Vittorio, I am saddened and disheartened when I see people accept censorship and call it "narrow minded and short sighted". Darlene ________________________________ From: alac-bounces@atlarge-lists.icann.org on behalf of Vittorio Bertola Sent: Fri 6/27/2008 4:38 PM To: Veni Markovski Cc: At-Large Worldwide Subject: Re: [At-Large] ICANN Board Approves Censorship Policy for Domain Names Based on Morality: 2 Board Members Speak Against It] Veni Markovski ha scritto:
As long as we hear people for whom the main document created in history is the 1st ammendment to the US Constitution, there will be cross cultural problems.
For me nonIregistering .gonazi or .hatejews is quite reasonable; for the Americans this is against the Constitution. For me shutting down web sites promoting the above mentioned domains is a good thing, but at the same time such web sites, in Bulgarian, exist and can not be shut down, because they are on US web servers.
The world does not start and end with the US Constitution, and I somehow don't think this is bad.
I found it saddening and disheartening that at the moment when the Board finally approved in principle the creation of any number of new gTLDs, something that we had been advocating and waiting for ten years or so, the only thing that the At Large had to say was a negative statement on a possible interpretation of one of 20 recommendations, a recommendation which is actaully obvious for 95% of the world, but which seems to hurt the intellectuals of a specific developed country which accounts for less than 5% of the world's population but which is disproportionately represented in ICANN for historical reasons. I have disclosed that I have a direct interest in this - actually, I want to get my hands dirty in first person to make this happen - but I spent the days in Paris discussing with several people, and all of them were rejoicing and excited at the new possibilities that this decision is opening up. I saw several people from all parts of Europe willing to work to create TLDs for the promotion of their home cities and cultures. I had a great discussion with Nii Quaynor (the former At Large elected director for Africa) and we were thinking of how this new opportunity will benefit the struggle for survival of non-national languages, a category that includes hundreds of languages in Africa, in Europe and elsewhere (including all the native languages of North America, by the way). Yet there was no mention of this in the At Large's statement, as if the only thing that mattered was how to impose this American liberal view that anyone must be free to offend the religious beliefs and the moral standards of entire continents, without any kind of respect. May I say that I am quite disappointed, not only by the fact that I have seen no discussion of this ALAC statement with the rest of the community, but by the fact that I would expect the At Large to lead ICANN in promoting cultural diversity and the long term development of the Internet, and instead it seems to be thinking with narrow mind and short sight? Ciao, -- vb. Vittorio Bertola - vb [a] bertola.eu <-------- --------> finally with a new website at http://bertola.eu/ <-------- _______________________________________________ ALAC mailing list ALAC@atlarge-lists.icann.org http://atlarge-lists.icann.org/mailman/listinfo/alac_atlarge-lists.icann.org At-Large Official Site: http://atlarge.icann.org <http://atlarge.icann.org/>