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Although previously committed to allowing the 13 root servers to pass into the hands of an international internet control body, the U.S. has now decided to keep control itself for now. It’s an understandable move, what with having created the internet in the first place – and as a defence department service – and faced with the variety of security threats from terrorists and criminals (and, naturally, because SkyNet is really the internet), so I’m not overly critical of this non-development. It’s long past being a U.S.-centric service, however, increasingly the domain (can I still say that, or is it confusing) of commercial enterprises to near-exclusivity. Educational institutions and charities use the internet much the same way as Citibank and Morgan Stanley and so on, and webloggers and people posting cat photos (or combinations thereof) aren’t so populous or popular as to make much difference. Already much of the scientific community and internal governmental operations, particularly in defence and intelligence, are using separate versions, so it really comes to a question of regulation and revenue. If a model can be developed which generates taxes and which can also be policed, there’d be some incentive to let go, but not yet.