Proposed ICANN policy: domain name censorship

[blastfromthepast]

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), the body that oversees domain names and other core Internet features, is set to get involved in politics. An ICANN draft policy that will govern the creation of new top-level domains (TLDs) would restrict anything that "shall promote hatred, racism, discrimination of any sort, criminal activity, or any abuse of specific religions or cultures." The new rule has some critics crying "Censorship!"

In their draft report on the matter, the GNSO sought to head off problems by laying down rules to prevent confusingly similar TLDs, along with any character string that might cause "technical instability." In addition, they decided that "strings [of characters in the TLD name] should not be contrary to public policy."

The policy could be ratified at the next ICANN board meeting in March. If you want to let your opinion be known, contact information for each country's GAC representative is available from ICANN.

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070227-8928.html

[domainguru]

Originally Posted by blastfromthepast

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), the body that oversees domain names and other core Internet features, is set to get involved in politics. An ICANN draft policy that will govern the creation of new top-level domains (TLDs) would restrict anything that "shall promote hatred, racism, discrimination of any sort, criminal activity, or any abuse of specific religions or cultures." The new rule has some critics crying "Censorship!"

In their draft report on the matter, the GNSO sought to head off problems by laying down rules to prevent confusingly similar TLDs, along with any character string that might cause "technical instability." In addition, they decided that "strings [of characters in the TLD name] should not be contrary to public policy."

The policy could be ratified at the next ICANN board meeting in March. If you want to let your opinion be known, contact information for each country's GAC representative is available from ICANN.

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070227-8928.html

don't see a problem with it - does anyone really want to see .nazi ?

And to be honest, when have ICANN *not* played politics with TLDs?

[blastfromthepast]

Furthermore, any member of the GAC (which includes government representatives from around the world) can freeze a TLD application for any reason. Should that happen, ICANN will "defer from proceeding with the said application until GAC concerns have been addressed to the GAC's or the respective government's satisfaction." The rule has the potential to let any government hold up any TLD application from anywhere else on the planet, though the frozen application can be thawed by the GAC as a whole.

The new proposal "would essentially make ICANN the arbiter of public policy and morality in the new gTLD space, a frightening prospect for anyone who cares about democracy and free expression," says Robin Gross, the executive director of IP Justice. Gross is a member of ICANN's Non-Commerical Users Constituency (NCUC), and she is promoting an alternate plan that gets rid of the current "contrary to public policy" language.

[Rubber Duck]

Yes, but if they are against anything that is "confusingly similar" where are all these me too dot Coms that everyone keeps twittering on about going to come from. If people identify with them (if they ever exist), then they are confusingly similar. If they don't identify with them as dot coms, then what would be the point anyway?

[blastfromthepast]

Originally Posted by Rubber Duck

Yes, but if they are against anything that is "confusingly similar" where are all these me too dot Coms that everyone keeps twittering on about going to come from. If people identify with them (if they ever exist), then they are confusingly similar. If they don't identify with them as dot coms, then what would be the point anyway?

Aha! Now there is something in that. Perfect.

[Rubber Duck]

Of course there is. What the bollucks talkers have never appreciated is that ICANN is and always has been constrainted within a WIPO framework. They cannot permit domains to be held in such a way as to undermine Intellectual Property rights. This applies as much to extensions as it does to individual names, only the size of the issue is of course very much greater. Those that thought they they or others would ever be in a postion to rip-off dot com branding are frankly fuzzy brained daydreamers. Anyway good luck to them registering all their REAL IDNs.