Larry Strickling’s great accomplishment was to hand the DNS to our chosen people at ICANN, but the Trump platform says it’s going to the Chinese and Russian governments, After Snowden, there was no way the rest of the world was going to accept the current U.S. (symbolic) control of the Internet. Larry’s brilliant plan was to convince people that ICANN, controlled by Americans and a few Europeans, was “independent” and represented a “multi-stakeholder” equivalent to democracy.
Anyone not blind can look at the board of ICANN pictured and below and see they aren’t Russian and Chinese bureaucrats. Several have been employed by the U.S. and Swiss governments and others by U.S. companies. The handful from other parts of the world generally have strong financial ties to the U.S. and Europe. A third of the Internet is Chinese but no one from China is here. The Trump platform on this is hogwash.
“Protecting Internet Freedom The survival of the internet as we know it is at risk. Its gravest peril originates in the White House, the current occupant of which has launched a campaign, both at home and internationally, to subjugate it to agents of government.
… He has unilaterally announced America’s abandonment of the international internet by surrendering U.S. control of the root zone of web names and addresses. He threw the internet to the wolves, and they — Russia, China, Iran, and others — are ready to devour it.”
Both Trump’s and Clinton’s proposed Internet policies are mostly hot air without practical plans for achieving the promises. Neither party committed not to give lobbyists government positions. Both read as though they were designed to keep supporters happy, not advance the public discussion. Readers should know I strongly oppose Donald Trump. I also believe Hilary Clinton has made many “politician’s compromises.” She has a $million class telco lobbyist on her tech team. Both platforms have contradictions and unreal expectations.
Hilary Clinton is hated by 42% of Americans. That gives her a major edge over Trump, hated by 50%.
