerachel <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:annerachel@gmail.com" target="_blank">annerachel@gmail.com</a>></span> wrote:<br>
</div></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left:1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204);margin:0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex;padding-left:1ex"><div><div></div><div class="h5">
<p>Regulating the internet</p>
<h1>ICANN be independent</h1>
<p>Sep 24th 2009<br>From <i>The Economist</i> print edition</p><h2>America is poised to loosen its control over cyberspace</h2>
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<p>FORTY years ago this month American academics sent the first message
over the ARPANET, a military network that was the precursor of today’s
internet. A legacy of those efforts is that the American government
continues to control the internet’s underlying technology—notably the
system of allocating addresses. This is about to change, albeit
slightly.</p>
<p>For the past decade America has delegated some of its authority over
the internet to a non-profit organisation called the Internet
Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN)—an arrangement other
countries have complained about, both because they have little say in
it and because ICANN’s management has occasionally proved erratic.
ICANN’s latest mandate is due to expire on September 30th. The day
before, a new accord is planned to come into effect, whereby America
will pass some of its authority over ICANN to the “internet community”
of businesses, individual users and other governments.</p>
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<p>Previous agreements had maintained close American oversight over
ICANN and imposed detailed reforms, but the latest document, called an
“affirmation of commitments”, is only four pages long. It gives ICANN
the autonomy to manage its own affairs. Whereas prior agreements had to
be renewed every few years, the new one has no fixed term.</p>
<p>The agreement sets up oversight panels that include representatives
of foreign governments to conduct regular reviews of ICANN’s work in
four areas: competition among generic domains (such as .com and .net),
the handling of data on registrants, the security of the network and
transparency, accountability and the public interest—the only panel on
which America will retain a permanent seat. But there are no penalties
if ICANN fails to heed its new overseers short of a termination of the
accord. </p>
<p>The changes at ICANN come at a time when the number of addresses is
set to expand dramatically. Next year ICANN plans to allow the creation
of many more domains. There are currently 21 generic ones in addition
to the 280 country suffixes (such as .uk for Britain). ICANN also
intends to authorise domain names in other scripts, which will allow
entire web addresses to be written in languages such as Chinese and
Arabic.</p>
<div style="width:256px"><img alt=" " title="" width="256" height="248"></div>
<p>All this is controversial. Firms that have already spent a fortune
to protect their brands online fear that the expansion will create a
huge legal quagmire. Some American politicians are backing calls from
trademark holders to call it off. Yet the firms that register new
addresses support new domains. There are nearly 200m internet addresses
in use (see chart), which are thought to generate more than $2.5
billion a year in renewal fees. New domains will add to that.</p>
<p>The new set-up at ICANN will not placate countries such as China,
Russia and Iran that want America to relinquish control entirely.
However ICANN runs itself, it cannot alter the basic piping of the
internet without America’s approval under another agreement that lasts
until 2011. Even then, that is unlikely to change.</p>
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