[cooperation-wg] 'European Commission calls for greater government control over Internet'

Bastian, thanks for bringing this to the list.

I think there are a number of confusions in the posting you quote. For example just the term "...Internet extension". What we talk about are new top level domains, and that a domain name is the full domain name, including the TLD.

Yes, there are a number of parties that claim the "domain name" is only the 2nd level domain, and then that can have extensions. I presume you and everyone else on this list can understand and extrapolate to what such a view/terminology would do with the dispute resolution processes that exists.

I am an ICANN watcher, in fact, I am an officer of ICANN in the form of the chair of the Security and Stability Advisory Committee, and have been participating in for example the discussions on blocking of domain names, and the approval process.

What can be added, before I summarize, is that from a human rights perspective, there is of course a need to be able to express whatever you want (anyone should be able to choose TLD name) and to be able to communicate (communicate using the 2nd level domain name you have registered in some TLD). What we see is a conflict between these two needs:

- One might block ability to register all words as domain names

- One might block ability to communicate using a registered domain name

Which one of these two wins?

I have been talking with various HR people and the way they normally handle these cases of conflict is to see which one of these have more impact. And in this specific case, impact on the ability to communicate is stronger than the ability to use whatever word you want.

And because of this, it might not be correct from a pure HR perspective, to allow any TLD to be registered.


But, that said, having a discussions on these items, and more, to clarify a bit, and reduce the amount of fog, smoke and mirrors so that everyone themselves can make a decision on what they feel would be the correct path forward could be interesting.

What do people think?

   Patrik, co-chair of coop wg

On 2 sep 2011, at 16:04, Bastiaan Goslings wrote:

> Hi Cooperation WG,
> 
> I came across http://news.dot-nxt.com/2011/08/31/ec-greater-government-control and decided it was a good enough reason for a first post to the list. 
> 
> 'Among a long series of measures promoted in no less than six papers by the EC’s Information Society and Media Directorate-General are:
> 
> 	• A government veto over any new Internet extensions
> 	• The creation of a list of names, drawn up by governments, that would be banned from registration
> 	• Significant structural changes at overseeing organization ICANN, including at Board level and in the crucial IANA contract
> 	• An obligation for ICANN to follow governments’ advice unless deemed illegal or damaging to the Internet’s stability
> 	• Two new bodies to oversee ICANN decision-making and finances
> 
> Combined together, the measures would provide governments with de facto control over the Internet’s naming systems and bring an end to the independent and autonomous approach that has defined the Internet’s domain name system since its inception.'
> 
> The papers 'are billed as “informal background papers” and have not yet been published.'
> 
> (For an 'analysis' see http://news.dot-nxt.com/2011/08/31/ec-papers-analysis: 'Together the papers represent a wholesale effort to put governments in charge of the Internet.')
> 
> I am not an ICANN-watcher myself, nor am I aware of the nitty-gritty details of DNS-related discussions that go on in different (EU) fora. So it is hard for me to judge the merits of these .nxt articles. And maybe it is indeed just 'informal background' stuff. But this does sound quite serious though and, if it is, it comes as a surprise that I haven't seen it being mentioned elsewhere a lot... 
> 
> Any thoughts?
> 
> Cheers,
> 
> --
> 
> Bastiaan Goslings
> AMS-IX Governance and Policy Officer
> 
> AMS-IX B.V.				tel:	+31 (0)20 514 1712
> Westeinde 12			fax:	+31 (0)20 305 8990
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> http://www.ams-ix.net		bastiaan.goslings at ams-ix.net
> 
> 
>