[governance] Emergency resolution on.xxx recall

[Ewan SUTHERLAND]

I really don't think this about recognising the existence of pornography
or about censorship. I think the problem is accepting someone else's
definition. In my European telephony example, all the countries had
reached some sort of modus vivendi for domestic services but struggled
with the cross-border issues, that is the application of foreign
definitions. [There is a market opening issue for WTO, as in the USA
versus Antigua case on Internet gambling.]

In some countries about all that is officially sanctioned comes as
fashion television and aerobics classes. In others it is allegedly a lot
more salacious with a few countries having acquired (how?) a reputation
for such material. 

The technical label, in this case triple-X, is without meaning and thus
of no value outside its original cultural context. That is why it might
go away, not least if a whole bunch of countries simply block the gTLD
in its entirety. 

There is the small matter of a lot of brands buying domain names in
order to prevent damage, sesame street and disney dot triple-X and the
like. Some people will money out of that.

Ewan

> >>> "Ewan SUTHERLAND" <ewan at intug.net> 08/18/05 4:33 AM >>>
> >I am at a total loss to see where "censorship" came into this. 
> >Labelling material that one person or one groups considers to 
> >be triple-X or salacious or whatever and placing it in a set of 
> >domain names is neither prohibiting it nor promoting it. 
> 
> That is of course true. The .xxx domain is not charged with censorship
> (at least, not by me).
> The censorship comes from people who want to _prevent_ the existence of
> a .xxx domain because it recognizes or acknowledges the existence of
> pornography. 
> 
> >There is a European precedent. A group came forward wanting some
> >pan-European telephone numbers (E.164 range +3883-9) for use with
> >premium rate services, read that as triple-X. Initially, the
> numbering
> 
> I think this precedent is quite relevant. But it reinforces the
> censorship argument. Basically the technical experts were being told:
> try to handle the numbering issue in a way that allows us to pretend
> that phone sex doesn't exist as a distinct category of traffic. From a
> purely perceptual standpoint, to make a system-engineering decision that
> responds to demand generated by pornography is to associate oneself with
> it, and the politically safest strategy is to avoid the whole thing. I
> would not hold that up as a positive example. 
> 
> What you have going on here is the creation of a "taboo." We cannot
> talk about something, we cannot recognize its existence or make obvious
> technical adjustments or decisions that respond to it's exstence. It's
> silly, in my opinion. All this talk about "sensitivity" is just another
> way of saying: if we avoid talking about it, we can pretend it doesn't
> exist. 
> 
> >The issue for ICANN is whether, if it ignores the advice from GAC it
> >would damage its credibility. It might take the view that the whole
> >thing, in the medium term, will blow over.
> 
> Let's hope so. 
> 
> 


-- 
Ewan SUTHERLAND, Executive Director, INTUG
http://intug.net/ewan.html
callto://sutherla
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