FC: Yes, British Telecom *does* want to segregate Web sites

[Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>]

**********

Date: Tue, 08 Feb 2000 12:53:20 -0500
From: Milton Mueller <mueller () syr edu>
To: declan () well com
Subject: Re: FC: British Telecom says idea "distorted," wants other 
suggestions

Declan:

Your take on Lewis's policy perspective was exactly correct. I have been
interacting with Lewis and another BT representative on ICANN's Working 
Group C on
new TLDs for several months. The BT representatives have consistently 
advocated a
highly regulated DNS name space. For example, instead of allowing new 
businesses
and organizations to propose their own new TLD names, BT wants ICANN to 
establish
a central, fixed classification scheme for new TLDs. Each TLD would have a very
specific "charter" as to who could and could not register within it.

As Lewis put it, "the TLD structure should embody a framework which precludes
replication of domain types, interest groups or business areas, to avoid 
confusing
Internet customers."

This has profound implications for the regulation of the Net as a whole. Your
discussion of how pornography might be classified did the community a 
service by
highlighting one of the dangers of such an apporach. But it is only one 
aspect of
what could turn out to be a way to exert sweeping forms of leverage over 
Internet
content. Imagine how robust the publication market would be if some 
international
authority decided that there should be a "framework which precludes 
replication of
[magazine content] types, interest groups, or business areas, to avoid 
confusing
[magazine] customers." Imagine the regulation that would be imposed as a
relatively unaccountable international regulatory agency (ICANN) decided which
form of publication content belongs in which category.

Those of you who have not been struggling in the trenches of ICANN's working
groups for the past 8 months probably cannot believe how rigid and 
regulatory are
the attitudes of the business and political interests who have gravitated to
ICANN's DNSO.

Declan McCullagh wrote:

> Is BT justifiably annoyed or simply backpedaling from a proposal
> accidentally sent to a public list? You decide:
>    http://www.dnso.org/clubpublic/ga-full/Arc00/msg00090.html
>




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