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Can World Governments Veto Your Domain Name?
AugstWest writes "There's been talk recently of the Obama administration wanting the right to shoot down possible TLDs, but it looks like things may be going even a step further — According to this article by Laura Stotler, 'the NTIA is asking for the power to object to any proposed Internet address for any reason.' What happens if, say, the government of Germany decides they don't like your domain name? ICANN's had its share of bureaucratic nightmares, what happens when world governments also have a say?"
Damn... my idea to have NaziMohammed.com goes down the drain.
grrrr
All your domain are belong to US!
Love many, trust a few, do harm to none.
...registering www.gayspacenazis.com now...
This is a really wonderful idea. I certainly wouldn't want to register a domain that might not be acceptable to every bureaucrat in every government on the planet. This way, if there's something that a particular government doens't like, they can just remove it for me. Simple! This will be awesome!
"ooops, nope, can't use that one!" - NTIA
Information wants to be expensive AND wants to be free. So you have Value vs. Cheap distribution fighting each other.
Of course they quote this line:
Then in order to push their pov they ignore the very next line:
No single country can veto something, it takes a majority to agree to the veto.
Your hair look like poop, Bob! - Wanker.
While it might not get you very recognized, you could setup your own DNS root servers for your friends to use. With this approach, you could choose any name you wanted, and just forward all unknown requests to a ICANN root server.
We don't need any more TLDs. We should be phasing out some of the existing ones, not creating new ones. The .mil and .gov TLDs should be transitioned to reside under .us, and .net and .edu should be transition to reside under the appropriate country. Everything else other than .com, .org, and country TLDs should be phased out.
why can't each country have their own TLD (already off to a good start), and they can manage their TLD however they want to...
how you want to deal with the .com/.net/.org domains is up for debate... perhaps transition them over to the appropriate country domain (ex: google.com.us), or just prevent further registration, and leave them with US.
There is no law that says there can be only one DNS root. If the Governments start censoring domain names, a competing DNS structure will arise, e.g. based from OpenDNS or some other entity.
Come on, there's a problem with someone registering IRS.usa. I could think of 100 worse abusive and misleaing TLDs. Custom TLDs was a stupid and dangerous idea to begin with.
Google's Super Secret Search Algorithm: SELECT @search_results FROM internet WHERE @search_results = 'good'
Can't anything be done through the legal system anymore? Or is that just for those without money?
Twinstiq, game news
It's time for a peer to peer DNS system that doesn't have an easily controllable central server.
I'm thinking perhaps a mix could be used. P2P for the replacement of the root servers, and the rest of the system kept the way it currently is. The root servers are what all this is targeted at anyway.
Figuring out how to deal with collisions and attempts at impersonation will be tricky though. Certs can be used, but the CAs reintroduce he same problem.
Does anyone else thing it's rather silly that ICANN is seriously considering new, highly-specific TLDs?
For example, a .nyc TLD is rather silly, as one can already get example.ny.us domains. If one has a New York office for their company, why not simply set up a subdomain of nyc.example.com? That way the organizational hierarchy is preserved without needing additional TLDs.
The article also mentions that the dotGAY Initiative and the .GAY Alliance are looking to get a .gay TLD. Why? Why not get gayalliance.org, assuming they don't already have it?
I'm curious as to the utilization of the less-common TLDs like .info, .jobs, .museum, and so on. I can't imagine they're terribly useful; why would a company buy example.jobs rather than simply use jobs.example.com?
Sure, ICANN wants to make money and trademark holders would need to re-purchase their names in different TLDs, so I see the financial motivation to create new TLDs, but it still seems like a bad idea for the internet as a whole.
If I register "ntiasucks.com" now, will it be grandfathered in?
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
goodbye whitehouse.com
How much time is going to be wasted while the world's governments pick over each domain level name? I can see it adding weeks or months to each application.
And what happens when, not if, when a government rejects an application so that one of their own businesses can picked up the domain?
In conclusion, I think the only solution here is to keep governments out of the domain assigning business.
YES WE CAN !
The Wise adapts himself to the world. The Fool adapts the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the Fool.
