[WSIS CS-Plenary] An invitation to act

[Milton Mueller]

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Should Governments Censor the Domain Name 
System? Should the US Government Have 
Unilateral Authority Over ICANN?
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On August 11, the U.S. Commerce Department
responded to a campaign by conservative relligious 
groups favoring online content controls by telling 
ICANN to reconsider its agreement to create a new 
.xxx top-level domain for sexual content.
ICANN complied by delaying its process.

The US Commerce Dept's intervention raises 
profound issues about how the Internet is governed. 
This occurs at a time when the World Summit on the 
Information Society and many other national 
governments are focusing on ICANN. According to the
Internet Governance Project (IGP), the letter "calls 
into question the neutrality of the U.S. government's 
special authority over ICANN," and is the first open
exercise of the USG's unilateral authority over the
ICANN regime.

The IGP has prepared a "Statement 
Opposing Political Intervention in the Internet's 
Core Technical Administrative Functions." 
The statement carefully analyzes the implications of 
this action for ICANN and for Internet governance 
generally. You can read the statement here: 

http://dcc.syr.edu/signaturepost.asp 

If you agree with it, you can sign on as an endorser
by filling out the form at the bottom of the page.

You can also download the statement itself here:
http://dcc.syr.edu/miscarticles/STATEMENT-XXX.pdf 

Sign on or not, IGP urges everyone not to let the
advocates of content regulation be the only voices
heard by the Commerce Department.