The US is going to surrender its oversight of the internet to a multi-stakeholder body as of October 1, ending the nearly 20-year transfer to a private party, despite Republicans’ ire. Washington will give up its power fully to the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), a non-profit organization located in Los Angeles. “We informed ICANN today that based on that review and barring any significant impediment, NTIA [National Telecommunications & Information Administration] intends to allow the [Internet Assigned Numbers Authority] IANA functions contract to expire as of October 1,” Lawrence E. Strickling, Assistant Secretary for Communications and Information and NTIA Administrator, said in a statement on Tuesday. The transition was originally slated for September 2015, but was delayed. Created in 1998, ICANN has been tasked with assigning global IP addresses and overseeing the internet domain name system (DNS). Along with the US Department of Commerce’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), the California-based non-profit has been managing IANA functions. This is the part that is going to change in less than two months. Well America it now looks like our internet use has officially also become a part of the police state. This is almost a little bit more alarming than the NSA spy agency, as now a private company is in control of internet use. This puts into question that this company would have the ultimate internet kill switch, as if internet use or news articles online don't go to the companies liking they can just just .com down. Now that the Federal government is handing over internet power to a private company, is the whole goal of this an internet kill switch. As you know companies in America are based in political matter, so it would only take one post online for this company to be like...That doesn't fit our agenda shut the whole thing down. This should be absolutely disturbing to all Americans who use the internet and depend on it for a financial resource, because a private company in charge of the net can do as they please. The internet might now become like Facebook and Twitter where certain groups and people get shut down because they don't fit the companies political views.
