Europe yesterday launched the first satellite of its Galileo project, which will go into operational service in 2010. Galileo is meant to compete with the US GPS system.

So, asks the tongue-in-cheek Auerbach, why would Europe start a competing project while the US GPS system has been running fine ? Why does Europe want to move away from a US-controlled GPS ?

Just replace GPS with DNS in the above sentence. All arguments applying to GPS stand true for the DNS. It is a well known fact the the USG has been degrading the precision of its GPS system on purpose for military strategic reasons. It is not unimaginable that the same could be applied to DNS also.

It is certainly not a coincidence that the former Internet czar of the European Commission and director of the ICANN Brussels office, Paul Verhoef, is now is charge of the Galileo programme.