Many have been playing with ideas for DNS that’s not controlled by ICANN. I suspect more and more will pop up and one will actually be adopted by the masses (Eventually) with the way the US government is acting.

Funny enough, it’s really not difficult to setup your own DNS, but getting the users to actually use it and switch from their ISPs default DNS which only works with ICANN domains can be the difficulty.

That, and figuring out where the revenue is going to come from to keep the alternate DNS servers running, and a few other things… However, it’s inevitable and these things will be figured out eventually. There is a project based on the Bitcoin code called Namecoin that aims to solve the “control” issue – in that no one is really in control of the system or profits from it. It’s still only in beta, however something like this would truly be “open” and no one could take control of the network in anyway, which would completely upset governments. You can check out this project here: http://dot-bit.org/Main_Page.

OpenNIC is a bit too centralized. With Namecoin, once you register a domain, no one can take it away from you. You own it, plain and simple. That’s how the code works, similar to bitcoin. When you own a bitcoin you own it, that’s that.

Anyway – as I said before – peering into my crystal ball I see alternative DNS taking over and a bunch of small search engines dedicated to each type of DNS until one reigns supreme and maybe, just maybe knocks out ICANN. All because the US Government is trying to control the uncontrollable. The internet is decentralized, and governments have to learn they have no control. If they try to control it – new technologies come out to keep the internet open and free for everyone.