US government wants veto power on new domain suffixes

[Mohawk70]

US government wants veto power on new domain suffixes

Related articles
* DNS: A World of New Web Suffixes is on its Way
* Will Governments Get To Veto New Web Domains ?

[Zach]

That article is really confusing and unclear..

At first it paints the picture that the US just wants to tell everyone what TLD's they can have, but then it also makes it sound like the US is pushing for veto powers FOR other nations, or some such.. and then there was this really confusing bit that came from left field..

Aside to argument over specific domain names, the government is feeling the need to defend its right to veto power over the web addresses. In a statement to CNET, the Commerce Department’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) said that taking such action “has merit as it diminishes the potential for blocking of top level domain strings considered objectionable by governments. This type of blocking harms the architecture of the DNS and undermines the goal of universal resolvability (i.e., a single global Internet that facilitates the free flow of goods and services and free of expression).” Which, as CNET points out, is a very p.c. way to say that global conservative regimes might block certain domains (like .gay) that we wouldn’t, and this could lead to a fragmented web.

Who the the "we"? The US? The site publishing the article? Some other 3rd party?

Frankly this article is atrocious and needs to be rewritten, I can barely understand it.

[TomS]

@Zach: Which article are you referring to.
Why is it confusing, that the US proposal includes the wish that every nation can veto domain suffixes?
ICANN is supposed to be an impartial entity, so even if the US would claim the veto right only to be theirs (by whatever silly and egoistic "reasons"), if accepted, every nation would gain the veto right.

But imho nobody should get a veto right. Why not letting have the gay community their own suffix. Just because the americans (and by americans, I mean whoever startet this veto-campaign) are so prude and afraid of the word?
The ignoreance is outrageous. What if biz, com, net, gov, mobi etc would mean something far worse than "gay" in a foreign language?!

In this part quoted by you, we is everyone who wouldn't block ".gay".
So, they're saying that a veto right is a good thing, because than nobody could register a .gay-domain.
If they (ICANN) don't block it for everybody, some conversvative governments (is that the reason, you say this part is "from the left field"? The word conservative?) could block it (like google is blocked in China), which would lead to a fragmented web (like some people in a country where media is censored could visit specific websites, because they (the websites) "bypassed" the filter, by not using explicit domain names)

[Zach]

I was referring to the very top link in the original post.

This has nothing to do with my political views, so you can read into that however you want. I used a common figure of speech to indicate it made no sense compared with the rest of the article and the message being conveyed by the article.

If everyone had veto rights, how would that lead to a less fragmented web? Is 1 veto all it takes to shoot down a TLD? If not, what is the criteria? If the veto can be nullified by majority rule, then that doesn't make sense anyway.

The web would be fragmented whether or not people had Veto power. China will still block whatever the hell it wants, as will any other country, irregardless of what is Internationally considered the acceptable norm re: societal views, general censorship, etc.

The only positive to have veto power is it creates a Public Record of who vetoed something, and then they are at the mercy of whatever protests organizations/anarchists that decides to show up at their front door.


But the article is poorly written as a whole... I just can't follow it, it seems like it was just a bunch of strung together sentences with one thought running into the next. That is why I am confused about what is actually being said. Also I do not believe you interpreted the section in my quote properly.

It mentions no other person or organization in regards to the "WE". And the Cnet thought at the end what paraphrasing what was just said before it... So in that light, the Commerce department seems to think having veto power would diminish the likelihood that people would use their veto power? wtf?? And we (the commerce department/USA) -wouldn't- block domains that other conservative countries might, is the only way I can rationally interpret that last part.


I'm sorry, I just think this article was very poorly worded and is in bad need of a rewrite to clarify who is saying what, and what the situation is.

[TomS]

I think, the part about the less-fragmented web is not the view of the author, but how CNET sees it.
That's why the encourage the right to vote.
You're right that this doesn't make much sense and that the web is already fragmented and will further be in the future.
As to what happens when some government vetoes, there's nothing in the article, so I'm guessing ICANN hast to figure something out if they favour the idea of some government vetoing on domain names.

So in that light, the Commerce department seems to think having veto power would diminish the likelihood that people would use their veto power? wtf??

No. It diminishes the possibility of any government acting on their own, thus fragmenting the web further.
If somebody vetoed against a certain suffix, nobody on earth could register a domain with that suffix.
So that a site is still accessable in every country (whenever the content of that site doesn't get filtered by the normal filter systems alrady in use).

And we (the commerce department/USA) -wouldn't- block domains that other conservative countries might, is the only way I can rationally interpret that last part.

Exactly. And then you'd have to use .com etc.
If everything were allowed, the site would be filtered anyway without anyone noticing.

So, I agree with your statement about the public record and that being a good thing.
And that a veto is nonsense, because certain governments filter content anyway.
So if they are afraid of the protest organisations you mentioned, they just don't veto and still filter everything.