Great essay on ICANN's Proposed New gTLD Policy & Censorship

[Robin Gross]

Mike Palage and Avri Doria have written an essay about the proposed new 
gTLD policy (below). It's really terrific, and although it takes a 
slightly different approach from the NCUC proposal, it re-affirms our 
basic principle that ICANN should remain content-neutral and let 
governments do the governing within their own jurisdictions. Here's an 
excerpt from the essay:

"... Instead of specifying the number of governments to meet a required 
threshold that can block a potential TLD applicant from being added to 
the root, the new standard should be that any applicant operating 
properly under the laws of the country in which it is organized should 
be subject only to ICANN’s technical, operational and other criteria. 
Assuming the basic TLD application criteria and processes are met, the 
TLD should be added to the root. ..."

I hope the ICANN Board understands the dangerous precedent it will set 
if it gives the GAC (or itself) any power to prevent new gTLDs for 
non-technical reasons.

I've also posted the .pdf of the Palage/Doria essay here:
http://ipjustice.org/ICANN/keep_core_neutral.pdf

Best,
Robin

============

*PLEASE, KEEP THE CORE NEUTRAL*

By Michael Palage and Avri Doria

    "We reaffirm, as an essential foundation of the Information Society,
    and as outlined in Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human
    Rights, that everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and
    expression; that this right includes freedom to hold opinions
    without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and
    ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers. Communication
    is a fundamental social process, a basic human need and the
    foundation of all social organization. It is central to the
    Information Society. Everyone, everywhere should have the
    opportunity to participate and no one should be excluded from the
    benefits the Information Society offers."^1

Many in the technical community attribute the rapid growth and spread of 
the Internet to innovation that took place at the “edge” of the network, 
while its “core” was left largely application neutral to provide a 
universal and predictable building block for innovation. It is this core 
neutrality that provides a basis for the security and stability of the 
Internet
as a whole. And it is this same core neutrality that is critical to the 
continued spread of the Internet across the Digital Divide. 
Unfortunately, when the politics of censorship rather than solely 
technical concerns drive the coordination of these “core” Internet 
resources, it threatens the future security and stability of the 
Internet. This paper proposes a paradigm upon which all the governments 
of the world have equal access to these core Internet resources to 
empower them and their citizens with the rights acknowledged in the WSIS 
Declaration of Principles.

*PANDORA HAS OPENED THE BOX*

When certain governments interjected themselves into the ICANN Board’s 
consideration of the ICM Registry application for an adult TLD on public 
policy grounds, they set in motion an irrevocable set of events that 
have profound consequences on ICANN’s future. The first such 
manifestation can be seen in the Draft GAC principles on new TLDs that 
have proposed the ability of a single government to block indefinitely, 
i.e. effectively a veto, a future TLD application if they had unmet 
public policy concerns. Recognizing the shortcomings of this draft 
recommendation, certain government(s) have stated they intend to advance 
in Lisbon a new standard by which a significant number of governments 
would be able to formally object to, and therefore block, a new TLD. 
This new standard appears to be a compromise between the current GAC 
principles that require consensus, and the single government implicit 
veto contained in the original draft GAC principles.

Regardless of what is contained in the final GAC principles on new TLDs, 
governments have made their intentions clear. They believe that entries 
into a domain name database involve public policy considerations that 
fall within their purview. Exercising this newly claimed right by the 
GAC has unfortunately put a new dimension of international politics into 
one of the Internet’s core infrastructure components, the Root A server. 
Instead of governments regulating what their citizens can and cannot 
access at the edge of the network in their own countries, as they have 
successfully done to date, they are now seeking to regulate actions at 
the core of the Internet. Unfortunately, when governments take such 
draconian actions at the core, they negatively impact the ability of 
Internet users in other countries where there are different, and 
sometimes even opposite, public policy considerations.

*ONE COUNTRY’S NATIONAL HERO IS ANOTHER’S COUNTRY’S JOKE*

Injecting international politics into one of the Internet’s core 
technical resources could not have happened at a worse time, as ICANN 
and the Internet stakeholder community are on the cusp of achieving the 
predictable and regular addition of new TLDs, including IDN TLDs, into 
the Root. If reviewing the TLD applications received in the 2000 Proof 
of concept round and the 2004 sTLD round is any guide, it is highly 
likely that controversial TLD submissions will be received in the next 
rounds. However, the most complex challenges will not lie in connection 
with applications for TLDs associated with vice or immoral behavior, but 
with applications for TLDs associated with political groups, religious 
groups, or civil society and advocacy groups within some countries. For 
example, while certain political groups are involved in the majority 
governing body of some countries, these same political groups have been 
deemed terrorist organizations by other governments. Similarly there are 
certain civil society groups that legally operate in some countries 
trying to advance individual and/or personal freedoms in another 
country, but whose actions are deemed illegal in the country where they 
are trying to advance those freedoms. Any action by one of these 
political groups or civil society groups to seek a TLD for the community 
whose interests they claim to represent, poses the risk of an offended 
government taking actions that disrupt the unity and neutrality of the 
Internet.
*
SOLUTION: MORE NOT LESS*

Given the potential Catch 22 scenario that ICANN finds itself in, the 
question that needs to be asked is whether any action can be taken to 
preserve the integrity of the root and ICANN’s technical coordinating 
role. The answer is yes, but the solution is almost counter-intuitive. 
Instead of specifying the number of governments to meet a required 
threshold that can block a potential TLD applicant from being added to 
the root, the new standard should be that any applicant operating 
properly under the laws of the country in which it is organized should 
be subject only to ICANN’s technical, operational and other criteria. 
Assuming the basic TLD application criteria and processes are met, the 
TLD should be added to the root.

Instead of a race to the bottom where countries would seek to align with 
other countries to impose their moral or political values by blocking 
applications endorsed by other governments, governments should encourage 
organizations and businesses within their own country to fully recognize 
the potential of the Information Society by adding new value and depth 
to the Internet. In the case where the inclusion of a TLD into the root 
zone may give rise to public policy considerations in another country, 
that country can take appropriate actions at the edge of the network to 
protect or advance the public policy they have.^2
*
EDUCATION IS THE KEY*

Regardless of what actions the GAC takes, it is more important than ever 
for ICANN to educate the global community through all available fora 
about the implications of its limited role as a technical coordinator. 
In order for the goals of the Information Society to be fully achieved, 
it is paramount that there be a neutral coordination of the Internet’s 
core resources. While ICANN provides a platform for universal 
resolvability, it should be recognized that governments do retain under 
their sovereign authority the right to block access to certain packets. 
Those countries that do block or impede this universal resolvability can 
either do it openly or clandestinely. Notwithstanding these actions by 
governments, ICANN actions in adding entries into a database should be a 
politically neutral technical function and as such would not interfere 
with the sovereign right of a government to regulate at the edge of the 
Internet.

Notes:
1. WSIS Declaration of Principles, 12 December, 2003; Paragraph 4

2. It should be noted that the authors do not advocate or support 
censorship as a solution even within a national context. We also 
understand that it is not within our, or ICANN's, purview to direct the 
sovereign activities within the various GAC homelands.