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'Net-Neutrality and the U-S-of-A

Posted by Simon Butcher on

Internet Neutrality is a nasty subject, and something I have strong feelings about. So much so, I support Save the Internet. However, there's something else that really rubs me the wrong way.

I'm referring to the ongoing control of the Internet by the USA. While I understand the yanks have a long history with the network, but the time came many years ago for them to relinquish their grasp over the network and allow it to become more autonomous and internationally unbiased.

This is not to say that the Internet should be ruled by a chaotic political structure, in fact quite the opposite. Organisations such as ICANN need to exist for organisation purposes, but if they must be affiliated to a higher power then it most certainly should be the United Nations rather than the USA.

Many years ago, the root servers of DNS have become more dispersed, and in the process more redundant too. Beyond this, major backbones now have less reliance on the USA physically, and fortunately the commercial dominance of the USA in this arena is waning.

Despite these positive steps forwards, the constant discussions of moving Americans over to the “.us” ccTLD and leaving the existing gTLD's for global use continue to fall apart. It's at this point that most Americans I know would interject and present me with a lame excuse as to why the USA requires different rules to the rest of the world.

The recent “.xxx” gTLD proposal, which was fortunately rejected (again), has once again highlighted how the USA has their own set of rules, with some senators attempting to pass new legislation that would enforce the creation of the gTLD. I wouldn't have a problem with this if we were talking about “.xxx.us”!

Nobody should own the Internet, nor should any country have exceptional rights above other countries. Move over America, and learn how to play fairly with the rest of the world, at least once in your country's history.

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