Google Wave hits eBay, the Internet goes world-wide

Good day for Wave fishing; Bad day for .us

GOOD DAY FOR: Wave fishing, after Baltimore food blogger Hagan Blount put his invitation to use Google Wave up for auction on eBay. The bidding got as high as $157—with unsubstantiated offers of up to $27,000—before eBay made him remove the auction. “I’m sure somebody flagged it for a terms of use violation because they didn’t think of the idea,” Blount said. (The Wall Street Journal)

BAD DAY FOR: .us, after the Internet Corp. for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), the nonprofit group that oversees the Internet and its domain name endings, shed its final vestiges of control by the U.S. government Wednesday. ICANN will now be reviewed by a group of stakeholders around the world. The underlying technology that makes the Internet function was developed by the U.S. Defense Department, and the U.S. has gradually handed over control to ICANN for the past 11 years. (Los Angeles Times)

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up