He stressed the sentiment dates back to the Geneva summit and was not
> meant as an attack on the United States or a direct response to the
> U.S. Department of Commerce statement two weeks ago that it intends
> to keep ultimate authority for authorizing changes to the list of
> Internet suffixes, such as ".com."
Of course, the US Department of Commerce has no such authority and never has.
That authority has always resided in individual system administrators who configure name servers for their sites or networks, and not in any government agency.
Garrett A. Wollman | As the Constitution endures, persons in every snipped-for-privacy@csail.mit.edu | generation can invoke its principles in their own Opinions not those | search for greater freedom. of MIT or CSAIL. | - A. Kennedy, Lawrence v. Texas, 539 U.S. 558 (2003)
[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I've had people tell me they thought that '.com' was the government abbreviation for 'Commerce Department'. PAT]