Germany, Costa Rica, Mozambique, or any other country to veto any domain they want... within the borders of their own country, not outside them
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
As I've always thought, why don't we have people who know about the internet be in control of the internet. To politicians, posting you latest campaign meeting on Facebook does not mean you know about the internet!
Looks like all the hopes of technosavvy Obama electorate were in vain. Obama uses his techno awareness mostly for evil.
I do not believe in karma. "Funny"=-6. Do good and forbid evil. Yours, Oft-Offtopic Flamebaiting Troll.
“Ironically, the US has become the most formidable world advocate of burdensome government oversight and control in internet governance,” said Milton Mueller, a Syracuse University professor.
Yes, that is ironic. Because in all other ways the US is a shining beacon of hope and joy and all things wonderful to us all.
Seriously, talk about a reason to use an alternate DNS source -
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alternative_DNS_root
Service guarantees Citizenship! Questions Guarantee GITMO.... Amerika Uber Alles!
Has there ever been a less effective US president?
Domain names are addresses. I think in general it's time we stop thinking about our vanity and start thinking about the fucking CONTENT located on each website, from a kind of internet quality perspective. While it isn't any government's business what I call my website, I don't know if it matters that much what my domain name is, so I don't care if it had to be changed for some viable reason.
glennbeckrapedandmurderedayounggirlin1990.com/ (now a dead link) comes to mind here as being one of those domains I wouldn't want to see sabotaged by a government, just because it's a possibly slanderous domain name. It's an address and it's a freedom of speech issue that someone can put anything they want as a domain. I think this is why we need a free internet.
But here's the other rub. If some governments are going to start imposing restrictions on domains, I can see a totally viable internet business as being a forwarding one, where you put your server IP in and alias it to whatever the fuck you want, which actually wouldn't be that fucking hard right now. Then people of a particular mindset could use the forwarding service to bypass any form of government restriction and we can all say fuck you to big government, but unlike the Tea Party -- we could really mean it.
The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
Its already happening ,..For example...check http://www.rojadirecta.com/
Luckily they changed their address to http://www.rojadirecta.es/
In the beginning anybody could set up a radio station, only needing to conform to the standards of the radio receivers.
Then came government regulation: on frequencies, on receiver standards, on power, and even on call letters.
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Are there lessons to be learned from Egypt? (Something about not just being a disturbed observer, sitting at your keyboard?)
Tell me, what CAN'T World Governments do, dude?
We should study this problem through a National Url Tiered Systems Appellations Control Comitee. Look them up on nutsacc.com
They can have my /etc/hosts file when they pry it out of my cold, dead hands!
Have gnu, will travel.
Didn't Kazakhstan pull Sasha Cohen's domain after the movie came out?
ITs nothing new, egypt tried and failed horribly. If they put to much pressure on domain names to point of being able to disconnect them from internet, an underground dns server will startup in no time, just as file sharing overcame all no matter how many laws corrupt music and movie industry law makers made, this will be no different, you cannot stop a majority from getting at what they want, wiki leaks has proven this, file sharing has proven this, there is nothing people cannot do united.
That's the letters after the last dot in the domain names. So we don't end up with http://barber.mainstreet.eastpodunk/
Sorry, Couldn't help posting the obligatory Lord of the Rings reference. Carry on.
Hint: it's not a domain name.
But their TLDs disturb me a little.
NITA: NO!! (slam)
.
We're already seen this.
In the US, where political speech is mostly protected, this may be an argument for persevering our freedom of address-ing.
I wondered why my .teabagger got turned down.
Sounds like it's time to implement a regime change in D.C.
You need to step the fuck back and think about what you posted.
Where the hell do come up with Americans == The US Government?
Have you been off-planet for the last couple of decades? The US Government is solely-owned subsidiary of some corporation. Bought and paid for.
The people you're going off on are not the US Government, they're fellow Slashdotters. You asshat.
FIRST.POST
hopefully the government does not hold up my submission.
Yes We Can !
I want to register dev.null.
I am the unwilling control for my Origin.
I object to the notion ICANN is a non-profit organization operating in the best interests of the Internet. They are mearly a front for domain registrars...back in the day when ICANN had people that really cared they activly resisted calls for opening the flood gates on TLDs.
