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<p class=MsoPlainText style='text-align:justify'><font size=2
face="Comic Sans MS"><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Comic Sans MS"'>Lee:<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoPlainText style='text-align:justify'><font size=2
face="Comic Sans MS"><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Comic Sans MS"'>Many
thanks for this very thoughtful discourse.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoPlainText style='text-align:justify'><font size=2
face="Comic Sans MS"><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Comic Sans MS"'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoPlainText style='text-align:justify'><st1:City w:st="on"><st1:place
w:st="on"><font size=2 face="Comic Sans MS"><span style='font-size:11.0pt;
font-family:"Comic Sans MS"'>Carlton</span></font></st1:place></st1:City><font
face="Comic Sans MS"><span style='font-family:"Comic Sans MS"'><o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoPlainText style='text-align:justify'><font size=2
face="Comic Sans MS"><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Comic Sans MS"'>The
University of the <st1:place w:st="on">West Indies</st1:place><o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoPlainText style='text-align:justify'><font size=2
face="Comic Sans MS"><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Comic Sans MS"'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoPlainText style='text-align:justify'><font size=2
face="Comic Sans MS"><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Comic Sans MS"'>[BTW,
I confess that while I’m not American – well, civic American! - I
did read the Administrative Procedures Act….and allied other treatises.
Helped me immensely! <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoPlainText><font size=2 face="Courier New"><span style='font-size:
11.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoPlainText><font size=2 face="Courier New"><span style='font-size:
11.0pt'>-----Original Message-----<br>
From: Lee McKnight [mailto:LMcKnigh@syr.edu] <br>
Sent: Wednesday, April 04, 2007 11:10 PM<br>
To: expression@ipjustice.org; governance@lists.cpsr.org;
NCUC-DISCUSS@LISTSERV.SYR.EDU; wolfgang.kleinwaechter@medienkomm.uni-halle.de;
Milton Mueller; goldstein_david@yahoo.com.au<br>
Subject: Re: AW: [governance] ICANN Board Vote Signals Era of Censorship
inDomain Names</span></font></p>
<p class=MsoPlainText><font size=2 face="Courier New"><span style='font-size:
11.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoPlainText><font size=2 face="Courier New"><span style='font-size:
11.0pt'>Hi Wolfgang,<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoPlainText><font size=2 face="Courier New"><span style='font-size:
11.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoPlainText><font size=2 face="Courier New"><span style='font-size:
11.0pt'>Good questions all.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoPlainText><font size=2 face="Courier New"><span style='font-size:
11.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoPlainText><font size=2 face="Courier New"><span style='font-size:
11.0pt'>First to review my own history briefly, Milton and I had advocated an
'economically rational, technically/politically neutral' approach to gtld
allocations a couple years ago, specifically to save the ICANN board - and
staff - from having to make these kinds of political judgment calls.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoPlainText><font size=2 face="Courier New"><span style='font-size:
11.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoPlainText><font size=2 face="Courier New"><span style='font-size:
11.0pt'>OK, that was a mistake, apparently you can't take out the politics;
noone wanted to go the automomatic annual auction route. Even though auctions
work fine for allocating all kinds of scarce resources.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoPlainText><font size=2 face="Courier New"><span style='font-size:
11.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoPlainText><font size=2 face="Courier New"><span style='font-size:
11.0pt'>But still, the present alternative does seem a funny spectacle: to have
the iCANN board preoccupied with sex - without saying that word - I mean
deciding on .xxx versus other combinations of Roman letters. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoPlainText><font size=2 face="Courier New"><span style='font-size:
11.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoPlainText><font size=2 face="Courier New"><span style='font-size:
11.0pt'>And the next wave of gtld applicants you point to is also what we
foresaw, and warned ICANN about - this is just a small episode before the few
applicants become a flood, and if ICANN says no to them all, they will all
reasonably ask - their own governments if not ICANN directly - 'on what basis
was this decision made?.' And really, on what basis can the ICANN board reject
any of these next claimaints? Certainly not technical, since while not trivial
entriely, adding gtld's these days is about as difficult...as adding data to a
database. Yeah I know it is a special database, but still.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoPlainText><font size=2 face="Courier New"><span style='font-size:
11.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoPlainText><font size=2 face="Courier New"><span style='font-size:
11.0pt'>So that gets us back to the need for ICANN staff and associated
interests to all do their homework, and read up on the rule-making procedures
laid in that classic of American jurisprudnce, the Administrative Procedures
Act, of 1948 I believe. Ok, I haven;t read it recently either, but point is
there are some basic rules that ICANN could adopt and impose on themselves if
noone else will or can; I am sure there are comparable laws passed elsewhere
which could be used as models as well. Point is it can be done by ICANN itself.
