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- Ken
Freed is a writer and
speaker specializing in new
- media
technology and the social
effects of interactive
- networks.
He publishes Media Visions
Journal.
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- Ken
Freed
- Editor
& Publisher
- Media
Visions Journal
- Denver,
Colorado USA
- 303-722-2110
<Voice>
- 303-722-2109
<fax>
- http://www.media-visions.com
- http://media-visions.com/contact
- (c)
1998 by Judah Ken Freed.
- Used
with
permission.
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Cyberspace
domains are a "fiction" that hold virtual
and actual value only via a social
contract. We find it useful to talk of
domain names in cyberspace like the
parcels of real estate opened for
development in the Old West. Once any
Internet expansion plan is implemented,
look for a frantic push to register domain
claims that makes the Oklahoma land rush
look like a Sunday cakewalk.
The battle
between gTLD-MoU and competing plans is
the contest to become the land office
collecting fees on every claim filed by
the settlers of cyberspace. Because this
land rush will affect each one of us
living here on network earth, we
all
.qualify
as "stakeholders."
Negotiations are
under way in Washington to agree on a plan
that will be more representative, more
accountable. On the surface, this looks
like good news, yet I fear the White House
will broker a deal among primary players
that skips us "commoners" in the Internet
Community.
Those who control
the DNS "root" control the Internet.
Because DNS governance has a direct
influence on the character of the
Internet, by design or default, what do we
want influencing our cultures, thus our
private and public lives? Do we favor
minority rule by committee, government by
decree, a governance of the many by the
few and for the few? Or are we ready to
accept personal and social responsibility
for direct democracy? Think on it.
Governance by open management. Governance
by law. Government of the people, by the
people, for the people. Can we do it? We
shape the media as the media shape
us.
If we're willing
to evolve habits of responsible self rule
(growing from a global sense of our deep
interactivity), we can find practical ways
to make network democracy a reality. As a
solid step, let us agree to draft, debate,
revise, and then ratify a global
Internet constitution.
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