Re: [ga] no problem with www.nukeisrael.com

[Hugh Dierker <hdierker2204@xxxxxxxxx>]

Karl,
   
  I share your apriori censorship concerns and even more ICANN censorship.
   
  But one may not properly incite muder or yell fire in a crowded theatre. Nor may one specifically plan an assasination., on or off the net.
  I like your "smoke" example.  With this said it is up to "law enforcement" to make the call on prosecution - definately not a registrar or ICANN

  e
  
Karl Auerbach <karl@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
  
On Sat, 11 Mar 2006, Esther Dyson wrote:

> Imagine this same article, but now replace the domain names and organizations 
> with Chinese dissident organizations. I don't know what is actually said on 
> these sites, nor what is said on the sites of Chinese dissidents, but I do 
> know that it is *not* Tucows' job to be moral police or viiglantes. If the 
> Canadian gov wants to shut them down, then indeed the Canadian government 
> should do so (if its laws so dictate). But then they should shut down the 
> *organizations,* not just their websites.

I agree with you completely - that it is not the registrar's job to 
suppress what is a mere utterance of a name on the basis of presumed 
semantics.

And in practice I see this as being very difficult to do - for example 
suppose someone tries to register "smoke-olliestan.com"? There is slang 
usage of the word "smoke" as a synonym for "kill". So is 
"smoke-olliestan.com" to be denied registration because someone might be 
expressing the thought that Olliestan (which lies to the northwest of 
Kyjganistan) should be destroyed? Or perhaps it's only that someone is 
opening up a tabacconist shop in Olliestan?

And what if the name to be registered looks like 
xn--euhaiiejj73286k3wja7adkadjdf82bfndlk.com? But in the script of 
northern Olliestanese means "smoke-kyjganistan.com"?

Those are calls that are too tought to impose on a registrar and, as you 
say, the real test ought to be use not registration.

But that brings us to the deeper issue, which is this: How do we prevent 
the mechanisms of internet governance from becoming tools for national 
policy?

We are not in a good position to defend against this:

We have alread imposed a system of domain name banning to protect mere 
trademarks.

Certainly one can argue that if the ICANN mandated rules over dns name 
registrations contain rules to protect trademarks than it is only natural 
that there be even more stringent rules to protect greater interests, such 
as national reputation or security?

The point I am making here is that the rules that ICANN has adopted to 
protect trademarks has established a pattern in which ICANN is viewed as 
not a protector and organizer of neutral mechanisms of DNS and IP 
addresses, but rather as a place in which other, non-technical, policies 
can be put into effect.

In other words, once politicized for trademark purposes, it is not much of 
a leap to politicize ICANN and its rules for other purposes.

To my mind this is what I fear most about what the US and the IGF can do 
in the internet governance space - that is to politicize it as a vehicle 
for national (and international) policies rather than leaving it to be 
merely a neutral place where the technical mechanics of the net are be 
oiled, tuned, and kept running without asking why.

--karl--





		
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