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US Seeks Veto Powers Over New TLDs
suraj.sun writes "The Obama administration is quietly seeking the power for it and other governments to veto future top-level domain names, a move that raises questions about free expression, national sovereignty, and the role of states in shaping the future of the Internet. At stake is who will have authority over the next wave of suffixes to supplement the venerable .com, .org, and .net. At least 115 proposals are expected this year, including .car, .health, .nyc, .movie, and .web, and the application process could be finalized at a meeting in San Francisco next month."
There is no surprise that Obama wants this power.
It's just the thing they do. All governments and all people who lead them lust for power. Obama is no exception.
Think about it: if you are a politician and aren't crazed with power-lust, you will be crushed by another politician who is. So we have a system where only the most maniacal, greedy, authoritarian-minded can get into power. Democracy? Ha.
http://www.opennicproject.org/
You do not represent the interests of the world population
They rarely represent the interests of their own population. Do you think they care?
You do not represent the interests of the world population
They rarely represent the interests of their own population. Do you think they care?
But they always represent the corporations... Especially the ones padding there un-audited re-election campaigns.
I take no responsibility for what I say. Even though I'm never wrong
of all of the massively important/pressing issues, why are you putting so much energy into ruining one of the few things left that are actually free?
Clearly someone needs to be in charge of new TLDs. I mean, seriously, we've got .jobs, .mobi, .museum, .aero, .info, .biz? For fuck's sake, when will this shit stop? My main concern with the plan here is that there's no way Obama is going to rule over TLD approvals with an iron fist. He's probably going to fucking allow some new TLDs. We need someone with some fucking balls, someone who will go through the whole goddamned queue and stamp DENIED. DENIED. DENIED. DENIED on the entire stack and then shit on it before delivering it back to the applicants.
Seriously. We were fine with .com, .org, .net, .mil, .gov, .edu and a bunch of country codes. If you want a new TLD, it had better be a goddamn country code or I don't want to even hear you fucking talk about it. Take your stupid industry-specific vanity TLD bullshit and do us all a favor and shut your fucking hole. Forever.
A "fairer" idea: Stop issuing new non-country/U.N. TLDs. .com.us, .edu.us, etc. for anyone with an existing or new .com, .edu, etc. for the next 20 years.
Put everyone on notice that if they register a NEW 2nd-level non-country domain name now (foo.com) it will be revoked in 10 years. Give existing domain owners a little longer - say, 15-20 years - to retire existing domains. Reserve
People won't like it but at least it will end the bickering.
Now, as for new 2nd-level.us domains, the USA can do that without stepping on other countries sovereignty and they can make whatever.cc without stepping on America's.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
The social conservatives didn't think porn would go away if they opposed .xxx. They were just afraid of 'legitimising' it - .xxx would have created a place for porn, while the social conservatives held that porn should have no place at all.
Hopefully my suggestion for a new .crap tld that can be forced upon websites without the owner's consent will be implemented.
Why do we need more TLDs? .museum, .name, .aero, .biz, etc. already seemed like they were pushing it.
http://pinopsida.com
The increase in power of the state (with technical solutions to oppress dissent) was inevitable.
That's where you are wrong. The increase of the power of the state is never inevitable, and can be pulled back. Tunisia has already done so.
You don't need to go to those extremes though to pull back state power. In the case of the U.S. that means voting for people who want to cut the budget because the less money the government has, they less power they wield. It's why voting for people who believe in power being in the hands of the states is better than those wanting the federal government to run things, because the more locally power is concentrated the more obvious abuses will be.
I agree with your assessment that the current direction is one of state + corporations running things. So take away federal power and the pairing will naturally dissolve. Few giant corporations can actually stand up under their own weight and bloat without being propped up by government, so we should let those companies unable to stand without public help die so that a new forest of companies can emerge from the ashes. Preserving the cycle of competition is far more important than preserving any one company.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
The Obama administration is proposing (PDF) that domain approval procedures be changed to include a mandatory "review" by an ICANN advisory panel comprised of representatives of roughly 100 nations. The process is open-ended, saying that any government "may raise an objection to a proposed (suffix) for any reason." Unless at least one other nation disagrees, the proposed new domain name "shall" be rejected.
