[LINK] ICANN and those new TLDs

[Jan Whitaker]

Possible conflict of interest charge; ICANN licence extended rather 
than renewed.

ICANN Web Address Controversy Deepens After U.S. Warning

By Georgina Prodhan

LONDON (Reuters) - A controversial attempt to expand Internet 
addresses far beyond the likes of .com, .org or .net has provoked a 
rare threat from the U.S. government to withdraw a key licence from 
the body that runs the Internet's core functions.

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) 
depends on its U.S. government contract to coordinate the unique 
addresses that tell computers where to find each other, without which 
the global Internet could not function.

But this month the government warned that the non-profit body's rules 
against conflicts of interest were not strong enough and only 
temporarily extended ICANN's contract - which it has held since its 
formation in 1998 - instead of renewing it as many in the industry 
had expected.

A failure to secure the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) 
contract would severely damage ICANN's ability to implement its 
address expansion programme, the most radical move in the 
organization's history.

The conflict of interest concerns arise from the fact that some past 
and present board members stand to benefit financially from the 
liberalization of Web addresses through ties to organizations that 
make money from registering new domain names or consulting on the expansion.

[more at the link:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/23/icann-web-address-controversy-deepens-after-us-warning_n_1375470.html?ref=topbar


Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
jwhit at janwhitaker.com
blog: http://janwhitaker.com/jansblog/
business: http://www.janwhitaker.com

Our truest response to the irrationality of the world is to paint or 
sing or write, for only in such response do we find truth.
~Madeline L'Engle, writer

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