Law in the Internet Society

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KibongChoFirstPaper 5 - 23 Aug 2014 - Main.EbenMoglen
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SAY WHAT YOU MEAN, JUST DON’T SAY IT MEAN: ANONYMITY AND CIVILITY ON SOUTH KOREAN INTERNET


KibongChoFirstPaper 4 - 16 Mar 2013 - Main.EbenMoglen
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This leaves out the other 40 million South Koreans, who do not find themselves among the sky people crowded into Seoul. Perhaps it would be even more correct to say that the Net has helped to integrate provincial South Koreans better into the culture of privileged Seoul-dwellers?

 

Online Defamation

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This essay is based on a complete misunderstanding of how the domain system works. Why you would respond to your situation by trying to register a gTLD of .cho at immense expense I cannot begin to imagine. As of this moment, you could register any of kibongcho.com, kibongcho.net, kibongcho.org, kibongcho.biz, kibongcho.info, or kibongcho.us for a few dollars a year, and be kibong@kibongcho.whatever to your heart's content. Instead you write an essay considering whether ICANN is or is not likely to make you Pope. My advice would be to register the domain of your choice and write a different essay.

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It's hard to know how to apply US principles of free speech, at the comparatively detailed doctrinal level, to Korean legal phenomena, and hard to apply concepts more broadly in any reliable mapping, because the two social systems could hardly be more different. The US Supreme Court, which has not been particularly interested in or solicitous of anonymity, has decided its few anonymity cases in the area of campaign speech, where it is particularly obvious within our terms of social reference, even to Justices, that anonymity must be protected by the First Amendment.

But we are also certain since New York Times v. Sullivan, half a century ago, that limitations on defamation law (not merely limitations on disclosure of speakers' identities, but on liability for defamation altogether) are also constitutionally required in order to ensure "robust, wide-open and uninhibited" public debate. So if we were really to be applying anything like US concepts, let alone specific constitutional doctrine, your conclusion would be difficult to reach.

Instead, we are asking different questions, answerable only within their own cultural frame. It be helpful, I think, to spell out the spectrum of positions likely to be taken on the issues within the Korean discourse. What we need most is to see the span of concepts that will be employed by all the parties engaged in the argument, in order to appreciate not what you or I might do with the US law we know, but what the real values are underlying the various Korean positions: what the native-speakers of that law talk think they are saying, and why they think they are saying it.

 


KibongChoFirstPaper 3 - 01 Feb 2013 - Main.KibongCho
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WWW.KIBONG.CHO: PRIVATIZATION OF THE GENERIC TOP LEVEL DOMAINS

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SAY WHAT YOU MEAN, JUST DON’T SAY IT MEAN: ANONYMITY AND CIVILITY ON SOUTH KOREAN INTERNET

 
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-- By KibongCho - 23 Oct 2012
 
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THESIS

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-- By KibongCho - 1 Feb 2013
 
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In this paper, I argue that the current privatization and decentralization of the generic Top Level Domain (gTLD) names by ICANN, an idea that I initially supported and thought would be good for the public, could actually harm the public interest since in general, only larger companies with a lot of money would be able to register gTLDs, and once they control the gTLD market, can demand much higher fees for registering domain names from the public.
 
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INTRODUCTION

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Introduction & Thesis

 
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Even though I cannot approve Mr. Donald Trump’s business ethics, politics and particularly his hairstyle, I admire his vanity. I myself, enjoy placing my name on things. When I learned of Google’s new service that assists users to purchase a domain name and have their own email address, the temptation of owning my own email address “kibong@kibong.com” became irresistible.
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Until recently, South Korea was the first and only country that legally required internet users to register their real names and national identification numbers with internet portals before commenting or contributing content online. The Constitutional Court held this controversial Real Name Verification System unconstitutional, liberating anonymous online expression, and perhaps more importantly, restraining the government’s ability to potentially abuse access to this information and snoop on internet users’ online activity.
 
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However, my excitement quickly turned to despair, as I realized that NAMEKING.COM, INC. (“NAMEKING”), had already squatted on “www.kibong.com”, and was demanding me to pay up $1,500 if I wanted the domain (registering new domains ending in “.com” costs around $9.99) even though it had zero visitors (http://www.statscrop.com/www/kibong.com). NAMEKING was crossing the line, and I became determined to resist rather than yield to just another clear example of the Proletariats exploiting the Bourgeoisie.
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However, in a previous decision, the Constitutional Court upheld the constitutionality of the Real Name Verification of Internet News Sites law, which requires internet users to register their real names and national identification numbers in order to post messages expressing support or opposition to political parties or candidates during the election campaign period.
 
