[CCWG-ACCT] FW: WSJ/Crovitz/Obama's bungled internet surrender
Paul Twomey
paul.twomey at argopacific.com
Tue May 19 19:16:00 UTC 2015
Kieren
I think your analysis is quite correct. But appearing regularly in the
WSJ also means that the view is being picked up by business/financial
types in cities like New York. It is a bigger base than just
Congresspeople. And they are probably more influential on the range of
Republican candidates for President.
I hope this process is completed before mid-2016.
Paul
--
Dr Paul Twomey
Managing Director
Argo P at cific
www.argopacific.com
On 5/20/15 4:47 AM, Kieren McCarthy wrote:
> This is just the latest in a series of knowingly slanted columns from
> Crovtiz on this.
>
> At one point Larry Strickling got so sick of them that he sent a
> letter to the WSJ complaining about how patently biased they were.
>
> More info:
> http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/12/09/commerce_secretary_engages_in_war_of_words_with_wsj_over_iana/
>
>
> I'm not sure that anyone takes Crovitz seriously but his columns are
> used by Republicans in Congress to bolster their pre-decided position.
> So in that sense, they can't be ignored. But at the same time, he has
> decided what the reality is so there's little point in discussing them
> either.
>
>
> Kieren
>
>
>
> On Tue, May 19, 2015 at 11:17 AM, Paul Rosenzweig
> <paul.rosenzweig at gmail.com <mailto:paul.rosenzweig at gmail.com>> wrote:
>
> Colleagues
>
> This is an opinion piece that published yesterday in the Wall
> Street Journal. I thought it might be of interest.
>
> Paul
>
> Paul Rosenzweig
>
> Paul.rosenzweig at gmail.com <mailto:Paul.rosenzweig at gmail.com>
>
> +1 (202) 329-9650 <tel:%2B1%20%28202%29%20329-9650>
>
> VOIP: +1 (202) 738-1739 <tel:%2B1%20%28202%29%20738-1739>
>
> Skype: paul.rosenzweig1066
>
> Our travel blog: www.paulandkatyexcellentadventure.blogspot.com
> <http://www.paulandkatyexcellentadventure.blogspot.com/>
>
> My professional blog: www.paulrosenzweigesq.com
> <http://www.paulrosenzweigesq.com/>
>
> Link to my PGP Key
> <http://www.redbranchconsulting.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=19&Itemid=9>
>
>
> Obama’s Bungled Internet Surrender
>
>
> The group the White House favors for online oversight is
> turning into an abusive monopolist.
>
> <http://www.wsj.com/articles/obamas-bungled-internet-surrender-1431898743>
>
> By
>
> *L. GORDON CROVITZ*
>
> May 17, 2015 5:39 p.m. ET
>
> *68 COMMENTS*
> <http://www.wsj.com/articles/obamas-bungled-internet-surrender-1431898743#livefyre-comment>
>
> President Obama’s plan to give up protection of the open Internet
> is wreaking havoc even though it will probably never be carried
> out. In anticipation of the end of U.S. stewardship, the
> organization the White House wants to give more power has become
> an abusive monopolist, refusing to be held accountable by the
> Internet’s stakeholders.
>
> The administration last year announced its intention to abandon
> the contract the Commerce Department has held since the beginning
> of the Web with the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and
> Numbers, or Icann. Congress used its power of the purse to block
> the move, which had been set for September this year.
>
> But the prospect of escaping U.S. oversight led Icann to deny
> accountability even for its core duty of keeping its monopoly over
> Web addresses working smoothly. The House Judiciary Committee last
> week held a hearing titled “Stakeholder Perspectives on Icann: The
> .Sucks Domain and Essential Steps to Guarantee Trust and
> Accountability in the Internet’s Operation.”
>
> The .sucks domain was one of hundreds of new top-level domains
> Icann added beyond the original .com, .org and .gov. Icann,
> organized as a nonprofit, collects a fee each time it approves a
> new top-level domain and gets a cut of the registration charge for
> individual domain names. The corporation’s total take so far from
> the new domains is more than $300 million.