The only thing TLDs sprawl is good for is raising registrar revenues and confusing the living hell out of end users and trademark holders alike.
In typical Slashdot fashion, the headline is very misleading. Only new top level domains (TLDs) would be affected by this. It's never been possible for just anyone to create a new TLD anyway. However, this veto power would be stupid. The original purposes of the existing TLDs have been mostly ignored, so they're generally meaningless. There does need to be a more open system rather than planners trying to determine what each TLD will be for up front.
Welcome to Communism! Where the government can take away your hard earned property just because they want to! Ask how wonderfully this general mechanism works for China...
Um, you're missing the point. It's not that we don't trust foreign governments, it's that we don't trust any governments. That's not an American thing. That's anybody-with-a-brain thing. History shows repeatedly that when governments have the authority to do something, they always abuse that authority. Always. Sure, they may use that authority for good purposes most of the time, but they will also use it to serve their own interests...which is frequently not in the best interest of the populace. Governments have to be kept in check, just like people.
Not everything any government could potentially theoretically may want to do is automatically evil
But plenty of things that a lot of governments actually really do are day-in, day-out, routinely evil. It is their chartered, stated purpose to be that way, and they actually are. So, I'm not sure what you think "you stupid Americans" has to do with it, other than you're just part of the generally hateful noise floor.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
Why do we have generic domain names at all? Wouldn't it be simpler to only have ccTLD's. We could then be spared all this so called "internet governance".
You could say that countries don't belong in the virtual world. But countries are mostly sociological stuctures created by humans. So they should have a place in the virtual world just as in the material world.
echo -n blabla | md5sum | cut -b 1-5
What's that World Government crap? Overthrow ICANN !!!!
Sounds like it's time to implement a regime change in D.C.
Oh for fucks sake, get a grip. You have no idea what is happening in Tunisia or Egypt. You are able to use a computer freely, and haven't been living under a dictatorship for the last three decades. You have access to clean water, electricity, roads, fuel and communication. You think anyone in Egypt gives a fuck about TLDs right now?
It has everything to do with it.
Nowhere in the entire world that I've travelled to or had contact with - and that's quite a bit of it - do you find the same conspiracy theory base attitude towards government. Not even in countries where the government actually is evil.
Most people, even and sometimes especially those who live under an oppressive government, are able to see the world in shades of grey. That means understanding that some things a government does are good, and some are bad, and most are a matter of perspective.
It is their chartered, stated purpose to be that way, and they actually are.
That's a typical quote you'd not hear anywhere in Europe or Asia, and not in very many places in South America or even Africa, where they arguably have the worst governments.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
we don't trust any governments. That's not an American thing. That's anybody-with-a-brain thing.
No, it isn't. Anyone non-american with a brain knows that the world is not that simple, that governments come in good and bad, and that a lot of things are a matter of perspective.
History shows repeatedly that when governments have the authority to do something, they always abuse that authority. Always.
If you wait long enough, you will certainly find proof. What you ignore is the many years inbetween. And, of course, the good that you rightfully need to consider as well.
I'm no friend of my current government, absolutely not. They're incompetent nutcases, idiots, powermongers and things I don't yet have words for.
But there's in important difference between seing government as evil per se and seing it as a tool that - like all tools - can be used well or badly, or abuse, and thus needs to be put into the hands of the right people.
Governments have to be kept in check, just like people.
There's no difference. Governments aren't run by aliens or SkyNet, they're run by people. To abuse another american proverb: "Governments don't oppress people. People oppress people."
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
Where the hell do come up with Americans == The US Government?
Nowhere. Maybe you should add comprehension to your list of skills, you already have reading on it, which is a good start.
The people you're going off on are not the US Government, they're fellow Slashdotters. You asshat.
Nowhere did I intend to go off on the US government. It was my full intention to go off on the slashdotters. I don't like your government any more than you do, but that doesn't mean this simplistic, bullheaded, "if you're not with us you're against us" attitude towards your own government is right. That's a medieval kind of thinking, that anyone who doesn't work the way you'd prefer must be in league with the devil or otherwise pure evil.
