[ncdnhc-discuss] ICANN controlled by governments

[Dany Vandromme]

James Love wrote:
> 
> ----- Original Message -----
> > As long as various governments, controlling ICANN (through the funding
> > and the board) are also democratic, I have no objection.
> > You position seems to be: Since all governements controlling ICANN may
> > not be as democratic as us (means that decisions or positions of some of
> > them, may not have the sufficient legitimacy), then it is better to put
> > everyone under Uncle Sam's umbrella, to guarantee the freedom of speech.
> > I can't follow you there. Yahoo's French court decision is an example,
> > of a situation conform to your 1st amendment, but not-conform to the law
> > in another democratic country.
> 
>     Well, I personally would  not have a problem with France doing it,
> instead of the US.  
-
I was not really advocating for France instead of US. In fact, it would
be extremely bad to substitute one country's rule by another one.
At the opposite, we could expect that joint (or shared) position between
several, would correct this
-
> But I really don't think the Lynn proposal is going to
> be limited to "good" governments.  
-
Agree, but again, careful about definition of "good" governments. We
(western developped countries) may have a naive understanding of the
concept. There are probably a lot of countries, where the governemnt
legitimacy exists, and with views completely different from yours,
because of religious cultural heritage for instance.
-
> Once you make it multilateral, what is
> used to address the claims by the Chinese and Egyptian governments?  
-
I did not mention any specific country in my arguments (I am afraid not
to know enough other countries for making such statements)
-
> The US
> is handy, because it has the contract with ICANN, controls the root, and has
> done so for years, and one could just keep things this way.  
-
This is certainly not a good argument. It would hold for a stable and
permanent situationm which is not subject to changes.
The present case is everything but that. The fact it has been working
fine so far with US only, is certainly not a good argument for
preventing any change.
-
> Giving it
> France alone isn't so easy, so there are proposals to give it to lots of
> governments.  
-
To several governemnts, participating with some shares, to a single organisation.
Different from distributing pieces of the pie.
-
> I think this is a problem.   And, even giving it to *all*
> democratic governments is going to create problems, because each government
> has different areas for freedom and prohibited or regulated conduct.   
-
Agree, but these governments, provided that there are an agreement on
the democratic acceptance, are supposed to work together, build decision
making process, shared policies etc.
This is the role of multibody organisations. It has been the case years
ago for the US states to get this federal hat, it is the case also to
Europe to-day, but all international organisations are going  that way.
> The
> common areas for freedom are smaller than any single government would
> recognize. 
-
Obvious, but concertation between them will help to enlarge it as much
as possible, but with some bounds which will not be overcome. This last
point may be beneficial for some anyway.

