CNET News.com reports that the vote to create a .xxx top-level domain has been delayed–again. This is the second delay, no doubt for the same reason as the initial delay in voting–political pressure from the U.S. government.
In a previous post, I ranted about the dangers of governments getting into the business of Internet governance. There are serious censorship concerns, folks, when there is political intervention in the Internet’s core technical administrative functions. And that’s why I urge you to read and sign this online petition by the Internet Governance Project.
Is the delay in approving/denying the .xxx application really the start of Internet governance gone bad? That’s my fear, and combined with (1) a controversial “Declaration of Principles” wherein the US argued that in order to preserve the “security and stability” of the Internet and the economic transactions that take place on it, it would exercise unilateral control over the DNS, and (2) a World Society of the Information Summit meeting this November where the international community will want to wrestle control from the U.S. and assert UN dominance, and we may have a battle royal in the making. Fellow TLF member Adam, in an article with Solveig Singleton, agrees that this fight could become bitter given the current global environment of anti-Americanism. Stay tuned….
The Technology Liberation Front is the tech policy blog dedicated to keeping politicians' hands off the 'net and everything else related to technology.
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