[NA-Discuss] The societal harm of domaining, episode 413

[Evan Leibovitch]

On Thu, 11 Feb 2021 at 09:04, Nat Cohen <ncohen at telepathy.com> wrote:

> Evan, as a champion of the small guy, you oddly now find yourself aligned
> with the organization who wrote the CircleID piece, CALinnovates, a known
> astroturfer that was a shill for big tech against net neutrality
>

Yeah, I saw the original guilt-by-association smear posted in the CircleID
comments.

The whole story wasn't told, which is to be expected in such a lame
rebuttal. CALInnovates was not against "net neutrality" per se but a single
provision of a single proposed law -- the prohibition against a telco's
bundling free services into its retail offering (ie, data used to access
XYZ service aren't counted against one's monthly cap). The practice has
some anti-competitive potential, but also has the potential to save
significant money for the poorest consumers who are already using those
services. In most other positions it's taken, CALInnovates has been broadly
pro-entrepreneur in a number of realms. And as it claims to be a "coalition
of tech companies, founders, funders and non-profits", there's no
passing-off as a grassroots org so the astroturf claim is utterly bogus.

But that point is moot. In some peoples' world, communities of advocates
must be either allies or enemies forever. Not mine. The ICANN reality --
and most other realities -- are much different, where various issues can
find the strangest of bedfellows aligned. While on ALAC I fought some
constituencies aggressively on some issues only to be fully aligned with
them on others the next day. This is not "odd"; it's real life, it requires
diplomacy and tact, and it works.

And finally. These days, the demonizing of a person or entity because of a
perceived bad past action -- singled out against a body of good work -- is
rightly exposed as cancel culture and widely despised. Such odious tactics
are to be identified and rejected, here and anywhere.

In summary; an inaccurate, badly argued, unremarkable act of desperation.

Cheers,
Evan
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