[At-Large] Opera now lets you ditch boring web links and use emojis instead

[Karl Auerbach]

On 2/20/22 8:52 AM, sivasubramanian muthusamy via At-Large wrote:

> What does ICANN think about private and often proprietary 
> 'innovations' that aspire to "cause a major shift in the way the 
> Internet [DNS] works" ?
>
Remember, the Internet came from a rejection of the status-quo, the 
world of circuit switching and central control.

The question you asked is not far distant from a question whether we 
ought to nail down the Internet in the same way the telcos of the first 
three quarters of the 20th century ossified the telephone networks.

Ma Bell and other telco's imposed extreme, and often arbitrary, limits 
on innovation at the edges. Take a look at the 1956 US case regarding 
the Hush-a-Phone. (In that case AT&T tried to block the attachment of 
what was essentially a plastic hand that would be attached by the user 
to the mouthpiece of a telephone. At&T made wild claims that that would 
cause the telephone network to collapse and repairmen would blown off 
the top of telephone poles.)  Then look at the Carterphone and MCI cases.

One of the hallmarks of the Internet is permissionless innovation at the 
edges. Clearly there are balances to be made, but we risk a balance that 
pushes too much control to the center.

Some decades ago I distilled this balance into a short formulation:

First Law of the Internet

+ Every person shall be free to use the Internet in any way
   that is privately beneficial without being publicly
   detrimental.

    - The burden of demonstrating public detriment shall
      be on those who wish to prevent the private use.

        - Such a demonstration shall require clear and
          convincing evidence of public detriment.

    - The public detriment must be of such degree and extent
      as to justify the suppression of the private activity.

https://www.cavebear.com/old_cbblog/000059.html

         --karl--