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ICANN Board Meeting Spoiler Alert

• Comment posted Mar 12, 2010 8:02 pm PST — by Milton Mueller
  EoI voted down, .xxx stiffed.

Will Stonewalling on .xxx Be Beckstrom's First Big Mistake?

• Comment posted Feb 22, 2010 7:51 pm PST — by Milton Mueller
  The threat was transmitted via telephone by Michael Gallagher (NTIA head at the time) who referred to the views of Deputy Secretary of Commerce David Sampson, who said something like "we won't go there." http://www.commerce.gov/bios/sampson_bio.htm This information came out in…

Google Departure from China Highly Unlikely

• Comment posted Jan 14, 2010 3:08 am PST — by Milton Mueller
  Sorry, but Ian Paul is no China expert. The article's assumption that no business can afford to leave China is questionable, and its assumption that jawboning by Hilary Clinton will make the Chinese Communist Party soften its censorship policies is…

The US as Keeper of a 'Free' Internet?

• Comment posted Sep 16, 2009 8:50 am PDT — by Milton Mueller
  Thanks to Mr Rijgersberg for what is (superficially at least) a calm and well-considered discussion of one of the primary problems facing governance of the Internet. But after reading this piece it seemed increasingly clear that there is very little…

Domain Registry/Registrar Cross Ownership: A Reality Check

• Comment posted Sep 01, 2009 4:10 pm PDT — by Milton Mueller
  Some good points, Richard, some could be quibbled with. But shouldn't we be having this dialogue in a GNSO policy development process? Isn't that what the GNSO is supposed to be for? Who exactly are we trying to persuade at…

Memo to John Markoff: There are No "Do Overs" in History

• Comment posted Mar 07, 2009 10:02 am PST — by Milton Mueller
  Ian: I don't think we disagree much at all. Your model of how change will occur is close to mine: "roads being paved over," etc. Edward: As an academic myself of course I know quite well what can and cannot…

The Wall Street Lesson for Net Neutrality

• Comment posted Sep 19, 2008 4:19 pm PDT — by Milton Mueller
  Art, I think we've moved beyond this simple-minded "government is all good" vs. "all bad" dichotomy. Reagan is dead, get out of the '80s. This kind of ambulance chasing with respect to the financial crisis is kinda cheap rhetorical opportunism…

700 MHz Update: Will VZ Comply with the Rules?

• Comment posted May 08, 2008 12:42 pm PDT — by Milton Mueller
  Susan, stay on this! As I've expressed elsewhere, I am concerned, but less worried than you, about the wireless network operators' hope to be "broadcasters". I can't see a strategy of vertical integration into content as viable even in the…

Groups Insist ICANN Must Maintain Ties with U.S. Department of Commerce after 2009 Expiration Date

• Comment posted Mar 08, 2008 6:38 pm PST — by Milton Mueller
  There were about 50 comments in that proceeding, I am led to wonder: why did you highlight this one? Conservative nationalists in the U.S. of course have a strong bias to keep what is supposed to be a global governance…

DNSSEC: Once More, With Feeling!

• Comment posted Dec 16, 2007 7:39 pm PST — by Milton Mueller
  >[The IGP] paper argued along the lines of his comment here, namely advocating a cast > of thousands as holders of bits of the private key The paper proposed distributing the key signing among three parties. Why would a reputable…

• Comment posted Dec 15, 2007 6:53 pm PST — by Milton Mueller
  Jay Daley said: "If you want to pursue the political objective of multiple roots or one root under distributed control then that's your prerogative.  But it is disingenuous to drag poor old DNSSEC into it as a pawn in that…

• Comment posted Dec 15, 2007 6:33 pm PST — by Milton Mueller
  Jay: The point of discussing multiple or competing roots in the context of DNSSEC is not necessarily to advocate splitting the DNS root. It is to demonstrate that there are economic, operational and political consequences inherent in the nature of…

Another Whois-Privacy Stalemate

• Comment posted Aug 24, 2007 5:17 am PDT — by Milton Mueller
  >Suresh Ramasubramanian said: > >They tried to whittle down the shielding of data to natural persons whose >internet activities were completely noncommercial in nature. > >Yeah. That is how it works, anywhere else in the world. No, in fact it…

IGF Preparatory Meeting: A Score Draw in Geneva

• Comment posted Jun 01, 2007 3:13 pm PDT — by Milton Mueller
  I think Suresh makes an important and valid point: "you have to watch for...how very easy it will be for governments to get more control THROUGH the existing system." That is why Internet Governance Project and others (see for example…

Discussion at the Internet Governance Forum in Geneva

• Comment posted Jun 01, 2007 2:37 pm PDT — by Milton Mueller
  Patrik: The Whois debates have revealed a similar need for inter-agency, transnational, multi-stakeholder cooperation and deliberation. The current working group on Whois now includes some people, such as a small number of law enforcement agencies and bank representatives, who were…

The Real Problem with dot-XXX

• Comment posted Mar 18, 2007 6:37 pm PDT — by Milton Mueller
  Famous Brett: Excellent contribution. I plead guilty to losing my cool and accept the gavel. And picking up on the "Professor" Hill con metaphor is a gem. Here's my quick attempt to answer your questions: 1. What is ICANN’s official…

