Interesting People mailing list archives
Re: Nothing like prior constraint. No courts just NetSol!!! Internet company suspends politician's website over Qur'an film
From: David Farber <dave () farber net>
Date: Sun, 23 Mar 2008 17:27:31 -0700
________________________________________ From: Steve Crocker [steve () shinkuro com] Sent: Sunday, March 23, 2008 7:17 PM To: David Farber Cc: Steve Crocker; ip Subject: Re: [IP] Re: Nothing like prior constraint. No courts just NetSol!!! Internet company suspends politician's website over Qur'an film Karl, Perhaps you can also comment on the effect of non-ICANN controlled registries and registrars. As you know well, but for the benefit of the other readers, ICANN's contract rules apply to the "generic" top level domains -- com, net, org, info, biz, museum, aero, mobi, etc. -- but do not apply to the "country code" top level domains -- uk, de, se, jp, in, br, etc., etc. Similarly, ICANN has some contractual authority over the accredited registrars who sell the gTLD domains, but there other registrars serving the ccTLDs which are not accredited by ICANN. The ccTLD community is not bound by a single set of rules, so perhaps there are registries and registrars among that community who would take a different approach toward possibly offensive content. Of course, protection of expression regarding the Qur'an is only one part of the overall equation. Sale of Nazi memorabilia, child porn, phishing and other phenomena also draw attention and create calls for controlling content or finding out the identity of the purveyor. Your formula of limiting action unless it violates the laws of the home country doesn't address the issue of significant differences among countries. Steve On Mar 23, 2008, at 6:51 PM, David Farber wrote:
________________________________________ From: Karl Auerbach [karl () cavebear com] Sent: Sunday, March 23, 2008 4:52 PM To: David Farber Cc: ip Subject: Re: [IP] Nothing like prior constraint. No courts just NetSol!!! Internet company suspends politician's website over Qur'an film David Farber wrote:From: tariq biziou [tariq.biziou () gmail com]Network Solutions announced late Saturday that it had suspended the site, www.fitnathemovie.com , as the company assesses whether it contravenes its "acceptable use policy."You will find that many, perhaps most, domain name registrars have similar policies that allow them to take over a domain name registration an very subjective criteria. What NTIA has done via its ICANN is to create, via contracts, a de facto law of the internet in which registrars can impose their private view of internet morality and acceptable use. Given that most registrars are for-profit companies they will generally take the path that is most likely to avoid conflicts - which tends to mean a rather puritanical outlook and a willingness to sacrifice a $10 domain name registrant. It would completely within the contractual powers of these ICANN accredited registrars to, for example, yank the domain name registrations of the campaign websites for McCain, Clinton, or Obamma and set up a parking webpage in their place that says "we removed this because we consider it immoral". I can understand why Network Solutions feels at risk should it register a domain name that might be used in a URL leading to materials that might offend certain highly ceertain sensitive and violently reactive religious zealots. But the answer is not the kind of private censorship that Network Solutions and other ICANN accredited are doing. The answer is this: ICANN should pull its accreditation from any registrar or registry that engages in any content-related decisions beyond those clearly required by the laws of the home country of that registry or registrar. Will ICANN do this? Given that ICANN is largely funded by DNS registry and registrars and that ICANN is structured to give a privileged position to these business in its decision making processes (while at the same time locking out the domain name registrants themselves) I doubt that ICANN will even begin to consider such a policy. --karl-- ------------------------------------------- Archives: http://www.listbox.com/member/archive/247/=now RSS Feed: http://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/247/ Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
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Current thread:
- Re: Nothing like prior constraint. No courts just NetSol!!! Internet company suspends politician's website over Qur'an film David Farber (Mar 23)
- <Possible follow-ups>
- Re: Nothing like prior constraint. No courts just NetSol!!! Internet company suspends politician's website over Qur'an film David Farber (Mar 23)
- Re: Nothing like prior constraint. No courts just NetSol!!! Internet company suspends politician's website over Qur'an film David Farber (Mar 23)
- Re: Nothing like prior constraint. No courts just NetSol!!! Internet company suspends politician's website over Qur'an film David Farber (Mar 24)
- Re: Nothing like prior constraint. No courts just NetSol!!! Internet company suspends politician's website over Qur'an film David Farber (Mar 24)
- Re: Nothing like prior constraint. No courts just NetSol!!! Internet company suspends politician's website over Qur'an film David Farber (Mar 24)
- Re: Nothing like prior constraint. No courts just NetSol!!! Internet company suspends politician's website over Qur'an film David Farber (Mar 24)