[governance] ICANN Board Vote Signals Era of Censorship in Domain Names

[Milton Mueller]

David:
I was at the ICANN meeting and have been carefully following the .xxx
controversy since the US government intervened in August 2005. Robin is
correct that the .xxx rejection is fundamentally about ICANN trying to
avoid, or actively discourage, controversial top level domain names.
This was evident from the many conversations and comments at the
meeting, especially among governments. No one familiar with the facts of
this case can deny that there are free expression issues.

You also ignore the broader context -- this rejection happened at the
same time as a new TLD approval process is being proposed that would
openly and explicitly veto any proposals that generate opposition. Take
a look at the transcripts of the public forum discussion, in which the
Chair of the GNSO admits that objections from the Catholic church would
have to be taken seriously if a TLD that mentioned "abortion" was
proposed.

You speak of "community support." ICM had 77,000 advance registrations,
which exceed by a factor of 10-20 the number of hostile comments. That
shows that it was viable economically and would be used. Of course there
are adult online sites whose interests were threatened by a .xxx, and
they opposed it. But any domain name proposal might generate opposition
from someone in the world, for some reason. If ICANN turns TLD approval
into a popularity contest then it is, de facto, a massive restriction of
freedom of expression. Do you need community support to start a
newspaper or a web site? You shouldn't need "community support" to be
able to speak on the Internet. 

Whether .xxx would in fact "protect children" or uses a "Western"
concept of porn are fankly silly arguments that people grab at to
rationalize their opposition. How does it "protect children" to continue
the status quo in .com, which is full of easily accessible porn sites,
some of it misleadingly labeled? How can any effort to identify and
label porn avoid embodying a specific culture? These kids of arguments
are simply rationalizations. 

--MM



>>> goldstein_david at yahoo.com.au 4/2/2007 10:43 PM >>>
Robin,

I strongly disagree with your comments Robin.

First, one prerequisite is for applicants for a TLD to have community
support. There was no community support from the adult/porn industry.
ICM claimed there was but never showed it. My contacts in the adult
industry cannot find anyone in the industry who has supported the
creation of this TLD. The opposition of religious groups should have
been inconsequential, but as subscribers to my news will have seen,
they're crowing about their input into the rejection. I would have
thought the lack of community support was reason enough to not approve
the proposed TLD.

Second, I have major reservations about the role ICANN may be forced to
play in content regulation should problems eventuate with ICM.

In addition, the creation of such a TLD should never have got off the
ground. It does nothing to protect children unless there is enforced
registrations of adult content in this field. It also uses a western
concept on what is adult content. You could easily argue that it is all
about western, and mostly American, views about protecting children.

Further, those voting against the resolution put forward at the meeting
only voted against supporting the resolution. They did not necessarily
vote in favour of the creation of a .xxx TLD.

To call this censorship is plain wrong.

Cheers
David

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