But..then ICANN is judge and jury for itself? Sounds like a solution perhaps
for ICANN, but maybe not for others.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoPlainText><font size=2 face="Courier New"><span style='font-size:
11.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoPlainText><font size=2 face="Courier New"><span style='font-size:
11.0pt'>IGPer John Mathiason, as well as many more at the Athens IGF I session
organized by Parminder, discussed what an Internet Framework Convention might
be about. So if not ICANN by itself, then isn;t this institiutionalization of
oversight issue exactly the kind of thing a framework convention could help
address? (And you know what, if we talk about this more at IGF II following the
<st1:City w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">san juan</st1:place></st1:City> icann
meeting, then guess what, a de facto framework convention may have begun
without folks even noticing...)<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoPlainText><font size=2 face="Courier New"><span style='font-size:
11.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoPlainText><font size=2 face="Courier New"><span style='font-size:
11.0pt'>But really answering your question of who would be involved and how it
could be managed to institute a multistakeholder review process for a global
industry regulatory body - well that is not easy. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoPlainText><font size=2 face="Courier New"><span style='font-size:
11.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoPlainText><font size=2 face="Courier New"><span style='font-size:
11.0pt'>Obviously ICANN as it stands needs some protection, even if just from
itself, so it can do its job(s), and that is what the APA provided to eg US
Federal Communications Commission staffers and commissioners alike: If they
follow the rules, then the decisions made are usually respected by industry and
the courts. Well OK, they get overturned all the time in the US courts, but the
pressure for transparent decisionmaking is so strong that the FCCers try very
hard to avoid that outcome. And I am sure ICANN staff would try equally hard
to avoid being overturned on review, were there an Adminsitrative Procedures
Act of the Internet somehow agreed to, and some process in place, as yet only
ill-defined.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoPlainText><font size=2 face="Courier New"><span style='font-size:
11.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoPlainText><font size=2 face="Courier New"><span style='font-size:
11.0pt'>When you figure it all out in <st1:City w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">San
Juan</st1:place></st1:City>, let us know! : )<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoPlainText><font size=2 face="Courier New"><span style='font-size:
11.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoPlainText><font size=2 face="Courier New"><span style='font-size:
11.0pt'>Lee<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoPlainText><font size=2 face="Courier New"><span style='font-size:
11.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoPlainText><font size=2 face="Courier New"><span style='font-size:
11.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoPlainText><font size=2 face="Courier New"><span style='font-size:
11.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoPlainText><font size=2 face="Courier New"><span style='font-size:
11.0pt'>Prof. Lee W. McKnight<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoPlainText><st1:place w:st="on"><st1:PlaceType w:st="on"><font
size=2 face="Courier New"><span style='font-size:11.0pt'>School</span></font></st1:PlaceType>
of <st1:PlaceName w:st="on">Information</st1:PlaceName></st1:place> Studies<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoPlainText><st1:place w:st="on"><st1:PlaceName w:st="on"><font
size=2 face="Courier New"><span style='font-size:11.0pt'>Syracuse</span></font></st1:PlaceName>
<st1:PlaceType w:st="on">University</st1:PlaceType></st1:place><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoPlainText><font size=2 face="Courier New"><span style='font-size:
11.0pt'>+1-315-443-6891office<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoPlainText><font size=2 face="Courier New"><span style='font-size:
11.0pt'>+1-315-278-4392 mobile<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoPlainText><font size=2 face="Courier New"><span style='font-size:
11.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoPlainText><font size=2 face="Courier New"><span style='font-size:
11.0pt'>>>> wolfgang.kleinwaechter@medienkomm.uni-halle.de 4/4/2007
11:18 AM >>><o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoPlainText><font size=2 face="Courier New"><span style='font-size:
11.0pt'> <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoPlainText><font size=2 face="Courier New"><span style='font-size:
11.0pt'>Lee:<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoPlainText><font size=2 face="Courier New"><span style='font-size:
11.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoPlainText><font size=2 face="Courier New"><span style='font-size:
