|
Dot-Org Decision Looms Large For Noncommercial Speakers
July 29, 2002
In the Internet atlas, "dot-org" shows up as a stuffy university town on the outskirts of the commerce-steeped "dot-com" Mecca. But as the only place on the Internet devoted to noncommercial speech, dot-org is indispensable to consumer advocates, public interest groups and political dissidents, many of whom are watching closely to see who will be chosen to take the helm of the domain when the current registry operator gives up its role later this year.
"Dot-org is important now because it the one space on the Internet that ... has been devoted to noncommercial speech," said Barry Steinhardt, the director of the American Civil Liberties Union's Technology and Liberty Program. "If it were to be turned into just another dot-com, that would be a blow to speech."
Operated for years by Internet addressing giant VeriSign Inc., dot-org is slated to get a new landlord in October when VeriSign relinquishes its hold on the domain.
Eleven entities, both commercial and nonprofit, have applied to operate dot-org, and global Internet addressing authorities are now slogging through hundreds of pages of application documents in search of a winning bidder.
Initially, officials at the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) only planned to accept bids from nonprofit groups, but they later decided to throw the contract open to all comers in an effort to garner as many qualified bids as possible.
Although open to all Internet users, dot-org remains largely associated with the nonprofit organizations for which it is named. Many within the nonprofit community are closely following the bidding process, hoping to ensure that the domain remains primarily a forum for non-corporate voices.
More at: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A12982-2002Jul28.html
|
