Battleangel

The Domain Name System (DNS) is a distributed network of servers that contain records mapping each domain name - such as www.newscientist.com) to an internet protocol address - such as 194.203.155.123. When surfers request websites, their browsers refer first to those records.

But DNS records are currently susceptible to denial-of-service (DOS) and spoofing attacks, says the report, which was funded by the US National Academies, the Department of Commerce and National Science Foundation. “The continued successful operation of the DNS is not assured: many forces are challenging DNS’s future,” it says.

Source: New Scientist

They also bring up the biggest problem with such a move …

The review also recommends that the DNS “continue to be run by a non-governmental body”, in order to prevent censorship. This would mean abandoning recent suggestions put forward by the UN to transfer control to an intergovernmental coalition.

But some experts point out that the report’s suggestion is inconsistent with the current situation, as the DNS is controlled by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), which reports directly to the US government.

Again, the DNS is controlled by a government and it would make sense to move it to an intergovernmental coalition. Because, as they unwittingly point out in the next sentence …

Much better, says California-based Karl Auerbach, a former member of ICANN, would be to have a free market for DNS servers run by many different private companies. People could choose which DNS servers they used, according to the quality of the service and the websites they wanted to visit - some could promise not to provide records for pornography sites, for example.

Another proof that the net is being compartmentalized. What good is it if private companies do the censoring instead of this UN proposed intergovernmental organization? For one, small companies will bend over backwards as soon as they are threatened with a lawsuit. And what good is the Net if not everyone gets the same DNS record database to browse. They always claim that privatization will make it all better, but in reality, it often promotes conformism.
It is logical to move the DNS database from US oversight as a show of good faith. It is also a good idea to spread the database over several key sites, all over the world, to provide redundancy. And if that cannot be achieved, I would rather see the main DNS record database remain with ICANN than being subject to a market economy as it were.