The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department acknowledged Thursday that its deputies mistakenly shot and killed a aspiring TV producer they thought was a stabbing suspect.
In fact, John Winkler, 30, had gone to a neighbor’s apartment Monday night on Palm Avenue in West Hollywood where a man was holding people hostage and tried to help.
Winkler was shot when he rushed out of the apartment with another victim who had been trapped inside the apartment with a third victim and the suspect, sheriff’s officials said in a statement.
“The apartment door suddenly opened and a male victim came rushing out,” the statement said. “He was covered in blood and bleeding profusely from the neck. Simultaneously, victim Winkler ran out of the door, lunging at the back of the fleeing victim. Both ran directly at the deputies.”
Three deputies fired at Winkler. He was shot once and died.

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There’s been a lot of concern about the OpenSSL Heartbleed bug, which is a vulnerability that allows theft of information that’s normally protected by the SSL/TLS encryption used to secure many Internet sites and services. Well, thanks to a tip from former TUAW-er Damien Barrett, those of us who run OS X and OS X Server can breathe a bit easier:

“PSA: No versions of OS X or OS X Server are affected by the OpenSSL Heartbleed bug, because the last version of shipped by Apple in an OS was 0.9.8y, which is a branch not affected by this bug. So unless you’ve installed OpenSSL via MacPorts or Homebrew, your public-facing OS X servers/services should be immune to this bug.”

While OS X and OS X server are “immune”, we still recommend that you stay safe out there. Remember to keep your eyes open for news of other security vulnerabilities, change your passwords on a regular basis, and be sure to back up your data constantly.

If you want to know more about Heartbleed itself, TechCrunch posted this great video and here’s a little background on why there’s a logo and website to spread info about this security issue.

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President Obama is lending his political support to fellow community organizer Al Sharpton by headlining the MSNBC host’s National Action Network (NAN) conference this week in New York. Obama’s choice to headline the conference underscores the close ties of the two leaders and provides an increased sense of political legitimacy to the controversial leader and his much-maligned organization.

Sharpton’s conference is held in April “not just to commemorate the anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s assassination, but to honor his legacy by proactively engaging in dialogue that will spawn change.” The NY Daily News reports that along with President Obama, the conference will feature other high-profile liberal leaders, including US Attorney General Eric Holder, Gov. Andrew Cuomo, and Mayor Bill de Blasio.

Over the years Sharpton’s organization has been accused of engaging in questionable financial practices, including using the threat of boycotts to extort donations from corporations and land Sharpton consultant positions. As the New York Post reported in 2008, nearly 50 companies—including GM, Pepsi and Wal-Mart, and some labor unions—had donated to NAN. The NY Post attributes many of these donations to extortionist tactics:

Terrified of negative publicity, fearful of a consumer boycott or eager to make nice with the civil-rights activist, CEOs write checks, critics say, to NAN and Sharpton – who brandishes the buying power of African-American consumers.” In some cases, they hire him as a consultant.

(Incidentally, one of the panel discussions for this year’s conference is “How Can Corporations Collaborate to Affect Change in the Community.”)

As Breitbart News reports, Sharpton’s organization was charged in 2006 by the IRS for improperly reporting taxes. The organization still owes the federal government $1.9 million in back taxes and penalties.

The ties between President Obama and Al Sharpton are strong. The NY Daily News reports that Sharpton has visited the Oval Office several times during Obama’s tenure. In 2009, Sharpton and Michael Bloomberg met with Obama on education initiatives. In 2010, the president invited Sharpton back to discuss jobs and the state of the economy with other black leaders. Sharpton also took part in the First Lady’s 50th birthday celebration and supported the president’s young black and Hispanic men initiative.

This is the second time Obama has appeared at the NAN convention, also speaking at the event in 2011.

via Obama to Headline Al Sharpton’s NAN Conference | Truth Revolt.

Black people are the fathers and mothers of civilization, white men are the devil, the Christian god is nothing more than a ghost and only a small percentage of people understand the world.

These are just some of the ­beliefs behind the bling — the gaudy Five Percent Nation ­medallions worn by Jay Z and Carmelo Anthony.

Last week, all eyes at the Barclays Center weren’t on Jay Z’s better half, Beyoncé — but on the coaster-size golden pendant swinging from the rapper’s neck as the couple sat courtside. Asked once if the group’s symbol — an eight-pointed star with the number 7 in the middle — held any meaning for him, the rapper shrugged, “A little bit.”