>
> The Intellectual Property Constituency, an Icann stakeholder
> group, calls the .sucks domain “predatory, exploitative and
> coercive.” Judiciary chairman Bob Goodlatte says trademark holders
> are “being shaken down”—compelled to buy new addresses defensively
> to prevent their use.
>
> Apple bought applestore.sucks. Gmail, Sam’s Club, Uber and Yahoo
> <http://quotes.wsj.com/YHOO>registered .sucks addresses, as did
> celebrities including Taylor Swiftand Kevin Spacey. The standard
> price: $2,499, versus $10 for unclaimed .com addresses.
>
> Mr. Goodlatte says the approval of .sucks “demonstrates the
> absurdity and futility of Icann’s own enforcement processes.”
> Instead of policing itself, Icann asked the Federal Trade
> Commission to look into whether the .sucks domain is
> abusive. Philip Corwin, a lawyer for the Internet Commerce
> Association, wrote on the CircleID website: “This is the
> equivalent of sending a message stating: ‘Dear Regulator: We have
> lit a fuse. Can you please tell us whether it is connected to a
> bomb?’ ”
>
> Mr. Corwin told lawmakers the U.S. has been a “useful and
> corrective restraint on Icann” and a “first line of defense
> against any attempt at multilateral takeover and conversion to a
> government-dominated organization,” so “should exercise strong
> oversight in support of Icann’s stakeholders” in any transition of
> the contract.
>
> The Internet ain’t broke, and Mr. Obama shouldn’t have tried to
> fix it. Icann and its stakeholders have spent the past year
> exhausting themselves on the impossible mission the White House
> set for them. They were tasked with finding some way to keep Icann
> operating with accountability but without U.S. oversight.
> Unsurprisingly, no one found a viable alternative.
>
> Mr. Obama may be uncomfortable with American exceptionalism, but
> the Internet since its launch has reflected U.S. values of free
> speech and open innovation. That is why China, Russia and other
> authoritarian regimes lust for the power to control it.
>
> Some stakeholders proposed a new institution to oversee Icann,
> while others wanted to build more accountability within Icann.
>
> Last week Icann chief Fadi Chehade told the French news agency AFP
> that China and Brazil agreed with Icann’s proposals to end U.S.
> oversight and let Icann oversee itself: “It is now up to the
> community to wrap them up, put them in a nice little box with a
> bow and ship them to Washington.”
>
> Even the Obama administration knows Mr. Chehade’s
> nonaccountability approach is a nonstarter. The .sucks saga shows
> that Icann won’t protect the Internet from unscrupulous business
> practices, never mind authoritarian regimes.
>
> The Commerce Department recently asked several stakeholder groups
> how far past the original September date it would take to propose
> and implement alternatives to U.S. protection. The Obama
> administration still acts as if it can give up the contract
> overseeing Icann, but it can’t. Congress banned any steps by
> Commerce to give up the contract before the date in September,
> when the agreement must be renewed for two more years. This means
> Mr. Obama’s successor will decide.
>
> The administration should tell Icann and the stakeholders to use
> the next two years to focus on creating accountability for Icann.
> If the White House persists in its wrongheaded idea to give up
> U.S. protection for the Internet, it should take the precaution of
> buying up ObamaInternetPlan.sucks.
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Accountability-Cross-Community mailing list
> Accountability-Cross-Community at icann.org
> <mailto:Accountability-Cross-Community at icann.org>
> https://mm.icann.org/mailman/listinfo/accountability-cross-community
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Accountability-Cross-Community mailing list
> Accountability-Cross-Community at icann.org
> https://mm.icann.org/mailman/listinfo/accountability-cross-community
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://mm.icann.org/pipermail/accountability-cross-community/attachments/20150520/9577d28f/attachment.html>
More information about the Accountability-Cross-Community
mailing list