Re: [soac-mapo] Redefiningthe 4th criteria

[Antony Van Couvering <avc@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Phillip,

Because among the nations of the EU there is a shared understanding of what 
constitutes a society, what normal sensitivities are, etc.  I doubt that 
cartoons of the prophet Mohammed caused the barest murmur at most European 
breakfast tables when first published, yet provoked riots in other parts of the 
world. 

As an example, when I started the .TM (Turkmenistan) TLD with the co-operation 
of their Ministry of Communications, within weeks I was threatened with arrest 
if I ever set foot in the country because of second-level names that I had 
"allowed" to be registered:  

pizza.tm - apparently, "everyone knows" that this is a common euphemism for 
female genitalia
books.tm - an incitement to revolution, as apparently there was (is?) only one 
sanctioned book in Turkmenistan, written by the late great unlamented leader 
himself
yellowpages.tm - a clear infringement on government prerogatives

The Turkmeni regime is going to be unhappy no matter what we do, but it doesn't 
much matter because it generally doesn't allow its citizens access of any kind 
to the Internet. We are not going to please the North Korean leadership either. 
But between the EU formulations and the paranoia of autocrats there is a broad 
spectrum.  Our job is to find a solution that will work for most of that 
spectrum in order to "maximize" access for the largest possible set of ordinary 
people.   We can't get there if we reference "societal norms" when they can 
hardly be said to exist on a global basis. 

Antony



On Aug 31, 2010, at 7:15 AM, Philip Sheppard wrote:

> Anthony,
> you wrote:
> I think we would quickly disappear down a rathole trying to define (on a 
> global basis) any of the following:
> ----------------
> Why do you think this is not a rathole for the 27 country, 3 script EU ?
>  
> Philip
>