[IRP] Fwd: [governance] Re: [Coalition] ICANN Meeting in Mexico

[C H]

Count me in to any such effort also.  It has profound breakthrough potential.

For one thing, when the time comes to shut down / ignore all ICANN root servers and retrieve addresses by a more lateral and decentralized means, the existence of a huge number of voluntary lateral contracts among domain holders would be a huge advantage in international law.  That is, if say 10 or 20% of domain registrants had voluntarily signed on to such a bill of rights, that would be a powerful constituency able to delegate the root server functions to any entity that they believed would uphold such rights.

If say IBM.com had not signed on to such a contract, it could just as well be routed to the highest bidder in Belarus who wants their traffic.  There being no difference between one non-human-rights-respecting domain holder and another, legally, they could all have their rights simply extincted by technological means.  I suspect however that IBM would simply sign up for the bill of rights.

I don't believe negotiating or discussing anything with ICANN is useful but China already runs its own root servers that presently mirror ICANN's own (but with China-specific TLDs added under only their own authority).  While China's infrastructure for this is still relatively new it may be a good time to suggest to progressive forces there that agreeing to respect these rights, including some relevant to political freedom of speech, even if they are not uniformly enforceable initially, would give them credibility on the international stage when they finally turn off all ICANN "services".

When the IGF realizes it must simply run its own root servers like China's, it likewise would be of great value to already have consensus on exactly what rights need to be upheld by those in charge of critical infrastructure.

Done correctly a broadly acceptable bill of rights signed on to by domain holders/registrants (not "owners" that is a very poor model & terminology, and perhaps holders/registrants must agree that any property rights are conditional on meeting the rights obligations of users, etc.) could be a very powerful weapon in achieving consensus on how to govern the Internet, and ensuring that critical infrastructure is not controlled by any one of the three major powers (EU, China, US) that presently compete to control it.

Craig Hubley

--- On Mon, 2/16/09, Max Senges <maxsenges at gmail.com> wrote:
> From: Max Senges <maxsenges at gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: [IRP] Fwd: [governance] Re: [Coalition] ICANN Meeting in Mexico
> To: "Vittorio Bertola" <vb at bertola.eu>, "Nick Ashton-Hart" <nick.ashton-hart at icann.org>, "Wolf Ludwig" <wolf.ludwig at comunica-ch.net>
> Cc: "irp" <Irp at lists.internetrightsandprinciples.org>
> Date: Monday, February 16, 2009, 2:28 AM
> Dear Nick
> 
> I have heard about the proposal to work on a
> "declaration of internet
> user rights" which was originally raised by Vittorio
> as a declaration
> "similarly to the "passenger rights" posters
> that we see in every European airport."
> 
> Could you please advise who is planning to work on this
> initiative. Me an I
> believe some of the participants of the Internet Rights and
> Principles
> coalition would like to contribute.
> 
> Thanks
> max
> 
> 2009/2/16 Vittorio Bertola <vb at bertola.eu>
> 
> > Max Senges ha scritto:
> > > Hi everybody
> > >
> > > Ginger started a really intresting thread about
> the ICANN mexico meeting
> > > happening in less than a month.
> > >
> > > I wasn't aware, but Vittorio raised a
> Registrar's User Declaration quite
> > > some time ago, and if i understand correctly, now
> it is on the
> > deliverable
> > > list for the mexico meeting
> > >
> > > Vittorio can you explain a bit more? How can we
> participate in the
> > > development/drafting?
> >
> > Two years ago, when I was representing the ALAC on the
> ICANN Board, I
> > insisted that registrants should be provided
> information on their rights
> > when buying a domain name, similarly to the
> "passenger rights" posters
> > that we see in every European airport.
> >
> > But I've not been involved in this since I left
> the board in December
> > 2007, and the point that Danny is making (I hope you
> know him, otherwise
> > you wouldn't be able to put his emails in context)
> is that the ALAC
> > never bothered to follow up on my proposal.
> >
> > I heard that some people proposed to write a
> "declaration of internet
> > user rights" at the At Large Summit in Mexico,
> which does seem a bit
> > ridiculous since no preparatory work was made and
> AFAIK only a handful
> > of people are thinking at it. But you should ask the
> people who are
> > organizing the At Large Summit, I confess I'm
> totally out of the loop
> > about it.
> >
> > Ciao,
> > --
> > vb.                   Vittorio Bertola - vb [a]
> bertola.eu   <--------
> > -------->  finally with a new website at
> http://bertola.eu/  <--------
> >
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