[governance] Where are we going?

[Michael Froomkin - U.Miami School of Law]

people do express themeselves through domain names, although it's rare.

The most common are 'critic' sites, of which the most famous was 
Guinnessbeerreallyreallysucks.com  . Amazingly, they LOST a UDRP case on 
the theory that someone might be confused with the real beer company.

On Mon, 9 Apr 2007, Raul Echeberria wrote:

> At 11:00 a.m. 09/04/2007, Milton Mueller wrote:
>> >>> raul at lacnic.net 4/9/2007 6:37 AM >>>
>> >What i say is that this issue is less important
>> >than it seems. If we are talking about freedom of
>> >expression, so, it is very important, but if we
>> >are only talking about market regulation, so, the
>> >imporance of this issue is different.
>> 
>> We are talking about both, Raul. You cannot have free expression
>> without an ability to freely utilize the means of media production.
>> People who discuss free software or net neutrality, to shift the context
>> somewhat, are talking about both commercial and noncommercial activity
>> that is fostered by the open, neutral access to the resource in
>> question.
>
> Nobody express him/herself trhough a domain name.
> If you want to access an adult conten website, you can do it (of course, with 
> the limitations that everybody know, what is a real censorship problem). The 
> existence of .xxx will not chnge anything in relation with your abiltiy to do 
> it.
> If you want to create or host an adult content website you can do it (of 
> course, if it is legal in your country). The existence of .xxx will not 
> change anything in relation with your abitlity to do it.
>
> So, there is not a problem about freedom of expression. While you think that 
> my view "is not clearly thought out" , I still think that nobody has 
> demonstrated that freedom of expression os affected by this decision about 
> .xxx.
>
> We are talking about a different thing. So, let's focus correctly this 
> discussion.
>
> Personally, I think that there are some process in place for creating new 
> TLDs. I understand thay you don't like those process, and I respect your 
> view, but while those process are in place, what we can question is if the 
> process are correctly used.
>
> The specific case of .xxx is much more complicated and less important of what 
> you try to show. Is not an issue between governments and the rest of the 
> community, is not only a matter of lobbysm. There are a lot of people and 
> organizations (not governmental) that think that this domain is not 
> appropriated. So, the lack of a strong community support (as Carlos already 
> has said) is obvious.
>
> IMHO we are wasting time discussing this issue. ICANN Board has taken a 
> decision that has significant support through different stakeholders in the 
> Internet community. Clearly it is not either the best or the worst thing that 
> ICANN has done. I am sure that there are other cases in which it is much more 
> important to be meticulous regarding principles.
>
> Raúl
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>> Governments who want to regulate and restrict expression inevitably do
>> so via economic regulation as well as direct censorship, e.g. by limitng
>> the number of ISPs in a market or by refusing to make radio spectrum
>> resources available for civilian and commercial use. Your attempt to
>> drive a wedge between the two is not clearly thought out.
>> 
>> 
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>
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