Previous messages: "ICANN replies to Politech post about House bill and .kids" http://www.politechbot.com/p-02227.html "U.S. House bill would force ICANN to approve .kids domain" http://www.politechbot.com/p-02216.html --- Date: Fri, 6 Jul 2001 12:04:59 -0700 (PDT) From: Karl Auerbach <karlat_private> To: Declan McCullagh <declanat_private> Subject: Re: FC: ICANN replies to Politech post about House bill and .kids In-Reply-To: <5.0.2.1.0.20010706111252.0378a410at_private> On Fri, 6 Jul 2001, Declan McCullagh wrote: > [Perhaps I have done ICANN a disservice by suggesting that it is "becoming > just another regulated federal agency." > .... See below for a note from > Joe Sims on behalf of ICANN. --Declan] Joe Sims does not speak for ICANN. As for my own point of view as a member of the Board of Directors of ICANN: Yes, there are thousands, probably tens of thousands, of bills submitted every year into the hoppers of legislatures and administrative agencies around the world. And a lot of those do not become law. But many do. Any time members of the legislative body of the United States go so far as to submit a draft bill that not only affects ICANN, but indeed directly names ICANN and mandates ICANN behaviour, then as a Director I have to sit up and take notice. It simply would not be prudent to stick my Director's head in the sand and pretend to see nothing. I do not consider it appropriate management to bluster, as Sims does, against a situation and pretend that it has gone away. Unlike Sims, I am Director of ICANN and I am accountable for ICANN's actions. I am not free to live in a fantasy world in which the United States Congress is of no more import than a small cloud in an otherwise clear sky. Personally, I think that the bill has some troublesome aspects - for instance, given that the US Government, not ICANN, controls the root zone via a contract with Verisign, the bill could simply take the form of a mandate to the Dept of Commerce to take the appropriate steps without any involvement from ICANN at all. But I find a lack of wisdom in any top-down imposition of "chartered" or limited purpose top level domains, particularly one in which the subject matter is as subjective and personal as "appropriate" content for children. (One has to wonder at the amount of the content that would be considered appropriate by both the parents of a five year old Pakistani Islamic girl and the parents of a fifteen year old Danish boy.) I am perfectly happy to let private companies try to find their way through such a maze. But it seems rather an inappropriate role for a national government, particularly given the extraterritorial impacts. The bill also falls victim to the commonplace belief that the domain name system is the only naming system for the Internet, and that the Internet is merely the world wide web. Content labelling by use of domain name names is a very naive, and bludgeoning, way to make use Internet technology as a tool of government. --karl-- ------------------------------------------------------------------------- POLITECH -- Declan McCullagh's politics and technology mailing list You may redistribute this message freely if you include this notice. To subscribe, visit http://www.politechbot.com/info/subscribe.html This message is archived at http://www.politechbot.com/ -------------------------------------------------------------------------
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