[governance] Where are we going?

[Karl Auerbach]

Demi Getschko wrote:

> If a sizable part of the community fell bad about some name, sign,
> picture (like those at the displays or posters on the streets, may be
> we would be intolerant if we force the people to look to something
> they do not like. 

Consider for example overt depictions of a man being tortured to death by being 
nailed to a pair of wooden timbers and being forced to wear a crown of thorns 
and pierced by a spear.

It would not be hard to find people who do not like such displays.

Should we then require the various Christian churches to abandon placing such 
displays on and in their buildings?

Here in the US we long ago found it both infeasible and wrong to muzzle those 
who speak, or the names they use to advertise their existence (which is itself 
a form of speech) on the grounds that it might annoy some people or even make 
them intolerant.  One of the few exceptions is one of extreme circumstances in 
which the speech or the sign is equivalent to an intentional or highly reckless 
physical act designed to elicit a dangerous physical response; and we certainly 
do not have that (yet) in any top level domain name that has been proposed.

It is for reasons like this that I believe that the first principle of internet 
governance is that it should confine itself to matters that have a clear, 
direct, and compelling relationship to technical matters.

For example, governance that deals with mechanisms through which end users (or 
their agents) can arrange for end-to-end, multi-ISP, pathways adequate to 
sustain usable VOIP would be a reasonable matter for internet governance.

On the other hand, dividing domain names on the basis of perceived business 
plans, who operates them, or their customer base, all of these being non 
technical, really are not proper matters of internet governance. They are, 
instead better left to the normal work of national legislatures and the slow 
process of international agreements.

		--karl--



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