Parminder and all my friends, Information has always been, to one degree or another, a tradable commodity and will likely remain so. Admittedly some information has little or no monitory value or any other sort of value to some and yet that same information has allot of monitory value to others. I personally freely admit that some specific information should not be traded as if it were a commodity and therefore publicly avaliable information. So essentialy we agree in a very broad sense. I don't praticularly agree with the EU specific position, but also I do not agree that all information is or should be free or at no cost. Opressive net censorship, a very ugly thing indeed, usually but not always relates to Essential information that is in the public good, should not be Censored in any way. Yet personal information or trade secrets must remain protected. The latter is not censorship, but a matter of personal or organizational safety and security. Parminder wrote:

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All my friends,

Seems one of our members concerns seems to be resonating more broadly in the EU. CENSORSHIP! ICANN and the ALAC in particular should take specific note...

http://www.eff.org/support Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "The European Parliament just passed a proposal to http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080227-eu-may-begin-treating-net- censorship-as-a-trade-barrier.html treat internet censorship as a trade barrier, in particular the 'Great Firewall of China.' If passed by the European Council, the issue would be raised in trade negotiations and could lead to economic sanctions and trade restrictions for those countries unwilling to remove oppressive Net censorship.

Two main problems with it...

(1) It renders information as a tradable commodity. Such commoditization and inherent commercialization of information is a very dangerous direction to lend support to. We may stand to lose much more than we can ever gain.

(2) All trade laws admit of legitimate exceptions that countries may make depending on the level of maturity/ development of their economies/ specific sectors. This putting 'information' in a global trade law context will make such (legitimate) exceptions applicable to free flow of information as well. Not something we want, right.

Therefore, I think free flow of information is a political issue and should be dealt as one, and not an economic issue. This effort to use economic solutions to political issues is more dangerous to economically weaker countries/ societies and therefore not easily acceptable to them, even if most often these societies are the ones most oppressed by political controls on information flows.

Parminder

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-----Original Message----- From: alac-bounces@atlarge-lists.icann.org [mailto:alac-bounces@atlarge- lists.icann.org] On Behalf Of Jeffrey A. Williams Sent: Friday, February 29, 2008 2:07 PM To: ALAC Subject: [At-Large] EU Views Net Censorship As a "Trade Barrier"

All my friends,

Seems one of our members concerns seems to be resonating more broadly in the EU. CENSORSHIP! ICANN and the ALAC in particular should take specific note...

http://www.eff.org/support Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "The European Parliament just passed a proposal to http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080227-eu-may-begin-treating-net- censorship-as-a-trade-barrier.html treat internet censorship as a trade barrier, in particular the 'Great Firewall of China.' If passed by the European Council, the issue would be raised in trade negotiations and could lead to economic sanctions and trade restrictions for those countries unwilling to remove oppressive Net censorship.

Regards,

Regards, Spokesman for INEGroup LLA. - (Over 277k members/stakeholders strong!) "Obedience of the law is the greatest freedom" - Abraham Lincoln "Credit should go with the performance of duty and not with what is very often the accident of glory" - Theodore Roosevelt "If the probability be called P; the injury, L; and the burden, B; liability depends upon whether B is less than L multiplied by P: i.e., whether B is less than PL." United States v. Carroll Towing (159 F.2d 169 [2d Cir. 1947] =============================================================== Updated 1/26/04 CSO/DIR. Internet Network Eng. SR. Eng. Network data security IDNS. div. of Information Network Eng. INEG. INC. ABA member in good standing member ID 01257402 E-Mail jwkckid1@ix.netcom.com My Phone: 214-244-4827