So what exactly do Five Percenters believe?

“The rationale is that the black man is God and created the universe, and is physically stronger and intellectually stronger and more righteous naturally,” says Michael Muhammad Knight, an author of two books on the radical group.

“Whiteness is weak and wicked and inferior — basically just an errant child who needs to be corrected.”

The group was founded in 1964 in Harlem by Clarence Smith, who later changed his name to Allah, a former student of Malcolm X who disagreed with the Nation of Islam over the nature of God.

Smith rejected the notion of a supernatural deity and instead believed that all black men had God in them and that black women were “earths” who took on a complementary yet subordinate role to their gods.

The idea is empowering, Knight says.

“Anytime someone is saying you have to accept your conditions of oppression and slavery and pray to an unseen god — that kind of god is just being used to keep people down and to keep people from looking to themselves as a solution to their problems,” he notes. “If there is a problem, no one will fix it for you, except yourself.”

Five Percenters don’t consider themselves Muslim, but their name comes from the Nation of Islam’s belief that 5 percent of humanity are “poor righteous teachers” who exist to enlighten the masses about the truth of existence.

Members will sometimes refer to themselves as “scientists” to drive home the search for truth. And they face a tall task, because under their belief system, 10 percent of the world’s population controls the other 85 percent by spreading the belief in a “mystery God.”

To show followers the way, members must learn the Supreme Mathematics and Supreme Alphabet — powerful tools to decipher the meaning of the universe. In both, each letter and number represents a concept: for example, 1 is knowledge, 2 is wisdom, while A is Allah and B is be, or born. The number 7 on Jay Z’s pendant stands for God.

Caucasians, meanwhile, don’t enjoy an exalted status in the narrative of the Five Percenters.

“The first lesson I learned from the Five Percent was simple: F–k white people. Seriously. White people are devils,” Knight, 36, who is white and converted to ­Islam as a teenager, once wrote.

He insisted the movement has been welcoming and that he views the controversial sentiment as a statement about power rather than biology.

“For me, it is about who is marked as privileged in the power relations of this society,” he says.

Some followers take exception to those who transform their flag into a fashion accessory.

“Jay Z is not an active member — no one has vouched for him” Saladin Allah, a representative of the group’s upstate region, told The Post. “It was always understood that you don’t wear the ­regalia if you don’t totally subscribe to the life.”

via Jay-Z’s bling from ‘whites are devils’ group | New York Post.

Al Sharpton was a secret FBI snitch whose recorded conversations with top mobsters helped take down members of the Genovese crime family, a bombshell report claims.

While it was known that Sharpton worked with the FBI in the early 1980s, thesmokinggun.com — citing new documents and extensive interviews with investigators — spelled out new details that for the first time exposed his interactions with four of the five New York City crime families.

The report released Monday said investigators from the FBI and NYPD equipped Sharpton — known as “CI (confidential informant) 7″ — with a bugged Hartmann briefcase into which unsuspecting mobsters spilled their secrets.

Dirt provided by Sharpton helped the feds secure court orders to wire two Genovese family social clubs, including former boss Vincent “The Chin” Gigante’s headquarters, three cars used by the mob and more than three dozen phone lines, including Gigante’s, the report said.

Sharpton worked directly with the FBI/NYPD Organized Crime Task Force, according to the report.

The feds worked hard to shield Sharpton’s identity because the undercover work put his life at risk, the report said.

Sharpton was known to have crossed paths with underworld figures through his work in the music industry and boxing world, including with his mentor James Brown. He also had an association with boxing promoter Don King.

Sharpton, in a Post interview, did not deny that he cooperated with the FBI. But he said the report greatly exaggerated his role.

“It’s crazy. If I provided all the information they claimed I provided, I should be given a ticker-tape parade,” Sharpton said.

He insisted he did not own a briefcase with a listening device.

There’s a dispute about how Sharpton became an FBI informant.

The report said Sharpton was recorded in a meeting that involved an undercover FBI drug sting. While Sharpton did not explicitly offer to arrange a drug deal, the feds had enough to frighten the fiery activist into becoming an informant, the report said.

But Sharpton offered a different account.

He said it was he who contacted the feds after a mobster threatened him while he was acting as a concert promoter.

