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ICANN Meeting off to Shaky Start in Uruguay
JoeGee writes: "Reuters is reporting that the quarterly meeting of ICANN got off to a very shaky start in Montevideo, Uruguay on Friday September 8th. Protesters claim that ICANN's domain registration policies are creating a "digital divide". A special telephone party line created for members who could not be present at the meeting went unused. ICANN seems to be internalizing the turmoil that has surrounded the non-profit corporation since its inception in 1998."
A special telephone line?
Why don't they use VoIP, and practice what they preach. Or is the purpose of their screwed-up policy to drive people off the internet and back to the stable technology of the past?
"(Man) tries to live his own life as if he were telling a story. But you have to choose: live or tell." --Sartre
"In a report released last week, the committee recommended giving six board seats to "at large" users, with one each coming from North America, Latin America, Europe, Africa, the Middle East and India and the Asian Pacific region." Just six? That is less than the majority of the body that makes up ICANN. ICANN seems to be doing a good job butting heads with the "users at large" The users at large should be defining the how we "navigate the internet". politics and technology have a long way to go still. More techies need to run for office!
Just an everyday guy....nothing special
"It smacks of potentially legislating the digital divide," Levin said.
Bildt took offense at the charge. "There are limits to the amount of rubbish I can take," he said. "Close to half the world has never made a telephone call. I would not tear down the telephone system of the U.S. because of that."
After the meeting, Levin and Izumi Aizu of the Asia Network Research described Bildt's attitude as "paternalistic" and said they were not sure if his committee would take their concerns into account.
Paternalistic, indeed -- nobody is suggesting we "tear down" the internet simply because most people on earth are too poor to afford domain names. They are suggesting that the poor be able to vote or run for office -- hardly a notion I would consider shocking.
Bildt seems to think that instituting a poll tax with only landowners able to vote is the way to increase participation in this democracy? Which version of world history did he study that led him to believe this was at all acceptable in the 21st century?
Recursive: Adj. See Recursive.
Let's concentrate on what really matters.
ICANN (Bildt, et al) has apparently laid out plans to declare that anti-democratic behavior is a good thing for a public non-profit institution that affects *all* our lives. The arrogance is astounding. The elitist board must move toward establishing direct democracy where all people of the world can participate, without their stinkin' poll tax.
Steve Magruder, Metro Foodist
Saying that effective monopolization of domain registrations is part of a "digital divide" is one of the stupidest things I've ever heard. The US has pretty much monopolized the .com/net/org/edu root domains, but that cuts both ways; If you lived in South Africa, you'd tend not to browse .com domains simply because most of those companies don't do business where you live. You'd do your surfing with .co.sa or whichever domain range is valid where you lived.
Also, frankly, vanity domains aren't extremely essential for business on the net. People get their URLs from friends and search engines and price bots, and in my experience nearly never go to "books.com" or "plumbing.com" to see what's there.
I'm sorry, folks. The digital divide only exists in the minds of socialists^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hliberals who worry about the poor folk not having computers, when it's largely a matter of education, not wealth. And the real estate along the information superhighway is practically boundless.
You have the right to try to use dark cable.
You have the right to tech support. If you wish, a customer support tech will be appointed.
You have the right against unreasonable search of your computer, unless we want to.
You have the right to be fsck'ed by large corporations with the DMCA.
You have the right to remain silent by unplugging your network conection.
Well, that's more of a computer Miranda than a bill of rights.
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
If you're talking about a society that suffers so badly from lack of infrastructure that it can't participate in the global economy, that's not a digital divide, that's a gaping chasm with nothing digital about it.
Once you start stringing wires, then everything changes. Analog phone lines can nearly always support digital communications, even if it's limited to a few kilobits per second. Old and slow computing hardware is cheap, and even if it can't play Quake II without an unacceptably low frame rate, it'll still send email or even run a web browser. (Better uninstall those Flash plug-ins, though.)
Taking cash and throwing it at a project to run fiber through the jungle, and giving Pentium IV machines and free domain names to all the inhabitants, won't help the digital divide one bit. If anything it'd create a cargo cult of the uneducated worshipping the computers, knowing that they will bring prosperity, when in fact they do nothing of the sort. (Well, maybe they'll provide a little recreation, thanks to Solitaire and Minesweeper.)
Sure, in the uk a
So, before you (maybe from a luxury position of being American?) tell others they do not need
Cheers,
Michael
---
BDOS ERR ON A:>
a "corporation" is a legal person that can bring suits, and works in the business world. It pays taxes, obeys the law, and is a real "thing."
:)
a "non-profit corporation" is any artifical person that exists for some reason other than the profit of its shareholders. The most popular and well-known non-profits are charities, such as United Way, the Boy Scouts of America, and the Salvation Army. Non-charitable non-profits also exist, used often to manage something a business wants done (such as Java.)
I believe a church is something different.
Seems this needs answering.
First, a divide is important even if there are people worse off. Do I say "go away with your penut allergy because some people have cancer"? Do I say "you should drive a 5 year old chevy and not that Audi, because some people are starving"? Do I say "you cannot have that DVD player becuase people are landless in Zimbabwe"? Of course not. A rather disingenious argument.
Second - it is very easy for the USA (is that where you are) or Europe to tell other nations that they should not care about this becuase there are people starving.
Third: the whole point about that divide is that opening up the new economy to developing nations gives them a chance to do just that, develop, so they won't be hungry. This divide is something to be taken seriously.
Cheers,
Mike
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BDOS ERR ON A:>
don't worry, someone else is working on making those rights obsolete right now.