• Comment posted Mar 16, 2007 11:02 pm PDT — by Milton Mueller
  Kieren: There's no "personal attack" in holding you to account for accuracy and a logical consistency. You asserted that I was calling for global extension of a U.S. law. I asked you (and Mike) to document that, because I'm quite…

• Comment posted Mar 16, 2007 6:25 pm PDT — by Milton Mueller
  Michael Roberts: you say: "Milton goes on to assert that ICM’s claim on dot-xxx is protected by the 1st Amendment." Please review the exchanges. I claim that ICANN's approach to TLD regulation inhibits free expression rights, but not first amendment…

• Comment posted Mar 16, 2007 6:18 pm PDT — by Milton Mueller
  Kieren: Your journalistic skills seem to have dulled noticably since you left the Register. Show me one spot in this controversy where I said that ICANN should be guided by the U.S. First Amendment. Can't, can you? The attempt to…

XXX Comes to a Head

• Comment posted Mar 10, 2007 4:48 pm PST — by Milton Mueller
  Hmm. First I confused George with Brandon (apologies) and now I have a very intelligent re-post from Brandon written by Reed Lee. Whatever. Let me respond to Reed, who actually makes decent arguments. Here's where we agree: "Quite apart from…

• Comment posted Mar 09, 2007 9:57 pm PST — by Milton Mueller
  George, You write: "1) all .XXX domains must have ICRA labeling. 2) all .XXX domains that auto-redirect to a .COM, the .COM must have ICRA labeling. Have you heard any domain extension have this level of control?" No, George I…

• Comment posted Mar 09, 2007 9:29 pm PST — by Milton Mueller
  George, Your comments are reasonable enough but they reveal a fundamental difference in our assumptions about what kind of a process should govern the addition of new TLDs. I don't think a "whoever shouts the loudest in a public comment…

Assault on State Censorship at the IGF

• Comment posted Nov 11, 2006 10:53 pm PST — by Milton Mueller
  Suresh: Interesting contrast. First you praise Veni for rejecting application of what he thinks are U.S.-based standards of free speech to the global Internet. Then you say that the U.S. can and should be trusted with global oversight powers over…

• Comment posted Nov 11, 2006 10:30 pm PST — by Milton Mueller
  To Veni: I am gratified to see you openly defending national censorship, and to see that you have openly abandoned the global nature of Internet communication in favor of a nationally bounded internet. And for that reason I'm really glad…

Vint in International Herald Tribune on IDNs

• Comment posted Oct 31, 2006 3:09 pm PST — by Milton Mueller
  Paul Hoffmann's correction is well taken. Vint's warning is against the intrusion of national politics in the standardization of IDNs. But as always, Vint's complaints about governmental interference are oddly selective. A perhaps more appropriate warning to ICANN would be:…

Another View of the New ICANN-DoC Agreement

• Comment posted Oct 02, 2006 5:54 pm PDT — by Milton Mueller
  George, Anyone who's followed this issue knows that .xxx wasn't rejected because of the opposition of the porn industry (that would have made it more likely to pass in most quarters) and both the porn industry opposition and the public…

ICANN and the DOC

• Comment posted Oct 02, 2006 5:49 pm PDT — by Milton Mueller
  Famous Bret: My bad. I read it waiting for a connecting flight in an airport on the way back from a long trip and skimmed a bit too much. It did surprise the h*** out of me that you would…

ICANN's Work No Longer Prescribed by DOC

• Comment posted Oct 01, 2006 4:22 pm PDT — by Milton Mueller
  This is not "news" this is "spin." See http://www.internetgovernance.org/news.html#ICANNoldwine_093006

ICANN and the DOC

• Comment posted Oct 01, 2006 4:20 pm PDT — by Milton Mueller
  OK. Watson disregards all individual human rights and says "the convenience of the many outweigh the rights of the few," a philosophy that has been used to rationalize oppression from the Holocaust to less drastic examples. Not very convincing. Suresh…

The Blurr-Cade Proposal on Root Zone Oversight

• Comment posted Jul 26, 2006 12:11 am PDT — by Milton Mueller
  Kieren and Patrick: The turn taken by this dialogue is sad. There are many good points about the Burr proposal. They call upon the US to issue assurances that they won't abuse their unilateral power. They call upon it to…

• Comment posted Jul 24, 2006 2:21 pm PDT — by Milton Mueller
  Patrick: A more substantive disagreement. I think you, like many people, confuse two distinct things. 1. The importance of Internet policies and the need, or even the inevitability, of governments playing a role in how those policies are rules are…

• Comment posted Jul 24, 2006 1:59 pm PDT — by Milton Mueller
  Patrick: Just a simple correction. The proposal was written and developed by Ms. Burr; Marilyn Cade seems to have endorsed it but did not participate in drafting it as far as I know.