Later this week, Sharpton will be hosting a meeting of his National Action Network in New York at which President Obama is the featured speaker.

via Sharpton secretly worked as FBI mob informant: report | New York Post.

How much is the EPA and DOT costing you?Sail lead

One way to quantify this is to consider a car GM builds – but which you can’t buy. Well, not unless you move outside the United States – and beyond the diktats and fatwas of the EPA and DOT.

It is called the Sail – and GM makes it in China. It retails for 60,000 yuan – equivalent to about $9,800 in “federal” reserve notes.

Demand for the car is so great that GM plans to increase its exports of the Sail to countries like Chile and Ecuador by nearly 70 percent, according to a recent Reuters article.

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The director of corporate giving for Google Inc. has resigned in protest from the board of a Christian aid organization after the charity reversed its decision to hire employees in same-sex marriages.

As the Associated Press reported Thursday, Jacquelline Fuller said in an email Wednesday to AP that while she remains a “huge fan” of the group’s work on behalf of the poor, she resigned Friday “as I disagreed with the decision to exclude gay employees who marry.”

AP reported that Fuller would not comment further.

Last week, World Vision U.S., a Christian international relief organization, had announced that it would hire employees in same-sex marriages. In response to this decision, the charity received severe criticism from some prominent evangelical leaders and, in addition, several thousand donors cancelled their child sponsorships.

Within two days, World Vision reversed its decision, but it began to hear complaints from evangelicals and others who supported recognition for same-sex married employees.

As the Washington Times reports, the charity said in a statement, “The board acknowledged it made a mistake and chose to revert to our longstanding policy requiring sexual abstinence for all single employees and faithfulness within the Biblical covenant of marriage between one man and one woman.”

via Google Executive Resigns from World Vision Board over Decision to Affirm Traditional Marriage.

(AP) Mozilla co-founder Brendan Eich is stepping down as CEO after protests of his support of a gay marriage ban in California.

The Mountain View-based nonprofit maker of the Firefox browser had promoted him last week.

At issue was Eich’s $1,000 donation in 2008 to the campaign to pass California’s Proposition 8, a constitutional amendment that outlawed same-sex marriages. The ban was overturned when the U.S. Supreme Court last year left in place a lower-court ruling striking down the ballot measure.

Mozilla Chairwoman Mitchell Baker apologized for the company’s actions in an open letter online Thursday. She says Eich is stepping down for the company’s sake.

She says Mozilla believes in equality and freedom of speech. It is still discussing what is next for its leadership.

via Mozilla CEO Resigns After Furor over Same-Sex Marriage.

Billionaire philanthropist George Soros hopes the U.S. goes to pot, and he is using his money to drive it there.

With a cadre of like-minded, wealthy donors, Mr. Soros is dominating the pro-legalization side of the marijuana debate by funding grass-roots initiatives that begin in New York City and end up affecting local politics elsewhere.

PHOTOS: Celebrity meltdowns

Through a network of nonprofit groups, Mr. Soros has spent at least $80 million on the legalization effort since 1994, when he diverted a portion of his foundation’s funds to organizations exploring alternative drug policies, according to tax filings.

His spending has been supplemented by Peter B. Lewis, the late chairman of Progressive Insurance Co. and an unabashed pot smoker who channeled more than $40 million to influence local debates, according to the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws. The two billionaires’ funding has been unmatched by anyone on the other side of the debate.

Mr. Soros makes his donations through the Drug Policy Alliance, a nonprofit he funds with roughly $4 million in annual contributions from his Foundation to Promote an Open Society.

Enlarge Photo

Mr. Soros also donates annually to the American Civil Liberties Union, which in turn funds marijuana legalization efforts, and he has given periodically to the Marijuana Policy Project, which funds state ballot measures.

Lewis, who died in November, donated to legalization efforts in his name and through the ACLU and the Marijuana Policy Project, on which he served as the chairman of the board. Lewis‘ estate declined to comment for this article.

“The pro-legalization movement hasn’t come from a groundswell of the people. A great deal of its funding and fraud has been perpetrated by George Soros and then promoted by celebrities,” said John Walters, director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy under George W. Bush. “The truth is under attack, and it’s an absolutely dangerous direction for this country to be going in.”