The world is not that simple. Governments are not all bad all the time, though the do evil things sometimes. Not all muslims are terrorists, though some are. Not all germans are Nazis, even though half a century ago most were. Not all americans are stupid, there actually are a few with brains. I even know a priest who I'm fairly sure is not a child molester. There are always exceptions, there is never a single simple sentence to explain a complex situation, and when you look at it, you'll even find your terms misleading - what exactly is "the government", for instance? Where does it begin and where does it end? Precisely? Is the policeman "the government"? The fireman? The guy sweeping the sidewalk? The nurse in the state-run hospital? "The government" is a fuzzy entity when you look closely. And that's important because while Obama or Merkel or Mubarak are clearly a part of "the government", they are not identical to it. And most of the evil does not begin with them, and much not even come across them. The real powers in most governments are not the leading public figures, but the unseen administration under them.
And once you start into a real, serious discussion about government, you see how ridiculous this primitive "it's all evil" attitude is. That's like saying "all plants are green" or "all animals have four legs". At first glance it's right, at second glance it's wrong, at third glance it's just stupid to say something like that, and if you discuss it with a biologist, you'll find out that "plants" and "animals" are terms that are quite a bit more complicated than you'd thought (as are "green" and "legs").
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
Not even in countries where the government actually is evil.
Right, because the people in North Korea have a lot of opportunities to say what they think, right? They don't have to theorize about whether their governent is evilly keeping them miserable, because they get to live that reality every day, and get to head off to enormous labor camps where they get to starve to death if they complain. At best.
That's a typical quote you'd not hear anywhere in Europe or Asia
Yes, those silly people in Eastern Europe didn't have a thing to say about their governments before they replaced them with something resembling modern constitutional democracies, right? You don't get as much of it Russia, of course, because we're back to seeing journalists shot down in the street when they make the sort of comments you say nobody makes. And then you have places like Hugo Chavez's increasingly autocratic little totalitarian-minded socialist wonderland, where the people who complain about the government are physically beaten for entering elections, have their newspapers and radio stations seized for questioning things like his new rule-by-fiat powers, etc. And then you've got people jailed and killed in Iran for saying the things you claim nobody says.
So what's your point? That people who like having oppressive governments don't complain about them, and that for some reason you're not hearing a lot from the people living under them who wish they weren't? That's really insightful of you.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
Let's just use numbers similar to phone numbers. Solves all problems regarding who has the right to a good domain -- they all suck.
Right, because the people in North Korea have a lot of opportunities to say what they think, right?
Fox News is not the only place where people can speak their minds, and North Korea is not the only place with an oppressive government.
You see the current revolution in Egypt on TV. I've actually talked to egyptian people in Egypt about their government. My view is certainly not representative because I could only speak to a few people. But I heard years ago what you only see on TV very recently.
Yes, those silly people in Eastern Europe didn't have a thing to say about their governments before they replaced them with something resembling modern constitutional democracies, right?
You missed the point by about 0.5 AU, congratulations. Yes, those people disliked and ultimately removed their governments. They still, not then and not now, have a general distrust of (abstract) Government. Americans distrust Government - the abstract, "per se" term. People elsewhere distrust their particular, actual government. They still believe in the concept of government.
So what's your point?
Learn to read. I've stated my point clearly and more than once. If you want to demonstrate imaginative superior dialectics against an imaginary position you attempt to attribute to the nearest bystander who happens to argue something that has a remote resemblance to something that once met a close relative of what you are actually trying to attack, you should at least be less transparent.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
I've stated my point clearly and more than once
And repeating over and over it doesn't make it any more based in reality.
The United States was born out of not only a distrust of, but an actual rejection of the government that was running it. In shrugging off European rule, the people who framed the US constitution set it up specifically so that government's reach and influence was minimized and could be checked by intentionally adversarial forces within its deliberate structure and through the powers left to the individual states and their citizens. The whole point of the US constitution is to prevent the government from getting in the way of its people. The constitution is set up to cause government not to trust itself, and to give as many opportunities as possible for citizens to straighten it out when it veers towards ruling instead of serving.
Many US citizens do indeed harbor deep-seated frustration over "government," because in the last several decades (and thus, for the entirety of most people's lives), the people who have had the legislative power for the longest stretches of that period (the left) have systematically sought to alter the government's role in private lives. Because this is counter-constitutional, doing so requires feats of legislative deceit, and routine acts of spectacular disengenuousness and BS on the part of the people pitching such changes. Of course people are suspicious of legislatures that resort to outright lies in order to - at every opportunity - increase the depth of the government's role in their lives.
