Won't this just encourage other companies, or even US companies, to switch to a national domain?

Which web site would that be? Bodog.com?

I think it has now become vital to remove control of the internet's root services from the US. I'm sure the process is now underway.

I imagine that someone thought this was a creative way to attain a short-term objective (shutting down a web site) without regard to the long-term impact (loss of trust in the US).

I sometimes think that's the difference between cleverness and wisdom.

that way we don't have an international super committee which will bow to every petty demand that is brought before it. However even national ccTLDs arent immune as the US and other governments are not beyond threatening other countries, even allies (see the recent witch hunt after swiss bank accounts)

Really think about it, an international group would most likely be within the domain of the UN and that would result is so many attempts to filter content that the internet we know now could never exist.

"US Asserts Super-Jurisdiction Over [...]" seems to be rather standard.

I suppose it would be. By taking this aggressively authoritarian stance on global commerce, the United States is threatening its own interests: The financial power of the US is tied directly to its financial markets. The US signed treaties with many countries that, even if war were declared, their assets would be left alone. For this reason, many countries use the dollar as their only form of currency, store their assets in US-controlled financial systems, etc. As a result, the US government is the largest bank in the world, by far. The internet is fast becoming the major driver of economic power worldwide, and the fact that the US is not putting its internet connections on the same level threatens its status as a superpower.

Countries are moving away from the dollar. The Chinese is divesting itself of dollars every day, growing larger economically while we grow weaker. Corporations based in this country are outsourcing at a record pace, even during the longest recession in history. Everyone is jumping ship because the public policy the US government has instituted is no longer beneficial to them economically, politically, or even morally. In ten years, the United States will no longer be the dominant superpower. They won't be able to maintain a vast military, their infrastructure will have finally reached a point of decrepitation that requires such enormous capital investment versus the (now substantially reduced) economic benefit, that large sections of infrastructure will be abandoned or scaled back.

In short, America is dying. And it didn't die because of a lack of natural resources, or because it was attacked by terrorists, or got hit with a natural disaster. It died because a select few people, perhaps less than 20,000, opted to raid the treasury, and then pass a bunch of laws to ensure the country never recovered.

So yes, to see the US killing its last viable resource that could be used to keep it in the game is a bit surprising. Without a free internet, there's no reason to choose US labor, good, or services, over that of its competitors who, while they may have a restricted communication network, offer better economic opportunities (read: China).

There used to be a site called QuickSilverScreen. It was essentially a lot of links to videos uploaded to Megavideo and the like (you were able to browse by category, by show, by season, etc...). When it began attracting attention, it switched TLDs. I'm not sure whether it was originally .com or .net or what but it switched to .im and continued for a while like nothing would've happened. Eventually it was shut down and I'm not sure what kind of threats/laws were used for that but I'm pretty certain that attacking the domains had essentially no effect at all.

I need to buy a few new domains soon and .com seemed like the obvious choice, but perhaps I'll go with .fi instead.

And give it to whom?

How is this different from like Libya exercising control over the sites being hosted under .ly domains?

"International law
Shortened internet links typically use foreign country domain names, and are therefore under the jurisdiction of that nation. Libya, for instance, exercised its control over the .ly domain in October 2010 to shut down vb.ly for violating Libyan pornography laws. Failure to predict such problems with URL shorteners and investment in URL shortening companies may reflect a lack of due diligence.[19]"

Not to say any kind of censorship is right, but at the moment, us treating the US based TLDs as, well, US based, is just the way jurisdiction has been being handled when it comes to domain names.

Let countries maintain their own TLDs and give jurisdiction over the international ones to a UN body.

That is a terrible idea. If you understood the simple fact that the UN does not, never has, and never will represent you or any other single, individual Human Being, you would understand the rediculousness of what you propose.

