[governance] FW: Domain names battle threatens Net

Sat Oct 29 09:44:17 EDT 2005

A correction George, I said that it is "the" leading "ON-LINE" business
journal... (I perhaps misspoke and should have said A leading SA on-line
business journal...

MG

-----Original Message-----
From: George Sadowsky [mailto:george.sadowsky at attglobal.net] 
Sent: October 29, 2005 3:31 PM
To: Gurstein, Michael; governance at lists.cpsr.org
Subject: Re: [governance] FW: Domain names battle threatens Net

Michael,

I think that you have done us a favor by posting this piece.

On the one hand, I am relieved to see that our current U.S.
administration does not have a monopoly on ignorance and
misunderstanding.

On the other hand, and far more important, this piece from what you
claim is the leading South African Business journal fills me with
apprehension.   This sounds like text from a bad science fiction novel,
or from the sermon of a charismatic religious bigot.  It points to a
misunderstanding of gigantic proportions of the current situation,
process, governance, and the way the world works.

If U.S. Government representatives were to read this, they would use it
as strong evidence that the U.S would be out of its mind to loosen their
control of the Internet by one bit.

The serious question is how do we deal with such feelings.  One can
understand the desire of the whole world to be a part of the Internet
community and to reap its benefits, but this kind of understanding is
not likely to help.  This type of misinformed jingoistic thinking will
only serve to deepen the gulf that artificially divides us today.

Regards,

George

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~~

, At 9:05 AM -0400 10/28/05, Gurstein, Michael wrote:

Content-class: urn:content-classes:message
Content-Type: multipart/alternative;
  boundary="----_=_NextPart_001_01C5DBC0.5264A4AC"

An interesting take on the Internet governance issues from the leading
South African on-line business journal.

MG

  _____  

Domain names battle threatens Net
In the golden haze surrounding the mystic city of Tunisia, a small group
of elite merchants of the information age will once again try to figure
out the future of the Internet in November. They will fight out their
agendas and try hard to make sense out of the ongoing cyber warfare.

If there were a major split or a major breakdown of the Internet then
whom would be the real beneficiaries? Right now, no one.

The politico-technocrats and the neo-cybernauts have taken a weird
posture on this issue. The entire argument is over who will control the
naming system, the basic early architecture that allows the creation of
URLs and domain name management.

Invented and perfected by America, the current elementary architecture
is under global pressure, ! as many countries want their own naming
system and controls. W! ith over 200 countries in the game, it is very
hard for the United States to call all the shots.

Furthermore, the initial naming convention based on the early issuance
of dot-com and dot-net were all based on tooty-fruity casual naming, and
never incorporated any deeper understanding of the global naming laws.
The initial idea was based on making a quick buck, as it was expected
that the entire universe would register and be happy with the first five
available suffixes - com, net, gov, edu and mil. And a large number did,
at the peak at millions names per day.

It made for good revenue for the early, hand-picked registrars. But now
the global players want to do their own thing.

The Internet of today is no longer a place for the computer literate; it
now exists for the global illiterates. Totally unexposed to any layers
of innovations, the almost illiterate masses around the world are direct
beneficiaries of the system. Just like using a TV with an on and off
swi! tch, the masses are doing the same with the Internet.

The impact of e-commerce offering accessibility to information, goods
and services has become so powerful that it has shaken the economic and
socio-cultural foundations of the developed countries. With the genie
out of the bottle, the world is questioning whether a single country
should be in charge.

The United States is openly isolated and being pushed to relinquish
control, or the more aggressive nations will simply develop their own
Internet ... which would be a global disaster, a major earthquake for
e-commerce, causing the most disruptive global shockwave to our daily
lives that mankind has ever seen.

The end of cyber presence, corporate branding, corporate image and
identities, e-marketing and the entire e-commerce driven corporate
communication systems. The end of website driven marketing and branding.

For some strange reason, the mystical ICANN, with its mathematical
theorizations, has pe! riodically sprayed some aromatic ideas on how to
expand its ar! chitectu re to the global players.

It did work for the first five years during the earlier dark ages of the
Internet time lines. Now the atmosphere is scented with an entirely
different mood. The romantic backdrop is over and the honeymoon is
turning into divorce battles.

Despite all the back room and hush-hush maneuvers, this small group of
global techno-bandits, rightly or wrongly, have far too much control
over what we cherish and what we use the most - our information.

Until there are very open and public discussions on this subject, the
global audience will remain almost oblivious to the delicate tightrope
walk that occurs whenever the ICANN circus comes to town. Unless there
are some mind-bending and body-stretching exercises done to deliver more
oxygen to the brain, the deal brokers are slowly but surely approaching
disasters. For now, there can be no direct beneficiaries to this
dangerous game.

[27 Oct 13:21]

  _____  

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