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BBC is running a commentary by Bill Thompson today arguing that the Internet's core architecture should be kept open both technically and in terms of freedom of expression — such as the introduction of new top-level domains. Giving every interest group, lobbying organisation and corrupt government a veto is what ICANN needs to avoid, says Bill Thompson.

From the story: "ICANN is currently making some decisions that will have a massive impact on the net over the next few years, and we need to make sure that it takes into account the wider feelings of the whole community instead of responding solely to pressure from established interest groups.

These decisions concern the future of domain names, and in particular on the creation and management of the generic top-level domains, or gTLDs…

A recent report from an ICANN working group called for new domain names to be carefully regulated, and that names should be censored according to "legal norms relating to morality and public order", ruling out rude, abusive or culturally sensitive words."

Wendy Seltzer, a fellow at the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School, in a series of blog postings has further echoed the need for the openness with regards to the introduction of top-level domain names. In her most recent blog entry, she says:

"I don't concede that we know all the things the Internet will be used for, or all the things that could be done on top of and through its domain name system. I certainly don't claim that I do, and I don't believe that the intelligence gathered in ICANN would make that claim either. Yet that's what it's doing by bureaucratizing the addition of new domain names: Asserting that no further experiments are possible; that the 'show me the code' mode that built the Internet can no longer build enhancements to it."

Read full story: BBC

Related topics: Censorship, DNS, Domain Names, ICANN, Internet Governance, Policy & Regulation, Top-Level Domains