[LAC-Discuss] Draft of New gTLD Evaluation Process

[Carlton Samuels]

Dear All:
Due to a scheduling conflict with the job that pays my keep, I belatedly
joined the New gTLD Evaluation Process briefing via teleconference.  Since I
only came at the tail end, someone may have sought clarification on the
matter of the four criteria for objections to a gTLD string, namely Sting
Confusion, Infringement of Rights, Morality and Public Order, Community
Objection.  The draft also states that the gTLD string can be objected on
any combination of the four criteria at the same time.

I have requested and the At-Large Secretariat is committed to producing a
Spanish-language translation as soon as practical.

Singly or severally, they ring alarm bells. So while the translation is
being worked, I shall raise a few concerns for your consideration while they
are fresh in my mind.

First, if "Morality and Public Order" is accepted as a criterion for
successful objection to a gTLD string, it would have finally removed the
very last fig leaf from ICANN's tattered denial of a political construct to
its mandate and work. Because since it is widely indoctrinated that morality
- your sense of right and wrong - is the stuff of religion, it raises the
question as to whose morality becomes the yardstick.  Rest assured the
yardstick will certainly not be that of the mosque. But quite frankly, the
competing morality - and ascendant one, in the sense of the existing power
equation - is equally objectionable to me. I still have an old edition of
the Book of Common Prayer where deliverance from "the perfidious Jew and
infidel Turk" is penitently requested.

Secondly, it is almost certain that a criterion such as "Infringement of
Rights" would relegate minority rights to an 'also-ran' position, especially
with regard to representation of these persons in ICANN councils.

I will end by repeating a mantra that should be familiar to those who know
me. Any man that cannot decide for himself what to read, who to associate
with and most importantly, what to think, is a slave.  Since I am the ONLY
qualified person to determine what I may think, read and associate, I am
unalterably opposed to any notion that a tribunal can determine what is
moral for me.

When the time comes, I shall vote "NAY" and against this process, as
defined.

Carlton
 

      

Carlton A. Samuels
UWI ALS/LACRALO Secretariat

Email: carlton.samuels at uwimona.edu.jm
Mobile: (876) 383-3964
Office:   (876) 927-2148