[ga] Re: [RAA-WG] [At-Large] Open letter to ICANN

[Hugh Dierker <hdierker2204@xxxxxxxxx>]

Vittorios points are well reasoned and sound,
 
Laws are laws. In the late 90's a bunch of IP lawyers went around trying to 
convince judges that the existing laws did or did not apply to the internet. 
Everything from expanding trademark to a new category of "any and all use of 
the word 'king' is protected"(because burger king) to insisting they could drag 
me to a state I had never heard of before because I posted something that could 
be seen there. (long arm statute hell - these guys insisted on a long galaxy 
jurisdiction statute). Most judges were smart enough to bide their time and 
wait for the UDRP and anticyberusing statutes.
 
If we learned anything during the WHOIS work here, it was; Be of assistance but 
do not do police work. Establish policies that, the violation thereof, is 
probable cause for the coppers.
But don't go around enforcing the law, or invading privacy without warrant.
 
The laws 3, civil, criminal and administrative are there already and have been 
for decades and will continue to slowly and with prudence keep pace.
 
If you see horrendous violations, get all over it like a cheap suit, netizen 
vigilance is our best weapon against the evils that lurk in womens minds(i 
guess men and children also).

As for perception. ICANN needs to stop reacting and pandering. It is old enough 
now to stand for what is right. It is through the trudging and taking on tough 
issues that it gains respect. We(and I use the word intentionally as we are all 
part - especially here, in the GA and RAA-WG where we labor without cudo) 
cannot expect or even respect perfection. But all netizens respect diligence 
and caring and trying. 
 
Your bringing your issue to light and I hope continuing to loudly and 
aggressively speak out against such abuse is what makes this "system"? work. 
How you are treated is what gives it respect.

From: Vittorio Bertola <vb@xxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: Re: [RAA-WG] [At-Large] Open letter to ICANN
To: "At-Large Worldwide" <at-large@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Cc: raa-wg@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Date: Tuesday, April 7, 2009, 5:45 AM

Derek Smythe ha scritto:
> Hi
> 
> Re: Open letter to ICANN
> 
> http://www.badwhois.info/wp/?p=256
> 
> Well worth a read to see what devastating effect registrars who ignore
> reports of fake whois are having, also the general internet user
> perception of ICANN.

I think you are making a fundamental mistake here - you want a frauding
website taken down by ICANN because it has incorrect Whois information.
What you should want is rather that a frauding website is taken down by
its country's police because it violates its country's laws.

I would be very, very, very concerned if ICANN staff started to take
decisions on whether a website is "criminal" or not, possibly just by
having a quick look at its home page or because of blanket assumptions
like those made in the complaint, such as "Site gathers personal
information on insecure form. Legitimate businesses do not gather this
type of information without security precautions".

I would also be very concerned if ICANN started to disable domain names
on the grounds that "the postal code entered is incorrect".

However, I concur with the letter that the WDPRS is a useless service
that appears to have been deployed more as a token effort than for real.
I think it should just be dropped - if people suspect that a website is
doing fraud, they should call the police, not ICANN. If there is the
need for cross-national cooperation, the various polices should just do
their job and get organized to cooperate quickly and effectively. If
there are countries that do not cooperate, then this is definitely a
matter for national diplomacies to sort out - the US was able to impose
its flavour of intellectual property regulation to the whole world
through TRIPs and bilateral agreements, don't tell me that it is not
strong enough to get cooperation on cybercrime.

ICANN, in any case, should care more about Internet fraud and be more
cooperative - but possibly by referring these (very valid and important)
complaints to the appropriate law enforcement agencies depending on the
countries involved. It could act as an information clearinghouse that
could be very useful.

Finally - about the "general internet user perception of ICANN":

The "general internet user perception of ICANN" is non-existing -
users
don't know that ICANN exists.

If you refer to "active users" and user groups, however, the
perception
is then much different according to the part of the world. For example,
in Europe ICANN is usually perceived as an instrument to further the
U.S. control over the Internet, for example by removing from the
Internet the privacy that is guaranteed to European citizens by their
national laws. And please don't be upset about this - it is not
advocacy, it is just a fact that derives from cultural differences.

Ciao,
-- 
vb.                   Vittorio Bertola - vb [a] bertola.eu   <--------
-------->  finally with a new website at http://bertola.eu/  <--------

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