<nettime> ICANN 'crackdown' on DNSO general assembly mailing list

[Scot McPhee <ScotM@cruxfe.com>]

>From Wired News, Politics

http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,34126,00.html?tw=wn20000207

3:00 a.m. 5.Feb.2000 PST 

by Declan McCulloch

ICANN crackdown: Trying to muzzle criticism of ICANN's foibles is a task
as hopeless as Orrin Hatch placing above dead last in a presidential
primary, but one group is trying it anyway.

It started when the operators of a mailing list run by the Internet
Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers surreptitiously censored the
forum. In response, some critics started venting.

A note that Roberto Gaetano, the chair of an ICANN subgroup, sent on
Friday warns members of the "general assembly" mailing list that a
crackdown on said miscreants was about to begin, complete with appointed
"sergeants-at-arms" to eject unapproved posters. 

"Should a person whose posting rights have been temporarily suspended
submit a message to the list, this message will be accepted and logged,
but not forwarded to the subscribers of the list," Gaetano wrote. 

Even the possible availability of an unmoderated list amounts to
unacceptable censorship, said Karl Auerbach, a longtime ICANN-watcher who
resigned in disgust. "I refuse to participate in a body who feels that its
first task was to establish a means to gag those who make some feel
uncomfortable," he wrote. 

He has a point. The general assembly is the part of ICANN supposedly open
to public participation, so shutting the doors on a vigorous -- albeit
occasionally exasperating -- debate is hardly the best move for a group
already best known for its failures. 


_____________________________________________________________
Scot Mcphee                                  scotm@cruxfe.com
Web Developer                              tel:+612-9004-0630
Crux Financial Engineering                    mob:0412-957414
 

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