From The Wall Street Journal:Multilateral governance of the domain name system risks censorship and repression.
There's a lot of concern out there right now about America's world leadership—facing down Iran's nuclear program, bracing NATO's commitment in Afghanistan, maintaining free trade. Here's something else to worry about: Has the Obama administration just given up U.S. responsibility for protecting the Internet?
What makes it possible for users to connect with all the different Web sites on the Internet is the system that allocates a unique electronic address to each site. The addresses are organized within larger entities called top-level domains—".com," ".edu," ".gov" and so on. Overseeing this arrangement is a relatively obscure entity, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN). Without the effective oversight of ICANN, the Internet as we know it would not exist, billions of dollars of online commerce and intellectual property would be at risk, and various forms of mass censorship could become the norm.
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My Comment: There is also a national security risk that this Wall Street Journal commentary does not explore. Communication and exchange of information is now a crucial component for modern armies .... for the U.S. in particular. Insuring that the web will now be managed by countries that are openly hostile to the U.S. does not bode well with this aspect of future American national security.