[discuss] elephant in the room

[Milton L Mueller]

Pranash:
You are raising some great points. As did David Johnson's brilliant post that started this thread. 
Some comments below:

-----Original Message-----

>The question is: how has USG oversight prevented this?
>In fact, the USG has used the fact that Verisign falls under 
>US jurisdiction to "seize" hundreds of domain names, 
>making them inaccessible not only in the US but throughout 
>the world.  Did Verisign or ICANN protest?

ICANN, no. The registries, yes. Verisign is perhaps the least likely to do so, but PIR (.org) has often resisted being used as a regulatory intermediary, and I know that none of the registries like it. 

> Verizon, instead of protesting this being made into law 
> through COICA, asked for "a limit on the number of domain-
> name seizures the DOJ could ask for before ISPs are paid for the 
> cost of compliance".

Hey, raising the costs of such things is a very, very important way of limiting it.

> And under USG oversight ICANN has created a system where 
> trademark owners get privileged access to some domain names 
> regardless of the free speech considerations involved.

One could actually say, "under U.S. _instructions_ ICANN has created a system...."