Relevant to the cause?

Thu May 16 13:41:40 EEST 2019

I find the anti-competitive issues wrapped up in the idea of allowing registries to restrict registration and evaluate content quite troubling.  I did not have time to go into the recent consumer protection, competition and trust review team report (the document list was impressive if not downright staggering) but I did not see anything that reassured me about how ICANN is treating competition issues.  I think this is a critical issue for us, so glad people are interested in discussing it.  What we can do about it, of course, is another matter.

cheers

Stephanie Perrin

On 2019-05-16 14:01, Tracy Lynn wrote:
I agree that this is deeply troublesome and offer the example of the dot pharmacy designation as the entities that created it and authorize websites have deep ties to the pharmaceutical industry and a vested interest in keeping drug prices high, so they will only authorize sites that charge inflated prices for medications. Since access to drugs can be a matter of life and death, this elevates the importance and urgency of the issue.

I found the Facebook story interesting, and was wondering if we should be trying to advise the FTC on these matters? Although I am located in the DC area, my expertise is in healthcare rather than online matters such as this. These issues affect healthcare greatly and if I can be helpful in any way, I would love to play a role in moving the discussion forward.

Tracy Cooley
Executive Director
Campaign for Personal Prescription Importation
https://personalimportation.org

On Thu, May 16, 2019 at 1:39 PM Mitch Stoltz <mitch at eff.org<mailto:mitch at eff.org>> wrote:
I find the new registry agreements deeply troubling. They effectively give registries the authority, even the obligation, to determine if web content is legal, truthful, "fraudulent," etc. and to wield domain suspension as a remedy for all manner of speech regulation. There's so much popular anger at platforms like Facebook over their content moderation right now that I can't understand why registries want to get into that business. And yet many of them seem eager.
     Mitch

Mitch Stoltz
Senior Staff Attorney, EFF | 415-436-9333 x142
https://www.eff.org/donate | https://act.eff.org/

On 5/14/19 5:04 AM, dorothy g wrote:
Dear Collin,  Have you been following the discussion around the nature of changes in the Registry agreements, that allow registries to become content police?

best

On Tue, May 14, 2019 at 11:30 AM Collin Kurre <collin at article19.org<mailto:collin at article19.org>> wrote:

Hi everyone,

Thanks for getting this conversation started, Farell! Jumping in to share some additional context useful for our Stakeholder Group:

The USA may have chosen to avoid regulation up to this point, but many countries have done the opposite. Efforts to regulate content are particularly relevant to the DNS, as there are an abundance of "voluntary" or legally mandated DNS filters currently deployed by ISPs around the world. [0] It's difficult to gauge the extent of DNS blocking as many of these agreements are not made publicly available for scrutiny by consumers or civil society.

At the end of the day, DNS blocking is a half-baked solution. Often times it's merely an inconvenience for people seeking banned content [1]. At best it thwarts access to allegedly unlawful content without addressing the offense in itself. Moreover, the widespread implementation of new protocols like DNS-over-HTTPS (DoH) or -TLS (DoT) by US-based companies like Google, Cloudflare, and Mozilla will likely disrupt this status quo, once again raising questions about centralization and jurisdiction.

So far, regulatory measures floated to address this evolving technical landscape generally range from bad to worse in terms of freedom of expression and access to information. These include blocking IP addresses to prevent users from connecting to entire servers, or deploying allowlists instead of blocklists. These issues aren't yet at the forefront of discussions within ICANN, but we should be aware of them to anticipate changes on the horizon.

Best,
Collin

[0] See for example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_blocking_in_the_United_Kingdom#ISP_Default_network_blocking

[1] Consider The Pirate Bay's infinite mirrors: https://proxybay.ist

On 13/05/2019 22:53, Stephanie Perrin wrote:

I agree with Dorothy.  ALso extremely relevant to us as we volunteer in this MS group:  was the decision not to regulate the Internet a sound one?  If not what needs tweaking and how?  Not so much to do with the DNS, it is true...but any kind of monopoly breakup may have some relevance to us.

cheers Stephanie

PS the future does tend to take its own sweet time to reveal all....look at how long it has taken people to realize what FB is doing with all our data!

On 2019-05-13 17:24, dorothy g wrote:
This is beyond privacy, it is to do with hegemony and control without accountability. It is to do with how we should organise our digital future. As to influence, the future will reveal all.

On Mon, May 13, 2019 at 8:50 PM Seun Ojedeji <seun.ojedeji at gmail.com<mailto:seun.ojedeji at gmail.com>> wrote:
Sent from my mobile
Kindly excuse brevity and typos

On Mon, 13 May 2019, 22:32 dorothy g, <dgdorothydg at gmail.com<mailto:dgdorothydg at gmail.com>> wrote:
Thanks Farell,  There are many excellent articles on this topic but from a co-founder this will have a lot of influence.

SO: While I do not downplay the privacy issues, I don't think the article of a co-founder who already cashed out of FB would add the much significant influence expected.

Regards

On Mon, May 13, 2019 at 7:03 PM Farell FOLLY <farell at benin2point0.org<mailto:farell at benin2point0.org>> wrote:

Dear All,

I found this article about facebook and privacy particularly interesting. It has nothing to do directly with domain names but It can educate more on how and why users should take more care about their data and how it is processed.` Also, it pointes out the danger of monopoly versus a multi stakeholder approach.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/09/opinion/sunday/chris-hughes-facebook-zuckerberg.html

@__f_f__

Best Regards
____________________________________

(Ekue) Farell FOLLY
NCUC Rep. to the NCSG Policy Committee
linkedin.com/in/farellf<http://linkedin.com/in/farellf>

--
Dorothy Gordon

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Dorothy Gordon

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Collin Kurre
Digital Program Officer
ARTICLE 19

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Dorothy Gordon

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