Russia Drops Proposal to Regulate Domain Names at ITU Conference [Reuters]

The World Conference on International Telecommunications is still underway and, despite being held behind closed doors, some interesting things are coming out.

Reuters reports that Russia has backed down from the proposal to hand over control of IPs and domain names to individual countries, from organizations such as ICANN or IANA.

The proposal was made by the United Arab Emirates, but Russia was behind it. All the other countries that co-signed the proposal have dropped support for it as well, China, Saudi Arabia, Algeria, Sudan and the UAE.

That said, it's too early to celebrate a victory, as the changes from the proposal as well as other notorious ones are still part of the discussion in one form or another.

The conference needs consensus for any of the changes to become binding, but if one can't be reached, it will be put to a vote.