[wg-c] Re: [IFWP] PICS and domain names

[edyson@edventure.com (Esther Dyson)]

FWIW, the first thing I said when I stood up was that I was speaking for
myself and not for ICANN, since ICANN is not and should not be involved in
the rating or filtering business.

Esther Dyson

At 09:30 am 09/10/1999 -0700, Mark C. Langston wrote:
>
>Since Esther's at the global meeting for establishing mandatory net
>content ratings, and seems to be chafing a bit over it, I'd like to
>point something out:
>
>Domain names would probably have to be rated as well.
>Since Esther *is* at this conference, and is the de facto face of ICANN,
>shouldn't someone speak as an official representative of ICANN on these
>issues?
>
>I certainly don't want the enforcement of ratings on any content on
>the net, and I am certain I don't want it enforced based on domain names.
>
>Let's face it:  The only reason anyone would want a global mandatory
>rating system is to enact filtering based on those ratings.
>
>If ICANN allows this to occur (and they might -- quite a bit of the money
>behind ICANN is also propping up this ratings effort), they will be in
>a position to become the arbiters of content on the Net.
>
>Since WG-C is concerned with the introduction of new gTLDs, we should be
>very wary of this effort.  One could easily imagine a push to classify
>content based on gTLD.  If you think .com's diluted and confusing now,
>you just wait until companies are told they must use a particular gTLD
>for a particular type of content.  Everywhere you turn, there will be
>confusing, misleading, and/or meaningless .com entries, all in an effort
>to avoid the gTLDs created specifically to be filtered out.
>
>-- 
>Mark C. Langston	LATEST: ICANN refuses	Let your voice be heard:
>mark@bitshift.org  to consider application for       http://www.idno.org
>Systems Admin    Constituency status from organized http://www.icann.org
>San Jose, CA      individual domain name owners      http://www.dnso.org
>
>


Esther Dyson			Always make new mistakes!
chairman, EDventure Holdings
interim chairman, Internet Corp. for Assigned Names & Numbers
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