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I was going to do this by buying the domain name www.kibong.cho.. Who says I cannot do this?
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This paper argues that despite its valid policy concerns, given the unconstitutionality of the Real Name Verification System, the Real Name Verification of Internet News Sites, which is intended at censoring political expression, should not survive constitutional muster either. In addition, unlike the identity verification laws, South Korea’s widely supported Cyber Defamation laws aimed at curbing the widespread malicious, false and random lashing out against innocent targets online serve a valid purpose, and on balance, the benefits are sufficient to justify tolerating some of the potential restraints that the laws might impose.
 
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SOME LEGAL BACKGROUND OF TOP LEVEL DOMAINS

 
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As I was trying to register kibong.cho, I came across “namespace.org,” an organization that seemed to share a similar mission as our class of freeing the public from the “King-of-the-un-deads.” Their mission statement said:
 
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Founded in 1996, Name.Space was created by Paul Garrin to address the growing demand for Internet Domain Names by creating Top Level Domains to supplement impending shortages under the limited set of .COM, .NET and .ORG. During this time in Internet history, many were spreading misinformation that large numbers of top-level domain names were either unfeasible or could cause harm and "break" the Internet, in order to maintain their market dominance and thwart competition from potential newcomers (emphasis added).
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South Korea & the Internet

 
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[Discuss the legal dispute between Name.Space v. NSI in SDNY and 2d Cir.. Analyze the “White Paper” 63 Fed.Reg. at 31,741. “Expansion of gTLPs should proceed at a deliberate pace, in order to maintain the stability and promote the controlled evolution of the DNS.” 202 F.3d 573, 578. Pursuant to the White Papers, court did not want to permit adding new gTLDs at the time until the transition to ICANN was completed. Id. at 583. Second Circuit says “[t]here is nothing inherent in the architecture of the Internet that prevents new gTLDs from constituting expressive speech,” and that it held that it was not protected speech in the decision because the existing structure at the time prevented gTLDs from being expressive speech].
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With a population that exceeds 10 million living in an area half the size of New York City, Seoul is one of the most densely populated cities. Furthermore, surrounded by sea and North Korea, the geographical constraints exacerbate the sense of crowdedness. The open and boundless internet allows Koreans to retreat from this confinement, possibly explaining why South Korea is one of the most wired countries in the world with many citizens spending most of their time on the cyberspace. According to research, PC Tablet users in Korea on average spend 11.75 hours online everyday, and the number would probably be even greater if they could eat and sleep on the internet.
 
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ICANN’s CURRENT LIBERALIZATION OF gTLDs. WHY DOES THIS NOT RESOLVE MY PROBLEM?

 
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Perhaps the public in fact has more to lose than gain, since the current ICANN’s gTLD liberalization structure would mostly restrict gTLD registration access to corporations and individuals with big pockets. For example, ICANN requires US $185,000 evaluation fee, and US $25,000 annual registration fee for registering a gTLD. Would people really pay this much money to register for a gTLD if what they were interested in is to promote public interest?
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Online Defamation

 
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By limiting access at the initial stages only to wealthy applicants, the ICANN is perhaps giving control of this market to corporations, which will then have more control over the public. The ICANN website explicitly lists “Increased control: You set the rules and the price for those registering your TLD,” as one of the benefits of owning a gTLD.
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The internet, thus, has clearly become an important part of Korean society. Due to the extensive, affordable, and non-discriminatory access it provides to Korean citizens, the internet arguably has created the most vibrant “marketplace for ideas” and the important forum for democratic and political participation in Korean history. However, it has also given rise to a wide array of social issues. While much of the commentary online is undoubtedly products of thoughtful reflection and rational deliberation, unfortunately, the South Korean web is also full of hostility, gossip, “disinformation, rumors, and garbage.” Lyrissa Barnett Lidsky, Silencing John Doe: Defamation & Discourse in Cyberspace, 49 Duke L.J. 855, 893 (2000).

In a 2011 South Korean survey, 54.4% of the respondents stated that they have been victims of online hostility. Online insults were becoming a trend in South Korea until 2008 when Choi Jin-sil, a famous Korean actress nicknamed “the Nation’s Actress” committed suicide after a storm of careless rumors and insulting comments quickly transformed what really should have been Choi’s personal and private issues into a national phenomenon. Following this incident, public support for regulating online expression dramatically increased, facilitating government efforts to implement the Real Name Verification System aimed at combating online anonymity.

