While commenting just now on the proposed charter for the proposed Digital Identity Exchange working group at the IETF, Phillip Hallam-Baker observes:
To control your name on the Internet you have to own the domain name you rely on. If your web site is alice.blogsrus.com you are inevitably dependent on the continued terms of service of whoever owns the name blogsrus.com.
To be an Internet citizen rather than a serf you have to own your own domain name.
Truth.
(A truth that Chinese blogger Zhao Jing recently learned the hard way.)