If you think Facebook has problems, they’re nothing compared to the fiasco at the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers. Americans should be far more alarmed about what’s happening with the obscure, private California company that oversees the Internet’s backbone.
ICANN’s gross mismanagement of behind-the-scenes technical operations threatens the security, interoperability, and openness of the entire Internet, industry experts warn. Unlike the Facebook situation, however, there may not be much lawmakers can do.
That’s because 18 months ago, America surrendered oversight of ICANN. Despite earlier imposing network neutrality regulations to keep U.S. Internet service providers honest, then-President Barack Obama paradoxically decided ICANN was better off without any government intervention. ICANN now has absolute control of key Internet infrastructure and answers to no one.
Proponents insisted this power shift was necessary because the world no longer trusted the U.S. to oversee the Internet after the Edward Snowden scandal. There was a risk that other countries could form an alternate Internetrather than participate in our existing global, interconnected cyberspace.
Read more at the Washington Examiner.