Real Name Verification System

Under the Real Name Verification System, “internet portals with more than 100,000 users per day [were required] to confirm the identities of content contributors by requiring them to disclose their Korean national identification numbers.” The government’s stated purpose of the law was to suppress online defamation and to make it easier to trace offenders. The Constitutional Court recognized this as a valid purpose, but found the law unconstitutional because it was not narrowly tailored to accomplish this goal, and had a significant chilling effect on legitimate online speech.

Indeed, it seems possible that the law is not very effective at curbing the kind of undesirable hostile comments, but does have a strong chilling effect on legitimate speech. Since most derogatory comments online are made between people who do not know each other anyways and only a minute fraction of the victims would be inclined to pursue litigation due to relatively high costs, revealing true identities of online commenters does not seem to be a very strong deterrent against online hostility. Indeed, statistics demonstrate that there was only a slight drop in the rate of malign internet posts (from 15.8% to 13.9%). In contrast, laws requiring users to reveal their identities to the government could discourage many users from critiquing government abuse, making politically controversial statements, and expressing various other legitimate ideas or concerns.

Real Name Verification of Internet News Sites

Thus, the Real Name Verification of Internet News Sites law, which requires online users to register their real name and national identification number with internet news sites in order to post messages “expressing support for or opposition to political parties or candidates . . . during the election campaign period,” seems excessively broad. While the law does serve a valid purpose of preventing small groups from “distorting public opinion . . . [with] malicious propaganda and false facts . . . during the short election campaign period,” making it difficult to rectify the distorted information in time, it also chills legitimate exchange of important political communication. In Buckley v. American Constitutional Law Foundation, Inc., Justice Ginsburg stated that constitutional protection "is at its zenith" for political speech, indicating that political expression is fundamental to democratic freedom. The Real Name Verification of Internet News Sites seems to be an excessive restraint against political speech.

Conclusion

South Korea can use its existing cyber defamation law, which is widely supported by the Korean public, to restrain online hostility. By repealing laws that chill anonymous speech and maintaining the defamation laws, South Korea can promote a healthier online environment where netizens can say what they mean, but without saying it mean.
 
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CONCLUSION

 
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At least under the current structure, the gTLD market is controlled by an entity that is closely monitored by the government. I might not get to register kibong.cho, which is unfortunate, but no one else gets to either. Under the gTLD liberalization structure that gives corporations an advantage over the public in terms of controlling the market, it seems like ICANN is providing corporations another opportunity to subject the Bourgeoisie to their control.
 

KibongChoFirstPaper 2 - 06 Jan 2013 - Main.EbenMoglen
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It is strongly recommended that you include your outline in the body of your essay by using the outline as section titles. The headings below are there to remind you how section and subsection titles are formatted.
 

WWW.KIBONG.CHO: PRIVATIZATION OF THE GENERIC TOP LEVEL DOMAINS

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 At least under the current structure, the gTLD market is controlled by an entity that is closely monitored by the government. I might not get to register kibong.cho, which is unfortunate, but no one else gets to either. Under the gTLD liberalization structure that gives corporations an advantage over the public in terms of controlling the market, it seems like ICANN is providing corporations another opportunity to subject the Bourgeoisie to their control.
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This essay is based on a complete misunderstanding of how the domain system works. Why you would respond to your situation by trying to register a gTLD of .cho at immense expense I cannot begin to imagine. As of this moment, you could register any of kibongcho.com, kibongcho.net, kibongcho.org, kibongcho.biz, kibongcho.info, or kibongcho.us for a few dollars a year, and be kibong@kibongcho.whatever to your heart's content. Instead you write an essay considering whether ICANN is or is not likely to make you Pope. My advice would be to register the domain of your choice and write a different essay.
 
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You are entitled to restrict access to your paper if you want to. But we all derive immense benefit from reading one another's work, and I hope you won't feel the need unless the subject matter is personal and its disclosure would be harmful or undesirable. To restrict access to your paper simply delete the "#" character on the next two lines:

Note: TWiki has strict formatting rules for preference declarations. Make sure you preserve the three spaces, asterisk, and extra space at the beginning of these lines. If you wish to give access to any other users simply add them to the comma separated ALLOWTOPICVIEW list.

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KibongChoFirstPaper 1 - 23 Oct 2012 - Main.KibongCho
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META TOPICPARENT name="FirstPaper"

It is strongly recommended that you include your outline in the body of your essay by using the outline as section titles. The headings below are there to remind you how section and subsection titles are formatted.

