Q: When is a policy adopted unanimously in ICANN not really a consensus policy? A: When the US Government says it isn't. Case in point. A new top level domain registry, TELNIC, has been authorized to run the .tel domain. Their idea is that .tel will allow and encourage individuals and corporations to manage a universal identity on the Internet. If its idea works, lots of ordinary people will register under the .tel domain and combine their telephone numbers, email addresses, and other identifiers. The company is based in the UK.

TELNIC has a problem: ICANN's contracts require it to display all the personal contact data of its registrants through a service known as "Whois." But unrestricted access to personal contact data, aside from being a rather bad idea, is against the law in the UK. It follows European, not American, privacy and data protection rules. So after consulting with the UK's data protection authorities, TELNIC asked ICANN to modify its Whois requirement. But the US government, responding to trademark and copyright interests, won't let it, and is manipulating ICANN to get its way.   more »