The recently passed health care legislation is essentially the pinacle of such deceit, with the three people pushing it the hardest doing the most overt, easily debunked lying about it as they proceeded to ram it through agains the will of the majority of Americans. As more come to understand what's been done, ever more want to see it undone. Of course you're sensing distrust: the left was caught BSing about virtually every aspect of a law they said that they hadn't even read before votiing on it, and which they said must be passed before people could see what was in it. Are you suggesting that Americans should not recoil at that sort of governance? And before you pretend that it's that particular session of congress that caused that mistrust, you need to put it in the context of decades of the same stuff, aimed at the same leftist goals. The pendulum has occasionally swung back the other way, as people see what's really going on, and it has just swung very hard the other way, because enough people have recognized the destructive, oppressive motivations and idealogies that recently manifested themselves in that piece of legislation and the tactics used to force it through.
There will be sustained mistrust of those who aspire to divert the government from its chartered purpose for as long as they keep trying to pull Nanny State stuff like that. And since it's been going on (with a few happy interruptions) since FDR, it has a long track record. It has nothing to do with disliking the institution of government per se, it's the dislike for the sustained, decades-long efforts of the far left to distort the government's role. It's much better to talk about it, out loud and non-stop, in an effort to de-fang that movement's grip on liberty and on the few taxpayers who are actually asked to pay for it all, than it is to simply wait for it all to turn into a Greece, a Spain, an Ireland, or a Portugal. It's not about distrust, it's about the surety that allowing a government and its relationship to the people to be modified in that way will result in exactly that sort of trouble. Because there seems to be an endless supply of at least a few Nanny State types, the vigilance against them will never go away. You're confusing an accurate judgement of the far left's intentions (with regard to government power) with distrust of the necessary institution of government itself.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
The United States was born out of not only a distrust of, but an actual rejection of the government that was running it.
You're not the only country in the world with a revolution, you know? In fact, compared to most others, your overthrow of your government was painless. Maybe that's why you think it's not such a big deal.
The whole point of the US constitution is to prevent the government from getting in the way of its people.
That's where things begin to differ, yes. Every other revolution tried to put in a better government. Your goal was to have less government. People elsewhere still believe that government can be made better. You believe that better equals less.
In a country where you have everything, and don't really understand anymore why you pay those taxes, that might be an understandable attitude. In a country where people will starve to death if the government stops supplying food, that's suicide.
because in the last several decades (and thus, for the entirety of most people's lives), the people who have had the legislative power for the longest stretches of that period (the left) have systematically sought to alter the government's role in private lives.
Quite frankly, from outside that's pure nonsense. All your governments have tried to get more control, only the means differ. The right-right pushes through terror hysteria, the middle-right pushes through health care. You don't have a left. Your so-called "left" would be a conservative party over here in Europe.
Are you suggesting that Americans should not recoil at that sort of governance?
I recoil at ours, and while I think your current one is a ton better than the one before, you're free to dislike it. But you need to realize that the "less government" strawman is just that. Read the book-within-a-book in "1984" again. It explains the process very clearly.
Do you really think the Tea Party, for example, would reduce government and/or government spending? Please. Once a politician has his greedy hands on tax money, he doesn't give it back. They'll just change who gets it.
Nanny State
You have absolutely no idea what you're talking about. None, nada, zilch, zero. You remind me of a man who is afraid he will become homosexual against his will because his wife asks him to comb his hair. You are incredibly far away from anything that could rightfully be called a "Nanny State". Heck, you don't have half of the government services that the rest of the world considers essential. Health care? I don't know many non-3rd-world countries who don't have something like that.
wait for it all to turn into a Greece, a Spain, an Ireland, or a Portugal.
That's an entirely different thing, and has nothing to do with facts. This is an evil meeting of politics and out-of-control economy. Portugal, for example, has no problems justifying the ratings, and has in fact less debt than most of Europe, including France, Germany, etc.
Do some more research on that before you use it as an argument.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org