WWW.KIBONG.CHO: PRIVATIZATION OF THE GENERIC TOP LEVEL DOMAINS

-- By KibongCho - 23 Oct 2012

THESIS

In this paper, I argue that the current privatization and decentralization of the generic Top Level Domain (gTLD) names by ICANN, an idea that I initially supported and thought would be good for the public, could actually harm the public interest since in general, only larger companies with a lot of money would be able to register gTLDs, and once they control the gTLD market, can demand much higher fees for registering domain names from the public.

INTRODUCTION

Even though I cannot approve Mr. Donald Trump’s business ethics, politics and particularly his hairstyle, I admire his vanity. I myself, enjoy placing my name on things. When I learned of Google’s new service that assists users to purchase a domain name and have their own email address, the temptation of owning my own email address “kibong@kibong.com” became irresistible.

However, my excitement quickly turned to despair, as I realized that NAMEKING.COM, INC. (“NAMEKING”), had already squatted on “www.kibong.com”, and was demanding me to pay up $1,500 if I wanted the domain (registering new domains ending in “.com” costs around $9.99) even though it had zero visitors (http://www.statscrop.com/www/kibong.com). NAMEKING was crossing the line, and I became determined to resist rather than yield to just another clear example of the Proletariats exploiting the Bourgeoisie.

I was going to do this by buying the domain name www.kibong.cho.. Who says I cannot do this?

SOME LEGAL BACKGROUND OF TOP LEVEL DOMAINS

As I was trying to register kibong.cho, I came across “namespace.org,” an organization that seemed to share a similar mission as our class of freeing the public from the “King-of-the-un-deads.” Their mission statement said:

Founded in 1996, Name.Space was created by Paul Garrin to address the growing demand for Internet Domain Names by creating Top Level Domains to supplement impending shortages under the limited set of .COM, .NET and .ORG. During this time in Internet history, many were spreading misinformation that large numbers of top-level domain names were either unfeasible or could cause harm and "break" the Internet, in order to maintain their market dominance and thwart competition from potential newcomers (emphasis added).

[Discuss the legal dispute between Name.Space v. NSI in SDNY and 2d Cir.. Analyze the “White Paper” 63 Fed.Reg. at 31,741. “Expansion of gTLPs should proceed at a deliberate pace, in order to maintain the stability and promote the controlled evolution of the DNS.” 202 F.3d 573, 578. Pursuant to the White Papers, court did not want to permit adding new gTLDs at the time until the transition to ICANN was completed. Id. at 583. Second Circuit says “[t]here is nothing inherent in the architecture of the Internet that prevents new gTLDs from constituting expressive speech,” and that it held that it was not protected speech in the decision because the existing structure at the time prevented gTLDs from being expressive speech].

ICANN’s CURRENT LIBERALIZATION OF gTLDs. WHY DOES THIS NOT RESOLVE MY PROBLEM?

Perhaps the public in fact has more to lose than gain, since the current ICANN’s gTLD liberalization structure would mostly restrict gTLD registration access to corporations and individuals with big pockets. For example, ICANN requires US $185,000 evaluation fee, and US $25,000 annual registration fee for registering a gTLD. Would people really pay this much money to register for a gTLD if what they were interested in is to promote public interest?

By limiting access at the initial stages only to wealthy applicants, the ICANN is perhaps giving control of this market to corporations, which will then have more control over the public. The ICANN website explicitly lists “Increased control: You set the rules and the price for those registering your TLD,” as one of the benefits of owning a gTLD.

CONCLUSION

At least under the current structure, the gTLD market is controlled by an entity that is closely monitored by the government. I might not get to register kibong.cho, which is unfortunate, but no one else gets to either. Under the gTLD liberalization structure that gives corporations an advantage over the public in terms of controlling the market, it seems like ICANN is providing corporations another opportunity to subject the Bourgeoisie to their control.


You are entitled to restrict access to your paper if you want to. But we all derive immense benefit from reading one another's work, and I hope you won't feel the need unless the subject matter is personal and its disclosure would be harmful or undesirable. To restrict access to your paper simply delete the "#" character on the next two lines:

Note: TWiki has strict formatting rules for preference declarations. Make sure you preserve the three spaces, asterisk, and extra space at the beginning of these lines. If you wish to give access to any other users simply add them to the comma separated ALLOWTOPICVIEW list.


Revision 5r5 - 23 Aug 2014 - 19:31:21 - EbenMoglen
Revision 4r4 - 16 Mar 2013 - 00:03:24 - EbenMoglen
Revision 3r3 - 01 Feb 2013 - 18:50:21 - KibongCho
Revision 2r2 - 06 Jan 2013 - 21:45:18 - EbenMoglen
Revision 1r1 - 23 Oct 2012 - 12:15:51 - KibongCho
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