Send a Message to NTIA

• Comment posted Jun 17, 2006 7:19 am PDT — by Milton Mueller
  Suresh: You avoided my question. Do you agree with the statement or not? None of the comments are "fake," the names are all up on the NTIA comment site and if you can prove that one of them is fake,…

• Comment posted Jun 16, 2006 10:17 am PDT — by Milton Mueller
  Suresh, If you want to debate the real issue, i.e., if you want to defend U.S. unilateral control over the root of the Internet, let's have an honest debate about that. Don't try to discredit our campaign by calling it…

Jefferson Rebuffed: The United States and the Future of Internet Governance

• Comment posted Jun 14, 2006 7:32 am PDT — by Milton Mueller
  This is a very good analysis of the EU proposal in the context of WSIS, and an excellent antidote to the "the UN is out to take over the Internet" meme that still thrives in a lot of the U.S.…

XXX Litigation Looms

• Comment posted May 19, 2006 10:48 pm PDT — by Milton Mueller
  ICM Registry has just posted the entire set of FOIA documents at this URL. We only had access to the original 88 it released when writing up the IGP summary. the URL for the entire set is here: http://www.icmregistry.com/documents.html

China's New Domain Names: Lost in Translation

• Comment posted Mar 01, 2006 5:03 pm PST — by Milton Mueller
  I believe that Brett Watson is correct and James Seng is a little too mundane in his interpretation. I know well that the Chinese-character TLDs - and note that in China they do refer to them as TLDs, not as…

The Villain in the ICANN-VeriSign Struggle is the U.S. Government

• Comment posted Feb 27, 2006 12:10 am PST — by Milton Mueller
  Alert! Someone please inform Joe Sims that a PR flak from VeriSign is spoofing him on a public blog. Oh, this is for real? OK. Joe, I met with lotsa Congressional staffers and I know what went on and what…

• Comment posted Feb 22, 2006 12:25 pm PST — by Milton Mueller
  I can't help feeling amused by this debate. Perhaps the most amusing thing is that all sides can agree that the bogeyman of "international control" is far, far worse than what is happening now. More about that later. Equally amusing,…

The XXX Train Wreck in Vancouver

• Comment posted Jan 12, 2006 4:45 pm PST — by Milton Mueller
  Ewan: To answer your question, do two simple things. Click on either or both of these URLS: http://www.god.com http://www.gay.com The assignment of either of these names caused no one any pain. The world did not come to an end. No…

How to Listen to the Individual Internet User

• Comment posted Dec 12, 2005 10:59 pm PST — by Milton Mueller
  Wendy: You identify a classic, well-understood problem in collective action: how do millions of people with a very small stake in a policy process defend their interests against a small number of large interests with very high, concentrated stakes in…

A Further Look Into ORSN

• Comment posted Oct 12, 2005 4:33 am PDT — by Milton Mueller
  Paul Vixie's ego is large enough - justifiably perhaps - that he thinks this whole debate is about how we characterize his position. I suggest that there is a far larger and more important issue here. It is not whether…

Why I Am Participating in the ORSN Project

• Comment posted Oct 09, 2005 10:18 pm PDT — by Milton Mueller
  What makes this interesting is that the justification for this "additional" root is explicitly political. As ORSN says on its web site: "The U.S.A (under the current or any future administration) are theoretically and practically able to control "our" accesses…

.XXX Puzzle Pieces Start to Come Together: And the Picture is Ugly

• Comment posted Aug 19, 2005 7:15 pm PDT — by Milton Mueller
  Suresh: I agree with your assessment of Sharil totally. However, I am disturbed by the way many ICANN observers or participants have been diverted from the important political points by this personal issue. Closing ranks around Sharil because he is…

• Comment posted Aug 18, 2005 2:38 pm PDT — by Milton Mueller
  OK, Ms. Crishna point taken. I didn't think "known to be close to the US" was an insult, however, and hope it wasn't taken that way. I just believe there are close lines of communication between the GAC Chair and…

• Comment posted Aug 17, 2005 10:58 pm PDT — by Milton Mueller
  Kevin: No, .xxx has not been killed yet, but my belief is that those who want to kill it asked to delay final approval to give themselves a chance to kill it. And there is no doubt that the Family…

Orange Bowl ICANN UDRP Case Explores Fair Use

• Comment posted Aug 09, 2005 12:40 pm PDT — by Milton Mueller
  Hello? Mark? Earth to Mark? Have you and all other UDRP panelists forgotten that UDRP was not meant to be a new form of precedent-based law, but a way to resolve the most blatant and obvious cases of abusive registration?…

Languages in the Root: A TLD Launch Strategy Based on ISO 639

• Comment posted Oct 15, 2004 4:49 am PDT — by Milton Mueller
  I didn't make this clear enough the first time around. The most important reason Danny's idea is a bad one is that it would create an officially sanctioned monopoly over the language code, just as ccTLDs create an officially sanctioned…

• Comment posted Oct 13, 2004 5:59 am PDT — by Milton Mueller
  Danny: Well, at least someone is thinking seriously about a process. ICANN certainly isn't. Supposing for the moment that ICANN were serious about defining a process, I would have to take exception to the following: "deference will be made to…