John Walubengo wrote:
Long Live SUSAN CRAWFORD!
She articulated it exactltly the way I always thought. If the guys want .XXX give them .XXX and more. Don't get me wrong - i happen to be the religious type and don't support porn (adult or otherwise).
However, i find it a very clever way to 'controlling' porn. Give them one ID (domain name) so that it becomes technically easier to 'Block' them off. Technically it is easier to issue one single command against 'XXX' and the whole country is 'DENIED' access to XXX (porn) than it is to try and search millions of domains for porn content in order to block them (the current solutions against porn).
In security terms it is known as the 'Honey-Pot' syndrome. If you want to trap all the flies, create a single point of attraction (e.g. XXX) and then 'Zap' them right in there. And this zapping (Blocking) can be done at Country, District and Local(organisational) Level. So give them their damn 'XXX', it becomes easier to control porn that way.
walu.
karenb@gn.apc.org --- "A. Wanjira Munyua" <alice@apc.org> wrote:
Hi all
Today the ICANN board rejected the .XXX proposal The board votes were:
9 votes against 5 votes in favor 1 abstention
Below some excerpts of the discussions from the ICANN ALAC list but entire discussion can be accessed online.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
SUSAN CRAWFORD: As a board, we cannot speak as elected representatives of the global Internet community because we have not allowed elections for board members. This application does not present any difficult technical questions, and even if it did, we do not, as a group, claim to have special technical expertise. ...
JOICHI ITO: I vote no against the resolution, and I would like to comment briefly. I think Peter, Susan and David have articulated most of the points. I would also like to point out that the discussions and arguments about how we would end up by default becoming entangled in the content aspect of this is not sufficient reason for me to vote in favor of this resolution. It is a reason to look at again, as Susan says, the whole process of gTLDs but maybe even at a higher level the raison d'etre and the existence of ICANN and how it should progress.
Susan's full statement is worth reading, so I've reproduced it below.
--Wendy
SUSAN CRAWFORD: I must dissent from this resolution, which is not only weak but unprincipled. I'm troubled by the path the board has followed on this issue since I joined the board in December of 2005. I'd like to make two points.
First, ICANN only creates problems for itself when it acts in an ad hoc fashion in response to political pressures. Second, ICANN should take itself seriously, as a private governanced institution with a limited mandate and should resist efforts by governments to veto what it does.
I'd like to talk about the role of the board.
This decision whether to admit a particular non-confusing legal string into the root is put before the ICANN board because, first, we purport to speak on behalf of the global Internet community. And second, the U.S. Department of Commerce defers to the judgments of that community when deciding what to tell its contractor to add to the authoritative root zone file.
As a board, we cannot speak as elected representatives of the global Internet community because we have not allowed elections for board members. This application does not present any difficult technical questions, and even if it did, we do not, as a group, claim to have special technical expertise.
So this is not a technical stability and security question.
It seems to me that the only plausible basis on which the board can answer the question in the negative -- so could say a group of people may not operate and use a lawful string of letters as a top-level domain -- is to say that the people affected by this decision have a broadly-shared agreement that the admission of this string to the root would amount to unjustifiable wrongdoing.
Otherwise, in the absence of technical considerations, the board has no basis for rejecting this application.
Let me explain.
The most fundamental value of the global Internet community is that people who propose to use the Internet protocols and infrastructures for otherwise lawful purposes, without threatening the operational stability or security of the Internet, should be presumed to be entitled to do so. In a nutshell, everything not prohibited is permitted.
This understanding, this value, has led directly to the striking success of the Internet around the world.
ICANN's role in gTLD policy development is to seek to assess and articulate the broadly-shared values of the Internet community. We have very limited authority. And we can only speak on behalf of that community. I am personally not aware that any global consensus against the creation of a triple X domain exists.
In the absence of such a prohibition, and given our mandate to create TLD competition, we have no authority to block the addition of this TLD to the root. It is very clear that we do not have a global shared set of values about content on-line, save for the global norm against child pornography. But the global Internet community clearly does share the core value that no centralized authority should set itself up as the arbiter of what people may do together on line, absent a demonstration that most of those affected by the proposed activity agree that it should be banned.
I'd like to speak about the process of this application.
More than three years ago, before I joined the board, ICANN began a process for new sponsored top-level domains. As I've said on many occasions, I think the idea of sponsorship is an empty one. All generic TLDs should be considered sponsored, in that they should be able to create policies for themselves that are not dictated by ICANN. The only exceptions to this freedom for every TLD should be, of course, the very few global consensus policies that are created through the ICANN forum. This freedom is shared by the country code TLDs.
Notwithstanding my personal views on the vacuity of the sponsorship idea, the fact is that ICANN evaluated the strength of the sponsorship of triple X, the relationship between the applicant and the community behind the TLD, and, in my personal view, concluded that this criteria had been met as of June 2005. ICANN then went on to negotiate specific contractual terms with the applicant.
Since then, real and AstroTurf comments -- that's an Americanism meaning filed comments claiming to be grass-roots opposition that have actually been generated by organized campaigns -- have come into ICANN that reflect opposition to this application.
I do not find these recent comments sufficient to warrant revisiting the question of the sponsorship strength of this TLD, which I personally believe to be closed.
No applicant for any sponsored TLD could ever demonstrate unanimous, cheering approval for its application. We have no metric against which
=== message truncated ===
____________________________________________________________________________________ Sucker-punch spam with award-winning protection. Try the free Yahoo! Mail Beta. http://advision.webevents.yahoo.com/mailbeta/features_spam.html