I saw first this on Radio Free Nation
The Security Systems Standards and Certification Act (SSSCA), is set to be introduced by Senator Fritz Hollings this fall. It makes it a civil offense to create or sell any kind of computer equipment that "does not include and utilize certified security technologies" approved by the federal government. It also creates new federal felonies, punishable by five years in prison and fines of up to $500,000. Anyone who distributes copyrighted material with "security measures" disabled or has a network-attached computer that disables copy protection is covered.
As noted there, the Long Line of Idiots Theory is looking better all the time.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
Hello? McFly? I'm an at-large member, and I never heard of this... Of course no one called an unlisted, unadvertised number. You have to preregister to get the number. It took me a fair bit of searching to find that little nugget of information after reading this article. I'm on the announcement list they say has so few subscribers; I haven't seen any useful announcements.
And if public participation is so low, why do they want to lower it? How many of the current at-large members will remain at-large members once they accept their internal version of the world? The At-Large Study draft doesn't give an estimate. Fancy that.
Flamebait? You bet. They deserved to be roasted alive. This Bildt guy worked for RAND Europe. Hm. Niles is a US ex-Ambassador. Hm. Dandjinou is responsible for the African domain names mentioned in the article. Hm. Many have backgrounds that make me go Hm. Many of the agencies and groups mentioned throughout have ties that give conspiracy theorists major woodies.
Not that there's anything wrong with choosing Uruguay, but that seems an unusual place to hold an ICANN meeting. Why go there?
The official answer is probably that it is a symbol of the fact that they represent all nations, blah, blah, blah.
I believe that they just want to keep out the "rifraff" (that's you and me), and that by making the meeting places inconvenient, the representation will have an automatic bias towards the corporations or political entities that don't care about cost.
They may have chosen Uruguay because Easter Island would have been too obvious.
A dingo ate my sig...
I've received two series of emails from Neulevel within 24 hours of each other saying that many of my .BIZ domain name applications conflict with trademark claims (most of which are dubious at best) that some other people have made.
.BIZ applications very soon or they are automatically canceled (possibly as soon as Monday?). Seems simple enough, but it's not...and this is where things get interesting. Neulevel encloses the required Password in the email, BUT NOT the required Username. Neulevel says in their email that one is supposed to use the user ID they were assigned by their respective .BIZ Registrar.
.BIZ applications and I bet others can't either...a .BIZ scam in the making...? Keep in mind that persons who made trademark claims paid approx $90 USD for each claim and thus Neulevel has an incentive to make things easier for them and more difficult for everyone else.
.BIZ registrant has either forgotten their user ID, or was never assigned one by their respective .BIZ registrar, or inexplicably their so-called user ID isn't accepted by Neulevel's system.
.BIZ registrants not being able to complete their .BIZ applications due to the complexity of their system - giving one their password and not their user ID is highly unusual and appears to me to be intended to make the confirmation process so difficult and confusing that many perspective .BIZ registrants can't do it...and even worse, many people won't even realize their .BIZ applications will NEVER be submitted because they never received any emails from Neulevel and/or couldn't understand the procedure.
.BIZ registrant needs to complete their .BIZ application(s). Anything less is unfair and unethical.
The Neulevel emails then go onto to say that one must login and "complete" their
However, I can't login to complete my
In many instances the perspective
Perhaps Neulevel is counting on many perspective
I sincerely hope that Neulevel sends out a followup clarification email that contains ALL the information that a perspective
Considering that the same people show up at each ICANN meeting, moving it to obscure locations is silly. They should limit it to, say, the cities where the United Nations has a major presence: New York, Geneva, and Vienna. Or locations that have a root DNS server.
If not, you should!
Warning: This signature may offend some viewers.
I've been an At-Large member since ICANN started the project. Although I am on the announcement list I haven't received a single e-mail about meetings, initiatives or what-have-you in months (at a minimum).
I, for one, am tired of Esther Dyson's self-righteous elitist cronies telling the rest of us how the Internet should be.
I was skeptical but had hopes when the At Large initiative started. I've now come to see it as it is: a sham that gives the illusion of openness and the air of democratic legitimacy to those who willingly turn a blind eye to the autocratic, business-as-usual attitude of the ICANN Board. By the way, here's the text of a relevant rejected post I sent in:
Studies: Public Participation in Internet Policy (Your Rights Online, Internet)
The New York Times informs us that two new reports from ICANN and the Center for Democracy and Technology both say that more public participation is required in policy-making. DUH! The ICANN report says only domain name holders should have rights, while the CDT report says the process should be open to all interested parties. We'll see what happens on Nov. 14 when the reports are tabled at the next ICANN meeting.
On the state and local level, being classified as a church usually entitles the organization to a couple of perks, not the least of which is the ability to build facilities on land to which they have the right, regardless of zoning. Many municipalities have limits on that, such that a 30,000sqft church can't come and plop themselves right in the middle of a residential development made of up comparatively tiny houses.
also, being classified as a church brings up the whole religious freedoms business. churches have more constitutional rights under most regimes than do non-religious charities.
my old sig used to be funny, but then slashcode ate it and now it's not funny anymore
* Because hotmail doesnt have a .za address
.com place
Sounds like a business opportunity to me!
But the number of possible desirable hotmail.com addresses are limited, too. Does that mean there's a digital divide within that system, too?
* Because google.com returns search results from the world, and the world is a
Yes, and that annoys me sometimes; if I'm looking for products to buy, when Google returns links for European firms it doesn't help me any. What's wrong with having a "popsearch.co.za" search engine that only looks for local companies?