The Chinese — weary of America’s control and insistence on Roman characters for domain names — have decided to set-up their own competitor to ICANN for domain names.

Although American officials are claiming the move is in the aim of China’s ongoing censorship of Internet sites, it’s worth pointing out that China already is fully censoring the Internet for its populace. It really doesn’t need to have Chinese character domains to do so — really, it just doubles the work.

The real issue is probably China’s objection to American control of ICANN — it’s hardly as if the Chinese are the only people unhappy about that. Given the U.N.’s staunch history of effeminate hand-wringing, their wimpy pandering towards totalitarian regime and their history of ignoring problems until they are too big to solve, many of us are frankly skeptical that the U.N. should take control of anything, let alone the free flow of information. But we’re also definitely positive that America shouldn’t have total control over the Internet, especially given the gross breaches of privacy that we’ve seen lately.

Link: China seeks a US-free web full of new characters

Want more consumer news? Visit our parent organization, Consumer Reports, for the latest on scams, recalls, and other consumer issues.