Government Control Is the Big Sticking Point at ICANN Meeting

by Mikael Ricknas, IDG News Service

More than 3,300 representatives from around the world are meeting in London this week to discuss the process of the United States relinquishing control of the world’s central Domain Name System servers to the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN).

The United Kingdom supports less state control of the Internet, while France is pushing for more state control. Success in preparing for how ICANN will take over will occur only through a collaborative bottom-up approach rather than through state-centered regulation, according to U.K. minister for culture, communications and creative industries Ed Vaizey. He says a more state-controlled “bureaucratic World Wide Web of red tape” is doomed to fail.

However, France has proposed more radical changes, including the formation of a new general assembly that would decide strategy, approve the budget, and appoint board members to make ICANN a truly international organization.

One of the major issues France has is the delegation of .vin and .wine, which are two of the hundreds of new generic top-level domains ICANN is in the process of approving for general use. France wants additional protections for geographic indications, which are used for goods such as cheeses and wines with special qualities associated with their place of origin.  Report