New 'net domains...

Again, the changing nature of the digital world has my attention. NPR has a good report on the proposal to allow anyone to create an Internet domain... so that our "limited" options now (.edu, .com, .org, .name, ...) would be expanded and limitless (I could register .ackerman).

As the report points out, the question is becoming who controls the Internet. Of course, many of us fund that a chilling question. First, it points out that no one currently "controls" it; there are standards and groups that define the standards, but that is different from controlling it. Standards simply are the protocols that engineers must following of they want their systems to be compatible with the 'net.

Second, it points out that some want desperately to control what information we access. Previous attempts to filter the 'net have not been successful, but there is much at stake, and so those who seek to control what we access keep trying.