PHOTOS: Highest-earning celebrity couples

Mr. Soros‘ Open Society Foundations have annual assets of more than $3.5 billion, a pool from which he can dole out grants to pet projects, according to 2011 tax returns, the most recent on file for his charitable organizations.

David and Charles Koch, the billionaire brothers who often are cited for their conservative influence, had $308 million tied up in their foundation and institute in 2011.

Mr. Soros did not respond to a request to be interviewed.

via Billionaire George Soros turns cash into legalized marijuana – Washington Times.

kcentv.com – KCEN HD – Waco, Temple, and Killeen

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Michelle Obama, her daughters and her mother plan a week-long solo visit to China this month that includes meetings with China’s first lady and high school and university students – and that will likely cost U.S. taxpayers millions of dollars.
President Obama and his family have come under heavy scrutiny for the unprecedented high travel costs during his time in office – and a week-long trip to China for four members of the First Family, members of the Secret Service and other members of the White House staff will likely cost several millions of dollars.
The president’s pricey travels have become so controversial that Judicial Watch was forced to sue the Secret Service and Defense Department to get them to turn over records on the amount of taxpayer money used to fly the First Family all over the world – in many cases for vacations or fundraisers – over the last two years of his administration.

What the records show was startling.
According to Judicial Watch, it cost more than $11 million for the president and his wife to travel to Africa to attend Nelson Mandela’s funeral in December of last year. According to the New York Daily News, the Obamas were only in Africa for ‘less than 13 hours.’
But that trip was nothing compared to a 2013 visit the Obamas made to the Dark Continent, which reportedly cost tax payer more than $100 million.
On the 2013 trip, some of the reported expenditures include the stationing of a Navy aircraft carrier off the coast of Africa equipped with a fully staffed medical trauma center, military cargo planes to fly a fleet of 56 support vehicles to transport the Obamas – complete with 14 limousines and three trucks carrying bulletproof glass to cover the windows of the hotels where the Obamas were to stay – and fighter jets that flew in shifts to provide coverage over the president’s airspace for the entire trip.
In June, the first lady went to Ireland for a two-day trip. The cost to taxpayers: $5 million.
Michelle Obama reportedly stayed at a $3,300-per-night hotel in Dublin, and needed to book 30 rooms at the posh Shelbourne Hotel for her staff and security detail.
Expensive: Travel expenses for the First Family have cost U.S. taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars over the last two years alone
Expensive: Travel expenses for the First Family have cost U.S. taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars over the last two years alone
For two vacations the Obamas took in 2013 – one to Hawaii and one to Martha’s Vineyard – records show that it cost taxpayers a whopping $7,396,531 in flight expenses alone. That figure also includes travel expenses for the president’s trip to California to file the Tonight Show with Jay Leno.
During an August trip to California, during which Obama attended a party held by Democratic fundraiser Jeffrey Katzenberg and again appeared on the Tonight Show, taxpayers paid more than $2 million in travel expenses for the president and his security detail.
The president will not be joining his family on what will be the first lady’s first visit to the Asian economic powerhouse.
In an announcement Monday on the White House blog, the first lady says a China visit is important because it is the most populous country in the world, with more than 1.3 billion people, and is an important world actor.
Mrs. Obama will travel from March 19-26, spending several days in the capital of Beijing before stops in the central city of Xian and the southwestern city of Chengdu, the White House said. Her schedule includes a meeting with Peng Liyuan, the wife of Chinese President Xi Jinping.

