[NCSG-Discuss] Independent Objector Weighs In on "closed/private" tlds

[Milton L Mueller]

Important lesson for all NCSG members: 
People who get on the GNSO Council often absorb assumptions and attitudes about policies that are contrary to our principles and not fully supported by either the membership or our stakeholder group. It's very easy to do, I know because I've been there. You engage in intense discussions with the other councilors and SGs. The paremeters of your thinking start getting constrained by what the others think. You start thinking, "well no one else supports this or even thinks about it in a principled way, so why bother to challenge it." Case in point, Mr. David Cake:

> -----Original Message-----
> 	IF we accept that national governments have a right to
> block/control the use of the names of geographical areas that fall
> within their borders, THEN it seems reasonable to me that 

[Milton L Mueller] But that is precisely what is at issue here. I do not accept that assumption. More importantly, there is no defined body of law that supports that assumption. They are just making it up - grabbing rights because they can. Which is precisely what TM owners have been doing or trying to do for 15 years. 

> if an area
> extends between the territory of two or more governments, and all are
> agreed that they want it blocked, the same rule applies.

[Milton L Mueller] In other words, governments get what they want because they want it. And you find that a "minor edge case"!!!? Don't see any bad precedent or bad principle established here? 

> 	In other words, I think the .patagonia decision is a reasonable one
> as far as consistency with existing rules - and while I think the
> existing rules are flawed, I think that has been and gone.
> 
> [snip] But I don't have any enthusiasm for fighting a battle over
> a minor edge case, when we've already lost the main issue.
> 

[Milton L Mueller] My belief is that we should be doing exactly the opposite: we should be raising issues of principle and we have the knowledge and intellectual firepower in this Stakeholder Group to do so. Those things that all the other SGs cynically toss off as bargaining chips are precisely the things we should be challenging.

[Milton L Mueller] As indicated above it is NOT a minor edge case but the entering wedge of "governments get whatever they want regardless of law" and the attitude that "powerful interests can use ICANN to create new rights that have no basis in democratic process and regardless of individual rights."