Internet founding parent David Clark was a guest in my cyberlaw class in the fall of 1997. We talked about Internet governance, although I don’t think anyone (including us) called it that yet. ICANN wasn’t a gleam in the U.S. Department of Commerce’s eye, but even then the amazing state of the domain name system — how it came into being, how it was managed — made for an extraodinary story.
Now lawyers and diplomats are all over the subject, and ICANN has ballooned into a multi-million dollar organization. I’ve argued elsewhere that arguments about ICANN and domain names don’t much matter except to those who want a piece of the financial pie, and I think predictions of domain names’ unimportance have largely proven true. Sure, IBM would not be happy if it lost ibm.com, but it’s at no risk of having that happen, and the fact is that most people find things by Googling them than by entering a domain name. So long as search engines can crawl to various destinations, a world in which we couldn’t use mnemonic domain names wouldn’t be much different than the one we have now.
With that background, I’ve been thinking about the global petition to “keep the core neutral” signed by fellow travelers like Wendy Seltzer, Larry Lessig, and David Post. Is it something worth signing?
The petition itself reads a bit vague to me:
Everyone has the right to seek, receive and impart information and ideas without interference through any media, including cyberspace.
As the new generic top-level domain name space emerges and policy choices are made about how ideas may be expressed at the Internet’s top-level, we ask ICANN to keep the core neutral of non-technical disputes and choose policies that respect freedom of expression and permit innovation in the new domain name space.
Encouraging the free flow of information is a foundational principle of public policy decisions related to information and communication technology. Freedom of expression rights, which are fundamental in an Information Society, foster democratic participation, individual empowerment, and economic development.
Cyberspace remains a unique and special place that bridges ancient divisions, where diverse communities interact readily, and all views are welcome. But only if these attributes are valued by policymakers who set Internet governance rules and incorporated into policies about how ideas may be expressed in domain names.
We ask that ICANN stay within its technical mandate and refrain from embedding particular national, regional, moral, or religious policy objectives into global rules over the use of language in domain names. It would be dangerous “mission-creep” for ICANN to adjudicate between conflicting policy objectives and set global standards for expression that are enforced through ICANN’s technical function. Please do not allow ICANN to become a convenient lever of global control by those seeking to censor unpopular or controversial expression on the Internet.
Please keep the Internet’s technical core neutral from national or other ideological conflicts, allowing freedom and innovation to flourish in cyberspace.
I’d be perfectly happy to see lots of new top-level domains, rather than halting steps towards domains like .museum and .aero. Some could be chartered, with particular requirements to earn a name there — such as the venerable .edu, which used to be limited to American two- and four-year degree-granting institutions, one to a customer. (Though somehow Harvard Business School snuck in with hbs.edu despite Harvard also having harvard.edu.) Trademark owners might be unhappy at the prospect of having to defend their mark in each new top-level domain, but with enough domains that might not be necessary, since Internet users would not expect to find International Business Machines at IBM.*.
So what to make of the petition? Dan Krimm, who is running the campaign and is a fellow at IPJustice.org, explained the idea behind it: ICANN is considering approving lots of new top-level domains, with an approval process that lets it eliminate candidate names for “moral” reasons or because particular governments object. All else equal, it might make sense for ICANN to simply have a cash-and-carry policy for registering new TLDs, just as original domain name registration in .com was first-come, first-served, with very few exceptions. (Single-letter domains were not allowed, although a handful like x.com slipped through, and is now held by PayPal/eBay. In 1994, someone tried to register fuck.com and had what appears to be an authentic exchange with the relevant pre-ICANN people that shows just how ad hoc policymaking was then.)
But I find it hard to really care if ICANN wants to allow some names and deny others. I don’t see how a willingness to have some content-based process for determining new TLDs can become “a convenient lever of global control by those seeking to censor unpopular or controversial expression on the Internet.” How would this global control transpire, when one needs no particular domain name to put content up on the Net? Far more convenient would be search engines themselves, which can determine what is and isn’t visible on a casual search. Of course, one can be concerned about both. So: search engine content control will be the next post. …JZ
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Jonathan Zittrain is Professor of Internet Governance and Regulation and Director of Graduate Studies at the Oxford Internet Institute, University of Oxford.
