Interesting People mailing list archives
IP: What is ICANN, really? (a test coming up)
From: Dave Farber <farber () cis upenn edu>
Date: Fri, 03 Mar 2000 17:17:32 -0500
From: "Rob Raisch" <info () raisch com> To: "Dave Farber" <farber () cis upenn edu> ICANN (The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) has been asked to create several new top level domains by John Richard of Essential Information (www.essential.com), and James Love, of the Consumer Project on Technology (www.cptech.org), which will call into clear focus ICANN's own view of their role in Internet governance. In a letter delivered March 1, 2000 to Esther Dyson (ICANN's Chair), Richard and Love have requested that ICANN rubberstamp the creation of a number of new top level domains (TLDs) to promote citizen's rights groups and movements. Of particular interest will be ICANN's response to the requested creation of a ".sucks" TLD which "...will be used to facilitate criticism of a firm or organization, such as aol.sucks, wipo.sucks, or even greenpeace.sucks. We would not permit the organization that owned an associated domain to also own .sucks, so it would expand the name space in an important way. The domain would also be available for other uses, such as work.sucks, life.sucks or television.sucks." (from http://www.cptech.org/ecom/icann/tlds-march1-2000.html) Why is this interesting, you ask? Because it will illustrate clearly how ICANN views its own purpose, as a technical infrastructure manager or as the arbiter of what is "correct" for the Internet as a whole. According to ICANN, its role is to "...take over responsibility for the IP address space allocation, protocol parameter assignment, domain name system management, and root server system management functions now performed under U.S. Government contract by IANA and other entities." (http://www.icann.org) According to Richard and Love, "These are serious proposals to use the power of a TLD to enable citizens to improve civil society. We believe the creation of domains like .union, .customers, .isnotgreen, and .isnotfair will create powerful mechanisms to share information and organize." -- Rob Raisch, <http://www.raisch.com/>
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- IP: What is ICANN, really? (a test coming up) Dave Farber (Mar 03)