11.0pt'>What is still lacking is an 'Administrative Procedures Act' for the
Internet, in partidular to guide ICANN on how it should go about and what it
may or may not consider in its decisionmaking, whether for gtld's or anything
else. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoPlainText><font size=2 face="Courier New"><span style='font-size:
11.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoPlainText><font size=2 face="Courier New"><span style='font-size:
11.0pt'>Wolfgang:<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoPlainText><font size=2 face="Courier New"><span style='font-size:
11.0pt'>Lee, this is a good point. But who should adopt such an Act and who
should guide ICANN? The DOC? The GAC? A new governmental or non-governmental
body? One idea - in the long run -. could by the formation of a new hybrid
organisation composed by all stakeholders with a mandat to deal with public
issues and a certain authority (which could come from an intergovernmental
arrangement eventually within the framework of GAC)? <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoPlainText><font size=2 face="Courier New"><span style='font-size:
11.0pt'> <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoPlainText><font size=2 face="Courier New"><span style='font-size:
11.0pt'>The chain fo controversial cases will grow dramaticially in the future.
If you take only GEO-TLDs, which are labeld in the GNSO report as one group of
TLDs where we have "concerns", you will have soon an open pandora
box. Projects so far which are on the horzon are .berlin, .nyc, .cym (<st1:country-region
w:st="on">Wales</st1:country-region>), .sco, .btn (<st1:State w:st="on"><st1:place
w:st="on">Bretagne</st1:place></st1:State>), .london. What about .basque,
.tibet, . tchechnia, .kosovo? <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoPlainText><font size=2 face="Courier New"><span style='font-size:
11.0pt'> <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoPlainText><font size=2 face="Courier New"><span style='font-size:
11.0pt'>A good case is <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Germany</st1:place></st1:country-region>
and the .berlin proposal. The local government in <st1:State w:st="on"><st1:place
w:st="on">Berlin</st1:place></st1:State> (which is a land according to the
German constitution) manages berlin.de in cooperation with a private company.
It is naturally against the proposal arguing this would lead to "consumer
confusion" (protecting their own business under berlin.de) .
Paternalistic? Consumers are stupid and need guidance from the top? The funny
thing is that the German Bundestag with the votes of the two main parties has
adopted a TLD resolution which calls on ICANN to open the door for Geo-TLDs
like .münchen, köln, .bayern etc to give consumers more chocse and to stimulate
competition. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoPlainText><font size=2 face="Courier New"><span style='font-size:
11.0pt'> <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoPlainText><font size=2 face="Courier New"><span style='font-size:
11.0pt'>Who is right? Is it consumer confusion or is it consumer choice? ALAC
is planning to organize a workshop on that issue in <st1:City w:st="on"><st1:place
w:st="on">San Juan</st1:place></st1:City> to figure out the arguments of pro
and con. But the more interesting issues is who decides on .berlin? If ICANN
follows the .xxx procedure it will ask the GAC. GAC members will ask the German
government but the German government has an internal problem to harmonize
different approaches on the federal and the local level. If it is seen as a
"cultural affair", then according to the German constiution, the
federal government has no competences. Does it mean, that for such a decision
ICANN has to consult with the local authorities directly? And how other
governments will see this? Some may be happy to have next to the ccTLD also
some big (or small) cities with a TLD for local marketing, tourism, local economy
promotion, local language support (like .cat) etc. Others will fear that this
will become very counterproductive, undermining national monopolies etc.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoPlainText><font size=2 face="Courier New"><span style='font-size:
11.0pt'> <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoPlainText><font size=2 face="Courier New"><span style='font-size:
11.0pt'>Where to go? And who leads the process? And which body is entitled to
make a final decision? A lut of fun is waiting down the TLD road ....<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoPlainText><font size=2 face="Courier New"><span style='font-size:
11.0pt'> <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoPlainText><font size=2 face="Courier New"><span style='font-size:
11.0pt'>Wolfgang<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoPlainText><font size=2 face="Courier New"><span style='font-size:
11.0pt'>____________________________________________________________<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
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