Clandestine efforts by some countries to create alternative versions of the Internet for political ends could put the Web at risk, Rod Beckstrom, ICANN’s CEO, told AFP this week.

“It has been done,” Beckstrom told AFP. “We don’t speculate about who is doing it, it is really their private business.”

The article mentions “accusations that China and Russia are developing alternative Internet roots, which would mean requests would bypass the ICANN system.”

“People want to test their own capabilities to do these things and update their root zone files,” said Beckstrom. “Some are concerned maybe for security reasons and some want to have alternatives in case any regional problems might arise and others might have political objectives.”

Beckstrom though said it is ICANN’s preference not to have duplicate TLDs and that problems would arise if this happened.

To read this AFP report in full, see:
news.smh.com.au/breaking-news-technology/web-boss-sees-risk-of-multiple-internets-20100128-n0lb.html
news.theage.com.au/breaking-news-technology/web-boss-sees-risk-of-multiple-internets-20100128-n0lb.html