Anons - do you remember this and maybe a reason for ICANN issues?

Why US internet controls became a political battlefield (FAQ)

CNET demystifies the controversy over an Obama administration plan to relinquish the last scraps of government control over the internet.

BY STEPHEN SHANKLAND - SEPTEMBER 16, 2016 5:00 AM PD

To hear the rhetoric, you'd think Russian President Vladimir Putin is going to take over the internet on October 1.

That's the date the US Commerce Department has said it will transfer a final aspect of internet governance to a nonprofit international group called ICANN (the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers). Under the plan, the US government will cede its existing oversight to a broad group of stakeholders including governments, businesses and technical experts. The Obama administration has been pushing this privatization plan for two years, but it began in 1997 under Bill Clinton's presidency and continued through that of his successor, George W. Bush.

But on Wednesday, Sen. Ted Cruz, the Texas Republican and chief opponent of the plan, held a congressional hearing that could be the last loud attempt to stop the transition. "Under the guardianship of the United States and the First Amendment, the internet has become truly an oasis of freedom. But that could soon change," Cruz said at the hearing.

Sounds bad. But the technical experts who've actually been involved in running the internet for years worry that Cruz's attempt to preserve internet freedoms through US government control could backfire. Instead of preserving freedoms, it actually could undermine the decentralized approach that's helped the internet thrive. Specifically, it could shift governance powers away from ICANN, technical experts and other involved organizations – and toward the very government-led United Nations telecommunications organization that China, Russia and others already have explicitly backed as an alternative.

The UN does important telecommunications work. But the internet was built from the bottom up, and governmental edicts come from the top down. That risks saddling the internet with a control system ill-equipped to handle technical matters and too slow for issues like new security threats and digital currency.

Yes, it's a mess. The intersection of technology and politics can get pretty ugly, as we've seen with phone privacy, net neutrality, government surveillance and copyright laws. So here are some answers to clarify the issue.

[go to the link for the FAQs]

https://www.cnet.com/news/why-is-us-giving-up-control-of-the-internet-dns-icann-domain-ted-cruz-faq/