The UN represents GOVERNMENTS, most of whome are actively oppressing their own people to one degree or another. Cede control of key Internet infrastructure to that organization, and you cede control to an organization that represents the interests of REGIMES, not people. Censorship, filtering, domain seizures, etc. will follow the path of least resistence, and the lower common denominator. Governments will be pleased, and rarely will one stand up for you unless a specific political interest crosses enough borders, and gains enough attention (e.g. maybe Tibet, or Dafur, certainly not YOU, me, or anyone else on slashdot, in the EFF, the FSF, etc.).

You think American suppression of speech is bad? It is, but no where near as bad as it will be if we cede that authority "to a UN body."

How did we ever get to a point where suggesting a move from US jurisdiction to Russian jurisdiction to avoid abuses of government power actually sounds reasonable???

How sad a state of affairs this truly is.

Its The War On Drugs or The War Against Terror again..

Thats so next budget they can say "Look we had a great year, we shut down X thousand websites but piracy is still on the increase so we need tougher laws and more taxpayer money spent".

Um, .com is an international domain for "commercial". The US domain is .us.

That is why this situation is so disconcerting.

I agree 100%. A Scotsman called John Logie Baird invented the scanviewing screen. Every single viewing screen in the world (computer monitor; TV; security monitor; infra-red main battle-tank target sighting system; space ship piloting screen etc. etc.) should be routed, at the owner's expense, through a centre in Scotland so that the Scots can ensure their control over what is viewed on those screens.

My only fear is what the Chinese are going to do with their right to control your use of toilet paper.

In this case the US is just making clear with words what they had already made clear with actions.

Yes, I have a problem with this. The US seem to be claiming jurisdiction over everything. ACTA anyone? Next thing you know I have to pay Uncle Sam taxes just because my site has a .com, .net or .org tld.

What if I published a music video of a song written and performed by me, on my site, but a RIAAA member claims it's theirs (very realistic scenario since they even claim copyright to bird songs)? I'll tell you what will happen, it will be shut down by removing it from DNS, even though the server is not on US soil and they have no jurisdiction over the song, the site or me whatsoever. What would happen if I wrote and published a program that "violates" a software patent in the US, while I live in the EU and the EU doesn't recognize software patents? Yes, they will shut it down.

The problem is US laws are getting more insane by the day, and then try to shove them down the throaths of the rest of the world. You bet I have a problem with this. If they want to have jurisdiction over the TLDs, they shouldn't sell them outside the US.

Of course, GoDaddy is the registrar that will just cut off your domain [seclists.org] just because a big company asked it to, so trusting GoDaddy would be like trusting your enemy with a gun at your head.

The really annoying thing is that many, many technical gurus were against international control of the Internet and for US control of it in order to "protect the freedom". Yeah. Right. The rest of us have been posting for a long time now that all this was to be expected and that, whatever the faults of the UN and other international bodies, they're still better at safeguarding things like freedom.

ICANN should be dismantled completely and all control transferred to a quasi-independent international body. THAT is how to protect freedom.

Though I sincerely doubt that we'll see a single apology from those who protested against such a move the last time for what is ultimately their fault. Yes. Theirs. They are responsible for their actions and their actions include pressuring the US Govt to retain the power of dictatorship over the Internet. They owe, big time, to the rest of us for the inevitable and obvious consequences.

The Internet also decentralizes diplomacy. Right now, a state court is busy creating an international incident (how serious of one is another question). It used to be that diplomacy was handled at a high Federal level, and was overseen by people who are either competent to conduct diplomacy or powerful enough to influence the policies.

[...]they are shutting down domains on the f'ing internet, not firebombing the Vatican. It sucks for those involved, it's wrong, but nobody is dying as a result of it.

It sounds to me as long as nobody gets killed, you think it's acceptable collateral damage even though you recognize it's wrong. I think it's unequivocally unacceptable anytime the government takes away somebody's property, liberty, livelihood, or reputation unjustly in its zeal to combat the boogeyman du jour.