[At-Large] News on the .health TLD allocation

[Antony Van Couvering]

The author also says, and it's relevant here:

"But there is a vacuum in international law, and ICANN is in a position to fill that vacuum, and it just might be interested in doing so.  It will surely be under increasing pressure to do so from the many governments out there, and the many private interests out there, that are frustrated with the inability to deal with law-breakers on the Net. "

I believe that this is exactly what's happening in this discussion.  The conversation is about .health, but there's a larger conversation of which .health is just a part.  

Antony


On Sep 2, 2014, at 10:46 AM, Evan Leibovitch <evan at telly.org> wrote:

> Actually, anyone following the thread would have noticed that the topic at
> hand, in this At-Large discussion, is about earning public trust in one
> specific, publicly sensitive  TLD.
> 
> I saw the "abortion and ICANN" column yesterday and shared it elsewhere as
> a source of ridicule; I did not think it relevant here at all. It falls
> into the same bin as suing ICANN to seize Iranian domain names as part of
> lawsuit settlements; that is, trying to get ICANN to be an enforcement arm
> of the US legal system to the exclusion of all others. Early on in this
> thread the issue arose, and was answered by John Horton who said pains
> would be taken to ensure this TLD is *not* going to be US-centric.
> 
> And outside the US, governments have little authority over ICANN; they can
> block domains at the border, they can object to new TLDs forming (not
> always successfully), but they can't stop "bad" domains from being made
> once ICANN policy allows for them.
> 
> The opinion mentioned asserts, as its core premise, that
> 
> *"ICANN, through its control over the global Internet domain name system,
> is in a unique position with respect to enforcement of local law against
> website operators."*
> 
> 
> The argument can be made strongly and easily that this is wishful thinking
> at best, especially outside the US.
> 
> - Evan
> 
> 
> 
> 
> On 2 September 2014 13:05, Antony Van Couvering <avc at avc.vc> wrote:
> 
>> I think this article from the Washington Post gives a needed perspective
>> on this debate.  It's about abortion advice given by a woman from the
>> Netherlands (where abortion is legal) to women in places where it's not.
>> The parallels are striking.
>> 
>> If something must be legal in every jurisdiction that the Internet, then
>> very few things would be legal.  Is this about protecting pharma profits or
>> people's lives?  How many drugs would not be available to people who need
>> them because of restrictions on commerce?  Is this a greater or lesser evil
>> than the possibility of getting harmful drugs?  All valid questions.
>> 
>> 
>> http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2014/09/01/abortion-icann-and-internet-governance/
>> 
>> Antony
>> 
>> 
>> On Sep 2, 2014, at 9:05 AM, McTim <dogwallah at gmail.com> wrote:
>> 
>> On Tue, Sep 2, 2014 at 2:57 AM, Evan Leibovitch <evan at telly.org> wrote:
>> 
>> <snip>
>> Happy Belated Birthday!
>> 
>> The
>> 
>> rejection (so far) of Policy Advisory Councils by ICANN -- as ALAC has
>> proposed -- has not helped matters from a public-interest PoV.
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> The ALAC proposal (as I understood it) didn't guarantee the public interest
>> either.
>> 
>> For example, in the case of .pharmacy, it would have allowed any dodgy
>> cross-border outfit selling drugs without a license to get a seat on the
>> TLDs PAC.  In fact, there could be many such rogue pharmacies "stacking"
>> such an Advisory Council.
>> 
>> BTW, .pharmacy already has an Advisory Group in place.
>> 
>> --
>> Cheers,
>> 
>> McTim
>> "A name indicates what we seek. An address indicates where it is. A route
>> indicates how we get there."  Jon Postel
>> _______________________________________________
>> At-Large mailing list
>> At-Large at atlarge-lists.icann.org
>> https://atlarge-lists.icann.org/mailman/listinfo/at-large
>> 
>> At-Large Official Site: http://atlarge.icann.org
>> 
>> 
>> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> Evan Leibovitch
> Toronto Canada
> 
> Em: evan at telly dot org
> Sk: evanleibovitch
> Tw: el56
> _______________________________________________
> At-Large mailing list
> At-Large at atlarge-lists.icann.org
> https://atlarge-lists.icann.org/mailman/listinfo/at-large
> 
> At-Large Official Site: http://atlarge.icann.org