[governance] Human rights and new gTLDs

[Karl Auerbach]

Vittorio Bertola wrote:

> Milton, the position you are pushing is that anyone should be free to 
> get a domain such as ".abortion" (your example) or ".childpornography" 
> or dot-whatever-blasphemy, and if there are countries of the world that 
> are unhappy about that, they should censor these domains or break out of 
> the global Internet.

I don't know for a fact that that is what Milton was suggesting.

But it is certainly what I feel is not merely appropriate, it is necessary.

We will destroy the internet if we reduce the internet to the thin 
residual that is left after removing every pieces that is offensive to 
someone, somewhere.

Why shouldn't there be TLD for .abortion?

Does one think that if we don't have a TLD that the abortions will go away?

What about people who engage in extreme puppy fumping, are they to be 
denied the .puppyfumpers TLD because some bitty in Tomania (from 
Chaplin's movie the Great Dictator) gets his/her nose bent because they 
don't like the thought of puppies being fumped?

If someone finds work on the Sabbath or on holy days offensive should we 
shut down the internet on those days?

The idea that every conceivable burr and splinter has to be removed from 
the internet else people will not interact is an idea that is 
inconsistent with to the history of mankind and our oft demonstrated 
human capacity to reach across borders, languages, religions, and races.

The idea that any body of internet governance should act as a modern day 
Torquemada or Savonarola is, to use an understating euphemism, 
discomforting.

It is not that this has not been tried before - in 1515 the Lateran 
Council tried to require that all books obtain the approval of the 
Catholic church in Rome - De impressione liborum - 
http://www.piar.hu/councils/ecum18.htm - (Look for the phrase "On 
printing books" to find the relevant part.)

It did not work. In fact a rather significant process of dissent was 
begun a mere two years later in Wittenberg Germany.

Sure, we ought to remove barriers that serve no purpose.  But we ought 
not to erect ICANN as the internet net nanny that suppresses expression 
because it feels that someone might be offended.

The price of freedom of expression is a thickened skin.

 > Moreover, if there is half of the world that is offended by such a
 > visible reference to, say, abortion or blasphemies or whatever, I
 > think  that you have to respect that.

Respect yes, but change my behavior to fit norms to which I do not 
subscribe, no.

There are large numbers of fundamental religious people out there, of 
many religions, who not merely disagree with my lifestyle - comfortable, 
California beach, liberal, progressive, humanistic, secular - who 
actually want to reach out and kill me as they did to so many of my 
fellow countryman a few years back in New York and Oklahoma City.

I am not going to fit my life or expression into their strictures.

It would be very improper indeed for a body of internet governance to 
empower such forces and opinions by giving them a lever to suppress the 
behavior of those who hold ideas contrary to their beliefs.

Yet that is exactly the road that ICANN is taking - suppression or, to 
use the more blunt word, "censorship".

And its not just suppression on the basis of a conflict of beliefs; 
ICANN has elevated the trademark industry to the level of a universal 
church and turned trademarks into words from on high that may not be 
uttered on the internet without the making of appropriate honorific 
noises.  Even originators of ideas and words - for example "Nike" - are 
subordinated to ICANN's golden calf of trademark,


As for the internet being a "major factor in democratizing many 
societies".  I disagree.  It is the desire and need of people who want 
to have a voice in the bodies that govern them that is the driving 
force.  The communication afforded by the internet was merely a 
lubricant making organization easier.  Telephones and televisions have 
arguably had a greater facilitating impact.

It does seem that the internet can be as much as force of suppression as 
it is of promotion of democratic principles.  For example, ICANN itself, 
the epitome of the internet based enterprise, retreated from democratic 
elections and replaced democratic processes with something substantially 
less.


> Incidentally, I think that there are several other important issues that 
> are affected by ICANN's new gTLD process. For example, depending on 
> application fees and technical requirements, the developing world might 
> be deprived of the possibility of accessing this resource

I quite agree with you.


Not merely the developing world, pretty much anybody who does not have 
the resources to pass through ICANN's gauntlet of incumbent protective 
irrelevancies.

ICANN is proposing to continue its process of choosing TLD operators on 
criteria, that were we choosing which airlines could fly, would be akin 
to evaluating whether they serve Coke or Pepsi during the flight and 
whether they publish the names and address of people who buy tickets 
rather than evaluating whether they have safe airplanes, safely 
maintained and operated.

I have suggested a simple criteria for new TLDs - 
http://www.cavebear.com/cbblog-archives/000324.html - that avoids all of 
that nonesense and substitutes an expensive, objective, fast procedure.

		--karl--
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