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ICANN, new TLDs, and Congress?
itchyfish writes "Looks like the fight on TLDs is going to be a long one. It seems as though Congress is going to get involved. Could be a long, long time before any TLDs see the light of day."
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Why is is a US issue? Because Congress created ICANN (essentially). There are a couple of ways that TLD allocation can be handled
In general, I prefer things being done by the private sector, but the corporate solution will likely lead to a monopoly for the benefit of the big corporations. The government and ICANN are doing things badly - name.space has shown that there is no technical limitation to many gTLDs being created, but right now, the answer is to get Congress to force ICANN to adopt a better system, then figure out a way to get the government completely out of the picture.
at http://www.icann.org/general/articles.htm read:
5.b. No substantial part of the activities of the Corporation shall be the carrying on of propaganda, or otherwise attempting to influence legislation, and the Corporation shall be empowered to make the election under 501 (h) of the Code.
What i'm not sure about is, how can ICANN be "independent", if it falls under US Law jusrisdiction, seing how it is a non-profit corporation organized within the framework of US law.
Regarding dispute itself, i'm somewhat surprized that ICANN acted this way (choosing submissions from some paying companies while refusing others), when their Bylaws, ARTICLE IV , Section 1: General Powers state:
c) The Corporation shall not apply its standards, policies, procedures or practices inequitably or single out any particular party for disparate treatment unless justified by substantial and reasonable cause, such as the promotion of effective competition.
I would say that granting some TLDs that benefit the companies which submitted them while rejecting others violates the above rule.
#include IANAL.h
#include disclaimers.h
-DVK
"The right to figure things out for yourself is the only true freedom everyone shares. Go use it"-R.A.Heinlein
Exactly. And French and German governments should leave web sites outside of their own countries alone and not force them to abide by their own national (local) laws.
America has yahoo.com and ebay.com and those are the ones that America should have influence over, not France or Germany. This is the sort of thing that gets European countries accused of cultural imperialism.
Frankly, I've stopped caring about the new top-level domains. Why? Because as things stand now, they won't make any difference to how DNS and name registration is run.
.com (or .net or .org). Unless there is going to be actual regulation by a multination organization with some clout over how the new TLDs are handed out, I don't see how they'll make any difference.
.com, .net and .org anymore, we're essentially using unlimited TLDs followed by an arbitrary string. Unless the new TLDs are enforced in some way (which at this point I don't see happening), this isn't going to change. AOL/TW will promptly go out and buy aoltw.coop, aoltw.store and so forth.
At this point, we essentially have unlimited numbers of second-level domain names that might as well be top-level domains, because they're all followed by an irrelevant and arbitrary
To sum up: because there's no difference between
Unlimited TLDs aren't the answer, what we need are the equivalent of zoning laws.
Causation can cause correlation
Historically, congress hasn't been able to keep up with the pace of change.
By the time congress actually does anything, the internet will be completely different.
TLD may not even exist anymore (see this for one of the many proposals that would make this issue moot.)
any proposal which puts one person/company/country in charge is going to be bad.
All of the new domains seem to be attempting to further subdivide .com, to re-assign meaning to the top level domain.
If we're just trying to create more namespace in the same mindset that rendered the difference between .com, .net, and .org meaningless, we may as well quit arguing about it and add nonsense domain names like .blorq, .argh, and .foom, and be done with it.
Seems like another conflict between the techies (pro-meaning) and the marketroids (anti-meaning).
If this alternate system gets popular enough, all this will become irrelevant
AC comments get piped to
This is exactly what the internet is all about: interstate commerce and commerce with foreign nations.
This reminds me of a true tale of an in-duh-vidual. An American (ok, US-ian) employee and a European employee of the same company were being transferred to an office in Japan. The US-ian employee got extra relocation money for an international relocation. When the European employee asked for the same amount, he was told, "but you're already international."
The Internet is not about interstate commerce and commerce with foreign nations. It's about commerce and communication between anyone, anwhere, regardless of who or where they are. It's specifically about not making distinctions between domestic and foreign parties in a communication.
And last I checked, "public domain" didn't mean "U.S. domain".
(and yes, I am a US citizen).
- Marty
It gets even worse than this..
l -11oct00.htm
A company called e2p has notified ICANN that they have a patent on all new TLD's..
The letter they sent to ICANN is available for viewing at http://www.icann.org/tlds/correspondence/e2p-emai
It starts off by telling ICANN that they shouldn't be thinking about new TLD's, then goes on to criticize ICANN for neglecting "Internet Business Modellers" in the search for new TLD's.
