overview
studies
advocacy
participation
UDRP |
advocacy
This page is under construction. It
looks at advocacy bodies concerned with domain naming and
addressing.
Given perceptions that ICANN is the "unelected
government of cyberspace", it has become the focus of
community advocacy bodies across the world. Its importance
in determining the global framework for naming of sites
means that it is also the focus of lobbying by business
groups.
We'll be providing a map of the players in the near
future.
critics
Unofficial analysis of
its activities is provided by a number of bodies,
including ICANNWatch. ICANN has recently released proposals
for changes to the domain name system.
The Internet Democracy
Project (IDP)
was established in June 00 by the Electronic Privacy
Information Center (EPIC),
the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU)
and the Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility (CPSR). The
latter has established a Civil Society (CivSoc)
group as part of the IDP.
The IDP's goals are to
encourage participation by non-governmental organizations
in internet governance and promote the principles of a
civil society. Its proponents argue that key
governance decisions about central resources and
operations are being made by agencies such as ICANN that
have quasi-governmental powers, that operate on a global
level but lack the accountability of government.
They also argue that there is real need to focus the
attention of civil society on seemingly technical issues
determined by those agencies
The Project sponsored a
forum on 'Civil Society & the ICANN Elections' on 13 July
2000 in Yokohama, site of an ICANN board meeting, and is looking at the impact of other
internet governance
structures on civil society.
The Global
Internet Liberty Campaign (GILC)
is a coalition of over 50 cyberliberties groups from
around the world.
As its name
suggests, the Noncommercial Domain Name Holders
Constituency (NCDNHC)
represents non-commercial groups (including many
non-government organizations) within ICANN.
Global Sense (GS)
is a US libertarian group mixing the thoughts of Tom Paine
and Esther Dyson in a quest for internet democracy against
the forces of corporate darkness. Andy Bloch's aptly named ICANNnot
is less substantial than icannVote
and ApplyAtLarge,
US and EU groups concerned with the 2000 ICANN election.
business
The Global
Internet Project (GIP),
another US-based and industry-driven group, founded by
Netscape's James Clark (star of silicon western The New
New Thing) comprises "well-known leaders of the
Internet Revolution" but its papers for international
senior executives supply a perspective on how the
managerial elite are perceiving the online world.
Among the wave of US business groups are NetCoalition.com,
the strangely named Global Information Infrastructure (GII)
- not to be confused with the nonprofit Global Information
Infrastructure Commission (GIIC)
- and the Global Business Dialogue for Electronic Commerce
(GBDe).
The
Electronic Commerce Forum (ECF)
competes with the
GIP.
The World Internet Alliance (WIA)
is aligned with the Internet
Law & Policy Forum (ILPF),
a gathering of major corporations exploring
e-commerce
legal and policy issues.
The Internet
Alliance, another business advocacy group,
advertises itself as the "premier organisation of Internet
policy professionals representing the Internet online industry"
[sic]. It is aligned
with the Direct Marketing Association of America and
has a more provincial focus.
The US-based Domain Name Rights Coalition (DNRC),
like the Association for Domain Owners Rights (ADOR)
and the TLD Lobby (TLDL),
is
an advocacy body for "small businesses and entrepreneurs",
opposed to ICANN and the US Anti-Cybersquatting Act. There's
no Australian equivalent. New Zealand has the Democratic Association
of Domain Owners (DADNO)
and hosts the global Individual Domain Name Owners Constituency
(IDNO).
The Internet Council of Registrars (CORE)
is an international organisation representing domain registrars,
supportive of increased competition in the domain registration
business.
independents
The Open Root Server
Confederation (ORSC),
representing some registrars, advocates deregulation and
privatisation.
Some of its members have allocated names using root
systems that are independent of ICANN and thus not
recognised by most computers. Estimates of machines
configured to reach ORSC addresses range from 0.2 to 1% of
the online population, with that figure continuing to fall
as the web normalises.
The viability of an independent scheme appears slim unless
it is supported by major commercial interests. ORSC's
significance is essentially as a lever for changing ICANN.
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