[soac-mapo] Background info?

[Evan Leibovitch <evan@xxxxxxxxx>]

Hello all,

I'm not totally sure that the posting of background information or relevant
news stories here is welcomed or frowned upon, but to me it may help with
the discussion to know what is already happening.

By this I mean the existing practices of governments using Internet
infrastructure to block access to sites with objectionable content based on
names or IP addresses. For example there is this article from The
Economist<http://www.economist.com/blogs/babbage/2010/08/internet_censorship_russia>on
such blocking efforts in Russia and this
report from the OpenNet Initiative <http://opennet.net/studies/uae> on a
variety of blocking tactics in place in the United Arab Emirates -- some of
which block based on TLD.

Is it of value to this group to attempt to collect such information? To me,
we can't ignore what's already being done in the real world, and any efforts
we make will need to complement -- or at least recognize -- existing
practice. Trying to dismiss, ignore or regulate existing government action
seems pointless and indeed counter-productive. It's clear that measures by
national governments to filter/ban domains with objectionable content
already exist, and it's important to our efforts (IMO) to determine how our
proposals here will actually affect such efforts without doing damage to
other policy priorities.

Of course, if there is a consensus that such news items and background info
will not help, I'll stop sending them. I have no intention to be disruptive.

- Evan