This would create an explicit governmental veto over new top-level domains. Under the procedures previously used in the creation of .biz, .name, and .info, among others, governments could offer advice, but the members of the ICANN board had the final decision.
If you didn't already know, ICANN is under contract to the United States government. So Obama's policy would effectively globalize the approval of new TLDs, in effect giving the US less power.
And if the story is to be believed, a TLD is only automatically rejected if one or more countries object and no countries disagree. If countries disagree or cannot form a consensus, the TLD isn't automatically rejected. Or specifically, from the PDF:
String Evaluation: The GAC advises the ICANN Board to instruct ICANN staff to amend the following procedures related to the Initial Evaluation called for in Module 2 to include review by governments, via the GAC. Any GAC member may raise an objection to a proposed string for any reason. If it is the consensus position of the GAC not to oppose objection raised by a GAC member or members, ICANN shall reject the application. (Note that the application fees should be refunded to the applicant).
Explanation: This proposal meets a number of compelling goals. First it will diminish the potential for blocking of top level domain strings considered objectionable by governments, which harms the architecture of the DNS and undermines the goal of universal resolvability. Second, affording governments the opportunity, through the GAC, to advise the ICANN Board that there is consensus GAC advice regarding particular proposed strings that should not be processed is supportive of ICANN’s commitment to ensure that its decision are in the global public interest.
(Emphasis added.)
So, in effect, it's creating an international body where members can object, but other members can block an objection. To my understanding, that's pretty much the opposite of veto power, and it's certainly not a US government takeover of DNS TLDs (in as much as they didn't own the process already).
Really, it all depends on how much faith you have that the other, saner countries will block objections instead of being pussies.
It's better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don't want and get it.
- E. Debs
It is merely a religious dogma that the internet requires exactly one domain name root.
One way to fight censorship of domain names is to have multiple roots.
It would be bad to have multiple roots that lead to different answers to the same query.
The solution is to have *consistent* but multiple DNS roots. That way any censorship could be obviated simply by users (or their ISP's changing to an uncensored root.)
The definition of "consistent" makes a difference. Some define it as being absolutely the same. I give relax that a bit to say that if a top level domain (TLD) exists then it must have the same contents in all roots that carry it, but that not all roots need carry every TLD.
(If TLDs have disputed contents than I claim that they are tainted goods and that any self-respecting root operator ought to put a pox on both their houses and carry none of the disputants' versions.)
A side effect of this approach is that, like TV channels fighting for space on cable and satellite provider's, new TLDs can arise and fight for visibility and user share without the need of a centralized authority such as ICANN.
There will, of course, be situations in which abc.example won't resolve in a root that doesn't carry .example. But progress is never perfect - look at the way the telephone system collapsed with the introduction of the touch pad and the revolutionary '#' and '*' keys.
It's mainly a scam to increase revenue for registrars by getting people to buy $TRADEMARK.foo and $TRADEMARK.bar when they only really want to use $TRADEMARK.baz. And the recent proliferation of stupid TLDs has no positive benefits.
You should know by now the title and summary are usually wrong. The proposal is that veto power be given to an international review board made up representatives of at least 100 nations. So what is proposed is exactly the opposite of what you seem to be complaining about. This is spreading out the power to make decisions about new TLDs among many nations to make sure the interests of the world are represented.
Fuck off.
That is all.
while (true != false) process_more_stupid_code();
Someone else pointed out how you misunderstood the article, but I have a separate point: I am sure you agree at one point the United States had ownership rights to the internet. My question is at what point, and on what rationale, did they lose those ownership rights? When the first country accepted the US's offer to be let onto the network? After a certain saturation?