The letter (and e2p's website) are pretty stark of details, can anybody shed any light on exactly what these bozo's are trying to pull?
Actually since we created the .NET and we control most of the servers and pipes, we get to make the rules.
Personally, I welcome the government's inquiries... I hope they dissolve ICANN or restructure it. It has served no other purpose than to promote the interests of those with the most $$, in the same way that the WTO has decided to hand out previously legally owned domain names to any corporation with a few $$.
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The IHA Forums
Natural != (nontoxic || beneficial)
... how long before we see "www.slash.dot".
Bryan R.
Bryan R.
The price of freedom is eternal vigilance, or $12.50 as seen on eBay.....
Hm, it might put an end to some squatting. Who else wants a .con?
/. is a commercial entity. goto slashdot.com
Why can't we just all say "LOOK! We're DOING IT!" and setup our own root servers? Tell ICANN to piss up a rope, and let them catch up with the rest of us? It's astonishing to think that we've been limmited the way we are for so long because some group of morons can't decide if .porn or .nom can go in the root servers! What's up with that?
Fawking Trolls!
"Going to war without France is like going deer hunting without your accordion." - Jed Babbin
Enforcement on an international scale is impossible. The "world community" can barely enforce a common morality with regard to mass killings, do you really expect them to forge unity on whether or not slashdot.org belongs in .com?
I suppose some of the leftists on slashdot that get warm and fuzzy about one-world government might find themselves actually believing this is possible, but it really, really isn't.
What we need a single, flat namespace that doesn't have any "distinctions." The distinctions are unnecessary, unmanageable and unenforceable. Multinationals will claim their name in all namespaces by carrot or stick. There's no shortage of domain names if you're willing to be clever. There are, however, a shortage of obvious generic name terms and trademarked names, but that would be true in any namespace.
Or by insightful, did you mean that it gives us much insight as to what a narrow nationalist from the US thinks about their role in the world?
The Internet is a global network. If Americans seriously believe that their government should dictate how people use it, then sooner or later you can expect that network, previously founded on the principles of consensus building and cooperation, to split up. ICANN may or may not be the appropriate body to assign the numbers, but the US government, and any other group answerable to the US people alone, sure as hell isn't.
--
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
The thing is, that's just begging people to pass laws saying x-rated material should be restricted to .xxx or .sex...
Next thing you know...
1. ISP routers will be legislated into blocking such addresses at the national and ISP levels
2. at the same time, legislation could be passed that all kinds of "distasteful," "immoral", etc. (whether sexually, politically, etc.) material be religated to that TLD
you'd end up making it real easy for a government to create a national black hole list.
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This is my SIG. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
America has the .us domain, and thats the one congress should have influence over, not the international TLD's. This is the sort of thing that gets America accused of cultural Imperialism.
--Anticipation of a New Lover's Arrival, The
In the absence of such scintillating new TLDs as .sex, .www, .web, and .now, certain buses in Santa Monica and Los Angeles, CA are now advertising .la domains (.la is a country-specific TLD for Laos, in Southeast Asia.) Amazingly, not very many people have bothered. I see several .tv domains, but the only thing I see advertised with a .la TLD is the registrar itself.
I don't see the use of alternative TLDs really taking off until Joe "AOL User" Shmo is a little better versed in the workings of the Internet.
Just my 34 lira...
Zaphod B
When duplication is outlawed, only outlaws will have
Does anyone else think the $50,000 application fee for a TLD to even be considered is enough for investigation?
What the hell is ICANN doing that requires 50 G's to process an application???
Perhaps their data entry personel are making $5,000,000 / hour...
Power up the laser, and say : "I think ICANN..." :o
Again, when the Internet was researchers e-mail and college kids playing, you can do whatever you want. Once you become integral to the economic prosperity, the government must oversee it. Why? Because private groups will not represent the public's interests.
For a company that got put in control of the infrastructure, they are in a weird situation. The normal approach would be for ICANN to be an Executive Committee (i.e. appointed by the President), but they went with this quasi-public organization.
This has advantages and disadvantages. It mostly shields the Internet from Presidential Politics (although Evans could get Commerce back involved), and gives it more leeway, but it forces Congress and the White House to take major steps if they want changes. This prevents micromanagement, but it means that if it doesn't like the direction, it can get involved.
The wheels of government are slow but awesome. Perhaps we'll finally start realizing that government isn't obsolete, it still has the guns, and therefore rules.
Alex