Taxpayers footed the more than $2 million bill so Obama could appear on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno
Mrs. Obama missed meeting China’s first lady last June when the newly installed Xi, accompanied by his wife, traveled to Southern California for a summit with President Barack Obama. The presidential-level meetings were around the time of Sasha Obama’s 12th birthday, and the White House said Mrs. Obama stayed in Washington with family.
She wrote a letter to Peng Liyuan welcoming her to the U.S. and expressing hope that they would meet soon in China, the White House said.
In China, Mrs. Obama will focus on the power and importance of education, including in her own life, during visits to a high school and a university in Beijing, and a high school in Chengdu.
She recently began an effort to encourage America’s young people, including some of the most economically disadvantaged, to pursue a college education. On past trips outside the U.S., she also has made the same point to students from the host country. Mrs. Obama grew up in a poor Chicago family, but earned degrees from two of America’s best universities.
Africa: It cost taxpayers $11 million when the Obamas went to Africa for Nelson Mandela’s funeral. They were there for 13 hours
Africa: It cost taxpayers $11 million when the Obamas went to Africa for Nelson Mandela’s funeral. They were there for 13 hours
In China, she will be accompanied by daughters, Malia and Sasha, and her mother, Marian Robinson, who lives at the White House. President Obama will not be on the trip; he is scheduled to depart the U.S. later that week for stops in the Netherlands, Belgium, Italy and Saudi Arabia.
Mrs. Obama is encouraging American students to follow her trip on social media and the White House website, where she will post a daily travel blog. In preparation for the trip, she scheduled a visit Tuesday to a Washington charter elementary school with a Chinese-immersion, international baccalaureate program.
In her blog post, the first lady said countries today are no longer isolated and face many of the same challenges, whether it is to provide students with a good education, combat hunger, poverty and disease or address threats like climate change.
‘These issues affect every last one of us, so it’s critically important that young people like you learn about what’s going on not just here in America, but around the world,’ Mrs. Obama said. ‘Because when it comes to the challenges we face, soon, all of you will be leading the way.’
‘That’s why everywhere I go, whether it’s here in the U.S. or abroad, I meet with young people to hear about your challenges, hopes and dreams — and that’s what I’ll be doing in China as well,’ she said. ‘I’ll be focusing on the power and importance of education, both in my own life and in the lives of young people in both of our countries.’
History: First families going back to Richard Nixon have visited China on diplomatic trips, including the family of Bill Clinton, seen here
History: First families going back to Richard Nixon have visited China on diplomatic trips, including the family of Bill Clinton, seen here
Among recent first ladies, Laura Bush traveled to China with President George W. Bush, and Beijing was the place where Hillary Rodham Clinton made her now famous declaration at a United Nations women’s conference in 1995 that ‘women’s rights are human rights.’
Mrs. Obama’s trip will be a highly visible endeavor, but the fact that she’s taking the rest of her family suggests ‘she’s not going in search of a crusade of one sort or another,’ said Jonathan D. Pollack, a senior fellow in the John L. Thornton China Center at the Brookings Institution think tank in Washington. ‘The clear intent here is not to touch any particular hot buttons.’
Mrs. Obama’s previous solo travels outside the U.S. as first lady were to Mexico in 2010, and Botswana and South Africa in 2011.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2572615/Michelle-Obama-plans-pricey-trip-China-First-Family-criticized-spending-hundreds-millions-dollars-traveling-taxpayers-dime.html#ixzz2xIhTvEdc
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Michelle Obama plans pricey trip to China on the taxpayer’s dime | Mail Online.

WASHINGTON — President Obama dissed Russia as a “regional power” on Tuesday and said his bigger worry is a nuclear weapon going off in Manhattan.

Obama’s comment came at a press conference in the Netherlands, where he was asked if 2012 challenger Mitt Romney was right that Russia is the United States’ No. 1 political foe, in light of its absorption of Crimea.

“Russia’s actions are a problem. They don’t pose the No. 1 national security threat to the United States. I continue to be much more concerned when it comes to our security with the prospect of a nuclear weapon going off in Manhattan,” the president said.

Obama called Russia a “regional power that is threatening some of its immediate neighbors, not out of strength, but out of weakness,” while speaking with Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte after a nuclear security summit in The Hague.

The president claimed the Russian seizure of Crimea is “not a done deal” — but then added he had “no expectation that they will be dislodged by force.”

Obama called for the international community to require Russia to pay costs for its action, both to deter any further incursions and to punish its behavior, indicating the policy could be effective.

“History has a funny way in moving in twists and turns and not just in a straight line,” he said.

He said there would always be “bad things” going on in the world, and noted that the US hadn’t gone to war with Russia. He said Russia had a legal right to build up forces on its own territory, although he has discouraged escalation and called for talks with Ukraine.

“We’re not recognizing what has happened in Crimea,” he said.

via Obama’s top fear is Manhattan getting nuked | New York Post.

U.S. officials announced plans Friday to relinquish federal government control over the administration of the Internet, a move that pleased international critics but alarmed some business leaders and others who rely on the smooth functioning of the Web.

Pressure to let go of the final vestiges of U.S. authority over the system of Web addresses and domain names that organize the Internet has been building for more than a decade and was supercharged by the backlash last year to revelations about National Security Agency surveillance.

