[arin-ppml] Policy Proposal: Whois Integrity Policy Proposal

[Milton L Mueller]

> i do personally hold either the "thing 1" or the "thing 2" view, and
so to
> me, uniqueness against competing allocations or merely against
competing
> utilization (perhaps by stronger or larger parties elsewhere in the
world)
> is a community-level right -- we all have it because the community
agrees
> that we all have it.  i don't distinguish in my mind between the
rights i
> have to legacy space vs. non-legacy space, because all of those rights
are
> whatever the community agrees to protect, and while various
individuals
> have
> begged differential relief in this area, i've seen no consensus for
it.
> 

Paul
One can make a good case for a unified, consistent address governance
regime that would involve eliminating legacy holder's special rights and
bringing everyone in under the same kind of contract. 

But one cannot make the case you want to make based on appeals to "the
community" and "consensus." Because the legacy holders are part of "the
community." A big part of it, in North America. And I suspect that they
will never agree to be part of a "consensus" that eliminates their
special status. 

We have a lot of experience now with "legacy" holders of domain name
resources, notably the ccTLDs. And it has been interesting to watch --
without expressing any positive or negative judgment -- how much the
regime had to adapt to their special interests and demands.

To put it another way, there is no "community," there are different
groups of actors with different interests. A political ethic that
attempts to resolve global, Internet-wide conflicts over rights by
appealing to the norms of a small-scale, homogeneous community is
unlikely to provide stable guidelines. I hope people are able to move
beyond this communitarianism over the next few years; the "Internet as
community" model may have existed 20 years ago but does not today.

It would be better to base policies on the overall social effects of
various policy decisions, using more scientific and well-understood
standards such as economic efficiency, technical efficiency, and
abstract concepts of justice and fairness. 

There are lots and lots of people around the world who will be affected
by IP addressing policies who are not now, and probably never will be
part of what you consider to be the "community." 

Yes, I know this is heresy. ;-)