Paul Reynolds on InternetNZ

Long-time commentator Paul Reynolds turned up to an open InternetNZ meeting in Auckland last week, and joined up, so he could follow through on his urging for InternetNZ to not rest on its laurels (so to speak) but to start “getting the public onside with the issues of peering, network neutrality, next generation internet, etc.”

Paul is right that the list of issues is ever growing and that the potential threats to an open and uncapturable Internet are not shrinking.

As an example there is a draft ICANN policy on selecting new open generic top level domains. The current draft would allow not just the overall Governmental Advisory Committee, but any single Government to block a proposed new TLD. This is horrendous and worse even than letting the UN take over. Luckily sanity is prevailing and the draft is changing, but it is far from settled. Imagine North Korea, whom don’t even have Internet, being able to veto all new TLDs. They’d probably agree to any applications in exchange for a foreign aid bribe!