ICANN to take over global time zone database

Absrtact: October 17 morning, ICANN (Internet domain name and digital address distribution agency) will take over a time zone database that is widely used by computers and Web sites around the world. The database was suddenly removed from the U.S. government server a week ago by a copyright lawsuit. If

On the morning of October 17, ICANN (Internet domain name and digital address distribution agency) will take over a time zone database that is widely used by computers and Web sites around the world. The database was suddenly removed from the U.S. government server a week ago by a copyright lawsuit.

Without this database and similar products, computers will only display Greenwich Mean time, and users must manually adjust the time to local time when arranging meetings or booking tickets.

With this "time zone database" service, users can adjust the clock to the appropriate time zone by simply selecting the city. The database is updated more than 10 times a year and is used by Apple's Mac OS X, Oracle, UNIX, and Linux operating systems, but Microsoft Windows does not use the database. Many websites also use the database to convert time zones.

After being removed from the U.S. government server, users of the database can still continue to use the above features, but cannot get updates to reflect the time zone and daylight saving changes.

ICANN had considered taking over the database a few months ago, but ICANN accelerated the process after the National Institutes of Health removed the database from the server October 6.

A software company known as Astrolabe accused the database of volunteering to pay the data royalties, but the defendants believed that the disclosure of data did not require royalty payments.