[logfromblammo]

I am implying that the internet is now communications infrastructure, and should therefore be equally open to all comers.

Domain registration and DNS are [nearly] essential now, in the same way that street signs are essential for a road network. If your city council decides to rip out the street sign that labeled the street you live on, such that visitors could not easily locate your house, and mail would not be delivered in a timely or reliable fashion to your mailbox, do you think you might have grounds to complain?

Assigning a street name and postal address to your lot is not the same as building a house on it.

So not "every online community" should be barred from censorship on their own properties, but if you're running a core information service, you're danged skippy that censorship is not okay.

If Cthulhu comes up to your desk chewing on half of a Dagonite cultist, you accept its business, and charge it exactly the same fee per month as you just charged smiling baby Jesus holding two cute kittens for his domain registration. The amount of editorial control you may exercise is inversely proportional to your power to influence the entire Internet. Since domain registration is right there at the center and has such great power, you do not get to color the whole Internet with your own personal values.

[_jgvg]

> So not "every online community" should be barred from censorship on their own properties, but if you're running a core information service, you're danged skippy that censorship is not okay.

Google or GoDaddy aren't running the DNS system, or even street signs.

They are running a phone book service, which is also run by many other companies, each under their own ToS. They can reject service to anyone (well, except protected classes).

[Clubber]

Root level domains are part of DNS. You have to go through a registrar to get listed in a root level domain (.com, .net, etc). So yes, if they block you from registering in a top level domain and you don't have an alternative, you are blocked from DNS, at least the public one.

But there in lies the problem. Private companies don't want the stink of Stormwhatever associated with their name in the press and are more likely to banstick them because profit.

I think the best solution is a public option registrar.