[At-Large] ICANN Board Approves Censorship Policy for Domain Names Based on Morality: 2 Board Members Speak Against It]

[Vittorio Bertola]

Veni Markovski ha scritto:
> As long as we hear people for whom the main document created in
> history is the 1st ammendment to the US Constitution, there will be
> cross cultural problems.
> 
> For me nonIregistering .gonazi or .hatejews is quite reasonable; for
> the Americans this is against the Constitution. For me shutting down
> web sites promoting the above mentioned domains is a good thing, but
> at the same time such web sites, in Bulgarian, exist and can not be
> shut down, because they are on US web servers.
> 
> The world does not start and end with the US Constitution, and I
> somehow don't think this is bad.

I found it saddening and disheartening that at the moment when the Board 
finally approved in principle the creation of any number of new gTLDs, 
something that we had been advocating and waiting for ten years or so, 
the only thing that the At Large had to say was a negative statement on 
a possible interpretation of one of 20 recommendations, a recommendation 
which is actaully obvious for 95% of the world, but which seems to hurt 
the intellectuals of a specific developed country which accounts for 
less than 5% of the world's population but which is disproportionately 
represented in ICANN for historical reasons.

I have disclosed that I have a direct interest in this - actually, I 
want to get my hands dirty in first person to make this happen - but I 
spent the days in Paris discussing with several people, and all of them 
were rejoicing and excited at the new possibilities that this decision 
is opening up. I saw several people from all parts of Europe willing to 
work to create TLDs for the promotion of their home cities and cultures. 
I had a great discussion with Nii Quaynor (the former At Large elected 
director for Africa) and we were thinking of how this new opportunity 
will benefit the struggle for survival of non-national languages, a 
category that includes hundreds of languages in Africa, in Europe and 
elsewhere (including all the native languages of North America, by the way).

Yet there was no mention of this in the At Large's statement, as if the 
only thing that mattered was how to impose this American liberal view 
that anyone must be free to offend the religious beliefs and the moral 
standards of entire continents, without any kind of respect.

May I say that I am quite disappointed, not only by the fact that I have 
seen no discussion of this ALAC statement with the rest of the 
community, but by the fact that I would expect the At Large to lead 
ICANN in promoting cultural diversity and the long term development of 
the Internet, and instead it seems to be thinking with narrow mind and 
short sight?

Ciao,
-- 
vb.                   Vittorio Bertola - vb [a] bertola.eu   <--------
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