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Au contrar; Mein Herr! The Domain Name issue will be as de fecto currency shortly once we achieve parity in CONVERGENCE. These several matters can not simply be remediated by the general public, nor by a few experts, but are to be sorted out by the eventual development of a new media in the way in which Marshall McCluhan spoke of developments defying pigeonholing. Myself, preferably would like to see a new construct altogether which uses the technocrats as technocrats and the bureaucrats as bureaucrats, but in a technocracy guided by inventors rather than salesmen. There needs be a separate guidance panel which is expert in Intellectual Property AND “Localization.” (’That’ is the actual NEW SCIENCE everyone is afraid to name!) So, in summation, I udnerstand your point all to well, but simply wish to intelligence the public as how to this is no longer a black & white issue, but solid gray, and requires a Third Party arbitration board to make these crucial decisions because as we all known only to well, the financial acumen needed to run large multinationals is now being discovered in start-up ‘dot-com’ labs & studios, just as it was a decade past. The main difference now is there are experienced designers behind all the new info technologies.
Thank you for your insights-
Best Regards
While I agree in principle with the petition, and do share with you the wish for more specificity, this seems like a much less important battle than those that are being fought over the legal requirements of networking architectures and content delivery. Telus’ arbitrary re-routing of twu-canada.ca is qualitatively different and much more important than whether aggrieved customers are forced to register verizonreallysucks.com instead of verizonreally.sucks.
Dear Jonathan
I enjoyed your blog. I hope you don’t mind if I leave a few comments for your consideration.
Regarding Search Engines.
The same search engines you suggest can determine “what is and isn’t visible on a casual search” have already capitulated to various government dictates throughout the globe. In essence, search engines themselves dictate what search results we see through their clever algorithms. This in itself is a worrying development, at least, to those who worry about censorship.
Regarding ICANN.
ICANN recently proved itself to be rather inept in its ability to sanction one of its own accredited registrars and thousands of ordinary registrants suffered agonising waits as the pantomime played itself out. So when ICANN says it is considering approving lots of new TLDs with the proviso that it can eliminate candidate names for “moral” reasons, the mind boggles. The question that springs immediately into the grey matter is; will it be able to control an expanded namespace any more effectively than it has done in the past?
Regarding morality (or lack of it).
Recently the .xxx domain was eliminated (probably for the same “moral” reasons you suggest will be part of ICANN’s approval process for new TLDs in the future). ICANN voted 9 to 5 against allowing .xxx amidst allegations that the U.S. Government had compelled them to do so at the behest of pressure groups like “Family Research Council” and “Focus on The Family”. These, and other American lobby groups, were concerned that .xxx would somehow legitimize and expand the number of porn websites which is ironic, when you consider your own view that, “one does not need a particular domain name to put content up on the Net”.
General comments.
As always, you put a distinctly compelling argument, but I have to disagree with the premise that it is hard to really care if ICANN wants to allow some names and deny others or that the process of determining new TLDs will not become a convenient lever of “global control” by those seeking to censor unpopular or controversial expression. From the conversations I have enjoyed with you before, I am surprised you wrote that, and here’s why. We already have censorship of unpopular and controversial expression on the Internet and much of this censorship is search engine based.
So I fervently hope you did not literally mean you “find it hard to really care” and I would ask you to reconsider your position (if it is indeed your position) on an Internet that finds its content via search engines when the search engines themselves can censor and dictate the content retrieved by any particular search word or phrase typed in.
The sad fact of history is, that the bigger a thing becomes, the more those running it forget their roots – and the roots of a thing are where most idealistic notions begin and end their metaphorical life. For instance, Nominet once wrote in their mission statement that they would act in the interests of the wider stakeholder community. That was consistently diluted to “will respond to the needs of customers and stakeholders”. Is there a difference? Only if you think in terms of who is actually dictating the corporate agenda that will inevitably affect the internet freedoms of registrants and end users. Should we really care? I guess it depends whether one really believes in keeping the “core” neutral, or more importantly, why we believe it *should* be neutral.
John F. Kennedy once said; “The great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie, deliberate, contrived and dishonest, but the myth, persistent, persuasive and unrealistic.”
I look forward to your comments on “search engine content control” in your next post.
Best wishes
James Conaghan