Example: Suppose that one "good" democracy is based of the confidency in
a god named "carrot".
Do you think it would be better to have the democracy in the pool, or
having it rejected, because of a bunch of activists in other good
democracies, allowed to insult the "carrot".
Not straight to answer!
A compromise could be not to support the activists when they attack the
carrot outside the border, and then violating a first amendment somewhere!
Question is certainly open.
-
> Unless, of course, one could ensure in some binding way that
> the government actions would be constained in some way.  Not sure how to do
> this of course.
-
This is certainly the concern of all international organisations....
but it is not proved that NGO will do any better than governements.
Again, question about legitimacy.
Back to ICANN, I am still questionning what is the real representativity
(worldwide) of the various constituencies... especially in the DNSO side.
-
> 
> > > I do not think USA laws are in generally the best in the world, spend
> much
> > > time in the USA complaining about various US laws,
-
Not worst either
-
> > -
> > In the Yahoo example, I would talk about absence of law...
> 
>    Sometimes the absence of law is a good thing, IMO.
-
Sorry, maybe sometimes, but probaly not this time!
-
> 
> > > and much time in global
> > > fora helping countries resist US trade policies on intellectual property
> > > rights and other areas, and we certainly are appalled by various US
> regimes
> > > on IPR, that often themselves limit speech.
> > -
> > It would be a serious mistake to confuse freedom of speech with
> everything.
> > Example: freedom of political expression: I do not care about free
> > political expression, since I am living in France and any "extreme"
> > political expression is bounded by a "reasonable" legal framework: Not
> > possible to promote racial hate, revisionist views, etc etc. I agree
> > that in other countries, with less elaborated democracy, bounds may have
> > less legitimacy or rationale (being set-up be a non representative
> > governemnt body.
> 
>     Well, what about those "other countries"?  What about China?
-
Again, no point about specific countries.
-
> 
> > Freedom of entreprise and business: Why not, but provided it doesn't
> > violate other's intellectual property rights. This may become a bit more
> > touchy, since there are different IPR systems and rules, especially
> > between US and FR.
> 
>     In general of course I agree, and support 90+ percent of IPR regimes,
> but worry a lot about the last few percent.    But more to the point, why
> have ICANN enforce IPR?    This is attract the IPR holds like honey attracts
> bees, and ICANN will always be the center of intrigue and politics.
-
Answer is probably money (not for ICANN, but for those behind).
But money has multiple meanings: it may means direct profit, but it may
also mean economic developement, jod creation, help to developping
countries etc...
World is not made of black and white, lot of greys
-
> 
> > > We do, however, see the future of free speech on the Internet as a big
> big
> > > deal, and are not at all ready to embrace the notion that every
> country's
> > > notion of limits on that speech deserve to be enforced worldwide,
> including
> > > for example the many examples of cross-border enforcement of various
> > > national speech and IPR regimes.
> > -
> > I certainly agree with you, but I see limits. Let me give you an
> > example: there is a domain name call eccole-primaire.com
> > Everyone (especially pupils or school teachers in French speaking
> > environment) would expect to find there something related to primary
> > schools or education etc..
> > Instead of that, it is only a for-sale domain name, with a content, not
> > really appropriate for primary schools. I would guess that the actual
> > content is there only to increase the cost for people who may be willing
> > only avoid inadequate content regarding the DN. In term of strict
> > business approach, I would think "fair enough". But I do not feel that
> > ecole-primaire is only a matter of business.
> 
>     I personally support the expansion of restricted domains (lot of them)
> so that people can rely upon the TLD as a signal.  I guess the .fr ccTLD
> helps a lot, and so does .coop, .museum, .edu, .int, etc.    We just need to
> open this up.  Rather than lose sleep over every .com registration, worry
> about empowering people to set up TLDs that "mean something."
-
Agree
-
> 
> > > I believe the "benefits" of US 1st amendment protections are more
> apparently
> > > in repressive regimes like China or Egypt than they are in France.   I
> am
> > > liking too of those countries, and people I know in those countries who
> > > believe the Internet provides an import opportunity to exercise freedom
> to
> > > speak and to read.
> > -
> > Agree with this, as the Internet may bring freedom to speech to those
> > living in countries where such freedom may be limited (or even not
> > existing). But again, this is completely out of the scope of your
> > example with the Yahoo case (at least from a French point of view).
> 
>     I would agree that the Yahoo case is fairly narrow, and can be
> distinguished in many important ways.  But the preceedent alarms many
> people, for reasons that should be clear.  I don't worry so much about the
> Nazi artifact collectors.
> 
> > > I can appreciate how some others may find hate speech and other similiar
> > > things so repulsive that they are willing to live with a different
> system.
> > > But we are reluctant to say the least in giving up the freedom we have
> now,
> > > particularly given the range of national laws that one is facing.
> > -
> > Hope this will contribute to the discussion. Sure it will not close it.
> >
> > Going back to the Lynn's proposal, I see lot of reactions against it, as
> > a consequence of my first point. Citizens or individuals must be
> > protected against government decision! Reality is much more complicated,
> > and saying that Lynn's proposal is fighting freedom of speech is just to
> > simple and naive. Earlier I had a similar approach, vhen looking at the
> > ALSC proposal, Where I found lot of goodies, even not in line with the
> > NCDNHC position. But this question seems almost over already.
> 
>     If ICANN needs governments to fund its operations, maybe we should shop
> for governments that we like.   Maybe Internet users should vote on which
> government they want to use. 
-
Doing so, you increase the divide between those who have it and others
-
> Kind of a competition for government
> government.  They compete to host ICANN meetings.  Maybe they could compete
> to fund and control seats on the  ICANN board.   We could pick maybe the
> four or five most appealing governments that were willing to pay also for
> ICANN expense, and agree to binding limits on the ICANN mission.
-
A kind of beauty contest!
Your are taking the other track; Government money will win.
At the individual level, this was the most criticized point in the ALSC proposal
Hoping to find a better way to build consensus at the same time as
legitimacy of decision et representativity from users

Cheers
Dany

PS: Start to be long messages
We may be willing to pursue off the discuss list, if no interest for others\
-
> 
>    Jamie

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