[governance] RE: Human rights and new gTLDs

[Danny Younger]

Kieren,

I'd like to discuss your concept of "inevitable
policies".

For years we have had the GAC and WIPO pushing for the
adoption of protections for IGOs.  Just yesterday, the
GNSO Council received from ICANN Staff a Draft IGO
Domain Name Resolution Procedure which will be taken
up for discussion at the 11 October Council meeting.

You may be of the view that the proposed IGO policies
are "agreed to by large sections of the ICANN 
community over several years" as they have been
ardently backed by the GAC, by WIPO, by the IPC, and
others and as such are "inevitable" given the growing
power of governments within ICANN.

The proposed policy allows for an objections based
approach for strings at the top level in the event
that an IGO asserts that a TLD will be in conflict
with the name or abbreviation of the IGO protected
under Article 6ter of the Paris Convention, an
international treaty.

At a surface level this seems like a reasonable
inevitable policy... but let's dig deeper.

Let's just imagine for a moment what our world would
look like if the policy had been put into place back
in the days when we only had com/net/org as gTLDs. 
Along come the new boys on the block -- .INFO and .BIZ
-- but wait!  An objection is filed...

The argument is put forward that BIZ will violate the
terms of Article 6ter, and that the Internet community
will be devastated by the rampant confusion that will
occur should BIZ ever find its way into the root.

As "everybody knows" BIZ is the 6ter protected
acronym/abbreviation for the BANK FÜR INTERNATIONALEN
ZAHLUNGSAUSGLEICH -- or (in English, the Bank for
International Settlements, a distinguished IGO), so we
can't possibly allow BIZ to enter into the root...
just think of the havoc that would ensue!  

Well here it is several years later, with millions of
registrations in .BIZ, and not a single complaint of
confusion.

Policies should never be regarded as "inevitable" as
some policies, frankly, can be rather stupid.

regards,
Danny

--- Kieren McCarthy <kierenmccarthy at gmail.com> wrote:

> > The whole issue with gTLDs is that these
> identifiers also 
> > contain expressive characteristics.  And these
> expressive 
> > characteristics are precisely what might come into
> play 
> > in rejections based on "morality" or trademarks,
> etc.
> 
> > In this case, the distinction between
> identification and 
> > expression is hopelessly blurred, and the
> expressive-related 
> > policies could easily be extended to other forms
> of expression.
> 
> 
> 
> You know, I have given these claims about human
> rights and new gTLDs some
> consideration and I still just don't see the logic.
> 
> Is it censorship to stop certain new gTLDs from
> being approved? In one
> sense, yes. But only if you define censorship as
> stopping people from doing
> whatever they want despite the clear offence that
> will be taken by others.
> 
> This type of "censorship" is more simply defined as
> the rules that hold any
> society together.
> 
> Is it our "human right" to say whatever we want
> without regard to others'
> sensibilities? No, it's not. We do have a right to
> not be prosecuted or
> intimidated for expressing an opinion, but that is a
> quite different matter.
> 
> 
> 
> The important question to ask is: does not allowing
> certain new gTLDs result
> in the removal or stymieing of discussion of a
> certain topic?
> 
> And the answer to this is quite clearly no.
> 
> This human rights argument appears to completely
> ignore the actual reality
> of the Internet. There is actually comparatively
> little connection between
> domain names and content and to pretend otherwise is
> frankly bizarre.
> 
> 
> * Does the BBC only contain content about BBCs? Or
> subjects beginning with B
> or C?
> * Does Amazon only contain information on one of the
> world's largest rivers
> and its basin?
> * Does Facebook merely contain pictures of faces and
> books?
> 
> 
> There is nothing to stop anyone from posting what
> they want at whatever
> domain they want. At least not technically. And any
> rules that might apply
> in different countries are going to apply to one
> domain name as much as they
> do to any other.
> 
> The way Internet technology is moving is toward
> making each block of content
> its own identifier - tags, search engines, RSS
> feeds. All the evidence
> points to the fact that if something is compelling
> enough, it will be found
> and repeated and linked to and mirrored - to the
> extent that many people
> will read it without even knowing on which domain
> name it was originally
> posted. 
> 
> 
> The reason why there will be restrictions on some
> new gTLDs is for the same
> reason you don't walk past a shop called "Shit" on
> the High Street. And the
> same reason you can't purchase Al-Qaeda training
> videos in your local
> supermarket.
> 
> I can't for the life of me understand why so much
> effort is being put into
> shouting at policies drawn up and agreed to by large
> sections of the ICANN
> community over several years when the really
> important discussion to be had
> is how exactly the inevitable policies are
> implemented.
> 
> 
> 
> Kieren
> 
> 
>
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