[governance] Where are we going?

[George Sadowsky]

Karl,

Thank you for refocusing the discussion on a much more central issue. 
Some comments:

First, the word "multi-stakeholder" has quickly become a central 
phrase in politically correct speech.  Presumably stakeholders 
represent individual and family interests, but it's not uncommon that 
people and organizations that declare themselves stakeholders, or 
representatives of a stakeholder community, are self-appointed.  I 
much prefer your focus on individuals and families as the ultimate 
beneficiaries of the system of Internet governance that we would like 
to have.

Second, we should not confuse restricting the choice of labels for 
global top level domains with restricting free speech in the content 
of the net.  They are vastly different.  I think that it would be 
easy to get the nazi community support for a a .nazi TLD.  Does that 
mean, in a context of Internet governance larger than ICANN, that it 
should be implemented?  I think not.  But the absence of such a TLD 
will not prevent web sites with a lot of nazi hate speech from 
existing.  I haven't looked, but I'm sure that they exist and are 
well known to that community.

Third, it is increasingly clear that U.S. standards, whether 
cultural, moral, or legal, are just one set of standards in a world 
community, and that U.S. standards per se, just because they are U.S. 
standards, should not be adopted as the prevailing norms of the 
Internet.  There are cultural collisions in our world, and if we want 
the Internet to grow to be what we want it to be, I believe that we 
need to take them into account at a minimal level at least, and not 
take steps that are sure to provoke conflict.

If ICANN is to remain a technical body, then this level of discussion 
must necessarily occur outside its technical functions.  The 
discussion regarding appropriateness of the semantic and emotional 
implication of what are essentially top-level very visible labels, 
simply has to be a part of any overall global Internet governance 
scheme that has the possibility of long run survival.  Perhaps this 
is an area that can appropriately be assigned to a future GAC that 
may be constituted somewhat differently and that may fit somewhat 
differently into the ICANN structure.  For if this function is not 
somehow subsumed within a larger ICANN, it will become the province 
of other bodies that are not likely to execute it nearly as well.

I worry that the "free speech imperialism" that characterizes some 
positions regarding TLDs and the segmentation of the domain name 
space espoused today is an unproductive attempt to foist a moderately 
narrow and parochial view of the world onto a global structure, and 
that it will be counterproductive.  The issue of what are to be the 
top level labels in a labelling scheme is surely far less important 
than many of the issues that the global Internet faces, such as very 
substantial restriction of content in some places, denial of access, 
and invasion of private information and communication.  In my opinion 
it is more important for us to find a relatively harmonious way to 
move ahead on the TLD issue, without insisting upon continuing to 
promote those that lead to very substantial dispute.

In addition to thanking Karl for starting to refocus the discussion, 
I thank David Goldstein, Vittorio Bertola, and Alejandro Pisanty for 
their thoughtful comments.

George Sadowsky



At 12:57 AM -0700 4/4/07, Karl Auerbach wrote:
>The discussion seems to be swirling about the .xxx decision.
>
>We all have our points of view.
>
>I know that I only have so many mental cycles per day to absorb and 
>think about this stuff, and I'd rather move forward than spin 
>endlessly.
>
>So what I'm asking here is this:  What kind of governance do we want 
>for the internet?  Implicit in that question is another question 
>about what things do we want governed, what things do we want to 
>leave to individual or community choice, and what things do we want 
>to leave to existing or evolving real governments and their laws?
>
>My own personal feeling is that not only do we need to know where we 
>want to go but also what values and principles should guide us.
>
>And (again) my own personal feeling is that we ought to empower the 
>creativity and aspirations of individual people to create better 
>families, better communities, better nations; that the concept of 
>"stakeholder" gets us off on the wrong foot right from the start.
>
>		--karl--
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