NNSquad - Network Neutrality Squad
[ NNSquad ] The Shame on the Internet: ICANN Votes to Massively Enrich the Domain-Industrial Complex
The Shame on the Internet: ICANN Votes to Massively
Enrich the Domain-Industrial Complex
http://lauren.vortex.com/archive/000871.html
As expected, ICANN has voted overwhelmingly to approve their
disgraceful plan for a vast increase in generic top-level domains
(gTLDs).
Some observers are expecting hundreds of millions of dollars to be
spent quickly in the resulting environment, thanks to the associated
"gold rush" and "buy protection for your brand" mentalities being
explicitly promoted.
I suspect that is a lowball estimate. I believe we may see billions
of dollars being wasted in ICANN's new gigantic gTLD "domain name
space" -- mostly from firms falsely hoodwinked into thinking that new
domain names will be their paths to Internet riches, and from firms
trying to protect their names in this vastly expanded space, ripe for
abuses.
This massive money flow will funnel overwhelmingly directly to the
relatively few entities, mainly registries, registrars, and ICANN
itself, at the top of the "domain-industrial complex" pyramid.
The negative impacts of this fiasco on ordinary consumers and Internet
users will ultimately become all too clear, as the resulting effects
of massively increased cybersquatting, spammers, and phishing take
hold.
But apart from that, with the world still in the grips of an economic
crisis that threatens to become desperately worse at any moment, the
ethically vacuous nature of this entire plan is obvious.
Could all or part of that money just perhaps be used in better ways
than for the creation and maintenance of an artificial "must buy
whether you want it or not" form of "domain names" product -- that
does absolutely nothing to advance or solve the many crucial
technical, policy, blocking, neutrality, censorship, and free speech
issues that are at the forefront of the Internet today -- a "product"
that may actually <b>exacerbate</b> blocking and censorship?
Has the horrific economic saga of the last few years taught us
nothing? Is there no sense of ethical or moral outrage among those
persons who are truly concerned about creating the best possible
future for the entire Internet and Internet community, not just for a
comparatively few "domain exploitation" tycoons and would-be tycoons?
Do we care enough to consider alternative approaches?
( http://j.mp/h7T2gF [Lauren's Blog] )
Or as usual, we will sit by and watch perhaps mankind's most important
communications tool in history be further subverted for the benefit of
the few?
We shall see.
--Lauren--
Lauren Weinstein (lauren@vortex.com): http://www.vortex.com/lauren
Co-Founder: People For Internet Responsibility: http://www.pfir.org
Founder:
- Network Neutrality Squad: http://www.nnsquad.org
- Global Coalition for Transparent Internet Performance: http://www.gctip.org
- PRIVACY Forum: http://www.vortex.com
Member: ACM Committee on Computers and Public Policy
Blog: http://lauren.vortex.com
Twitter: https://twitter.com/laurenweinstein
Google Buzz: http://j.mp/laurenbuzz
Tel: +1 (818) 225-2800 / Skype: vortex.com