The change would end the long-running contract between the Commerce Department and the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), a California-based nonprofit group. That contract is set to expire next year but could be extended if the transition plan is not complete.

“We look forward to ICANN convening stakeholders across the global Internet community to craft an appropriate transition plan,” Lawrence E. Strickling, assistant secretary of commerce for communications and information, said in a statement.

The announcement received a passionate response, with some groups quickly embracing the change and others blasting it.

In a statement, Senate Commerce Committee Chairman John D. Rockefeller IV (D-W.Va.) called the move “consistent with other efforts the U.S. and our allies are making to promote a free and open Internet, and to preserve and advance the current multi-stakeholder model of global Internet governance.”

But former House speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) tweeted: “What is the global internet community that Obama wants to turn the internet over to? This risks foreign dictatorships defining the internet.”

The practical consequences of the decision were harder to immediately discern, especially with the details of the transition not yet clear. Politically, the move could alleviate rising global concerns that the United States essentially controls the Web and takes advantage of its oversight position to help spy on the rest of the world.

U.S. officials set several conditions and an indeterminate timeline for the transition from federal government authority, saying a new oversight system must be developed and win the trust of crucial stakeholders around the world. An international meeting to discuss the future of Internet is scheduled to start on March 23 in Singapore.

The move’s critics called the decision hasty and politically tinged, and voiced significant doubts about the fitness of ICANN to operate without U.S. oversight and beyond the bounds of U.S. law.

“This is a purely political bone that the U.S. is throwing,” said Garth Bruen, a security fellow at the Digital Citizens Alliance, a Washington-based advocacy group that combats online crime. “ICANN has made a lot of mistakes, and ICANN has not really been a good steward.”

Business groups and some others have long complained that ICANN’s decision-making was dominated by the interests of the industry that sells domain names and whose fees provide the vast majority of ICANN’s revenue. The U.S. government contract was a modest check against such abuses, critics said.

“It’s inconceivable that ICANN can be accountable to the whole world. That’s the equivalent of being accountable to no one,” said Steve DelBianco, executive director of NetChoice, a trade group representing major Internet commerce businesses.

U.S. officials said their decision had nothing to do with the NSA spying revelations and the worldwide controversy they sparked, saying there had been plans since ICANN’s creation in 1998 to eventually migrate it to international control.

“The timing is now right to start this transition both because ICANN as an organization has matured, and international support continues to grow for the multistakeholder model of Internet governance,” Strickling said in a statement.

Although ICANN is based in Southern California, governments worldwide have a say in the group’s decisions through an oversight body. ICANN in 2009 made an “Affirmation of Commitments” to the Commerce Department that covers several key issues.

Fadi Chehade, president of ICANN, disputed many of the complaints about the transition plan and promised an open, inclusive process to find a new international oversight structure for the group.

“Nothing will be done in any way to jeopardize the security and stability of the Internet,” he said.

The United States has long maintained authority over elements of the Internet, which grew from a Defense Department program that started in the 1960s. The relationship between the United States and ICANN has drawn wider international criticism in recent years, in part because big American companies such as Google, Facebook and Microsoft play such a central role in the Internet’s worldwide functioning. The NSA revelations exacerbated those concerns.

“This is a step in the right direction to resolve important international disputes about how the Internet is governed,” said Gene Kimmelman, president of Public Knowledge, a group that promotes open access to the Internet.

Verizon, one of the world’s biggest Internet providers, issued a statement saying, “A successful transition in the stewardship of these important functions to the global multi-stakeholder community would be a timely and positive step in the evolution of Internet governance.”

ICANN’s most important function is to oversee the assigning of Internet domains — such as dot-com, dot-edu and dot-gov — and ensure that the various companies and universities involved in directing digital traffic do so safely.

Concern about ICANN’s stewardship has spiked in recent years amid a massive and controversial expansion that is adding hundreds of new domains, such as dot-book, dot-gay and dot-sucks, to the Internet’s infrastructure. More than 1,000 new domains are slated to be made available, pumping far more fee revenue into ICANN.

Major corporations have complained, however, that con artists already swarm the Internet with phony Web sites designed to look like the authentic offerings of respected brands.

“To set ICANN so-called free is a very major step that should done with careful oversight,” said Dan Jaffe, executive vice president of the Association of National Advertisers. “We would be very concerned about that step.”

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