U.S. control of internet can be misused, leading to countermeasures by other countries.
What’s wrong with the Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act being proposed in the U.S. Congress?
The problem is that the U.S. government is trying to use the fact that VeriSign is located in the U.S. as a way to shut down internet traffic it doesn’t agree with. Other governments look at this and worry that the U.S. is trying to control the internet. They start thinking about splintering the internet. They also think about doing the same thing as the U.S. — trying to find ways to control internet traffic in their own country.
Michael Geist from University of Ottawa puts it so well in the closing paragraphs of an op-ed on TheStar.com:
The net effect of these laws is to create a two-tier regulatory structure for the Internet. Domain names may be global – more than 200 million have been registered worldwide – yet the U.S. continues to retain effective control over much of the system.
As the recent moves to use the domain name system to address online concerns demonstrates, that control raises serious concerns about its jurisdictional reach and the misuse of a system intended to route Internet traffic without regard for its content or destination.
Louise says
Appreciate your opinion . . . I fear the gov’t’s involvement is long overdue! Does it profit Verisign and the Registrars to involve themselves in security? No. Anything which isn’t easy profit is missing . . . the largest Registrar has a boilerroom-type sales force which steamrolls the little guy to makes its quota. Self-regulation has been tried, but failed. If there was an in-house process to screen out illegitimate businesses – like LegitScript, a service which screens out illegal pharmaceutical firms, which services the Registrars like GoDaddy and now eNom contract, the gov’t wouldn’t need to be involved!