[ALAC] ICANN and measurement of "consumer trust" -- yeah, right

Tue Dec 18 18:32:00 UTC 2012

Thanks, Rinalia.

The current strategy, which I have discussed with Olivier who is also on
the WG, is to wait and see what response the GNSO gives to the report. The
nature of our advice to the Board on this issue will be determined by the
GNSO response.

- Evan

On 18 December 2012 13:10, Rinalia Abdul Rahim <rinalia.abdulrahim at gmail.com
> wrote:

> Evan.
>
> You've articulated your concerns very clearly.  The basis of your
> objections is sound.  You have my support.
>
> Best regards,
>
> Rinalia
>
> On Tue, Dec 11, 2012 at 1:45 AM, Evan Leibovitch <evan at telly.org> wrote:
>
>> GNSO's Consumer Choice, Trust, and Competition Working
>> Group<http://gnso.icann.org/en/group-activities/consumer-trust-wg.htm>,
>>
>> on which I have sat since its inception, was an ill-conceived 2010
>> direction from the Board to identify metrics that could be used to
>> demonstrate that the new gTLD program provides benefit to registrants and
>> end-users.
>>
>> (Of course, in any sane organization such measurement would have been done
>> *before* actually determining need for gTLD expansion, but I digress...)
>>
>> So this working group was tasked with developing metrics that would --
>> after the fact -- serve to demonstrate that ICANN has justified in going
>> through the expansion. This working group has finished its final
>> report<
>> http://gnso.icann.org/en/issues/cctc/cctc-final-advice-letter-05dec12-en.pdf
>> >,
>>
>> and will be submitting it to the GNSO council soon.
>>
>> If endorsement of the report comes to ALAC for consideration as-is, I will
>> oppose its endorsement and I ask for other ALAC members to join me in its
>> rejection.
>>
>> To be sure, there are some possibly-useful metrics for registrants
>> proposed
>> -- such as whether trademark takedown claims will be higher with new gTLDs
>> than with the existing ones. But it is already noted that some of these
>> metrics will be difficult or expensive to implement, and may either be
>> unsupported or actively impeded by registrars if not required in the RAA.
>>
>> The biggest metric from and end-user point of view -- a survey of whether
>> end users around the world will encounter less cybersquatting, confusion,
>> park sites, malware, etc -- is crammed into a single item (1.4), with a
>> proposed "picked from thin air" budget of $100,000, and acknowledgement
>> that even the creation of the survey's questions will be challenging.
>>
>> More important, though, is what is missing from the recommendations.
>>
>> Much like ICANN exists in its own bubble shielded from the world, there
>> are
>> no metrics that go outside the scope of the TLD expansion itself. Nothing
>> is proposed to determine whether people are even preferring domain names
>> to
>> get to Internet content over alternatives such as search engines, QR
>> codes,
>> domain-name-shorterning services or social media portals and shortcuts(*).
>> That is -- IMO one of the most important metrics -- whether the gTLD
>> expansion is turning people away from the DNS itself, towards friendlier
>> and less confusing ways for end-users to reach their Internet
>> destinations.
>>
>> I have been presenting this issue to the WG from day one. It was deemed
>> out
>> of scope. Though wording of mine indicating the need for greater scope was
>> put in the report's preamble, it is highly unlikely that ICANN will act
>> upon anything not called for in this report.
>>
>> Still, I was willing to support the recommendations as being better than
>> nothing. In October a "final"
>> statement<
>> http://forum.icann.org/lists/gnso-consumercci-dt/bin58KclzeJuJ.bin>,
>>
>> that had the consensus support of the working group, was produced and
>> prepared for the GNSO. (The link has a "bin" extension but opens as an
>> msword document).
>>
>> At that point, a member the registry constituency -- who had not been part
>> of the consensus, or for that matter ever participated in the working
>> group
>> up to that moment -- demanded that significant parts of the metrics be
>> dropped.
>>
>> The metrics to be dropped eliminated "closed" TLDs from many important
>> measurements. They elimininated, for one thing, the masurement of whether
>> "closed" TLDs are providing easy-to-find information of how to report
>> abuse, or how domains in that TLD are allocated.
>>
>> After more than a year of hard-fought consensus, during a call which I was
>> unable to attend, these demands caused changes to many specific metrics
>> that now renders them useless. What were once objective audits (2.1 and
>> 2.2) are now undefined "measurements of understanding", a process that is
>> difficult, expensive, and trivially ease to deliberately misinterpret. I
>> don't believe that measuring public attitudes should distinguish between
>> "closed" and "open" TLDs whose domains are all publicly accessible. If a
>> domain in a new TLD is the source of malware, spam or any kind of end-user
>> confusion, does it matter to the end user whether that domain is open or
>> closed?
>>
>> Anyway, what is now being presented to the GNSO is a "new" final report
>> that incorporates these demands. My protests about both the content
>> changes
>> and their last-minute inclusion have been met with personal attack and
>> threats that the Registry SG would scuttle approval of the Report unless
>> it
>> incorporated their demands. So much for consensus. The registries have a
>> vote at GNSO and we don't. The report includes a letter I send in August
>> in
>> its appendix, but refuses to note any minority dissent to the last-minute
>> changes to its "final" report.
>>
>> One might be tempted to say, "having some metrics is better than having no
>> metrics", especially having invested substantial personal capital in
>> creating them. But I suggest otherwise -- that the newly-created biases in
>> the questions, along with the changes from audits to uselessly subjective
>> measurements, will lead to results that will be embarassing to ICANN while
>> demonstrating nothing after much needless expense -- in other words, worse
>> than if nothing is done. In its non-consensus revised report, the WG
>> has pacified the domain industry's refusal to measure things whose results
>> would be embarrassing, at the expense of ICANN's own credibility to
>> measure
>> itself.
>>
>> There are two other At-Large members on this WG who did not support my
>> objections -- Cheryl and Olivier can certainly speak for themselves why
>> not. So perhaps the accusations were correct, and I stand alone in my
>> assertion -- that these metrics in their current form are just a PR stunt
>> so that ICANN can justify its TLD expansion after-the-fact. In any case, I
>> ask you to consider the issue and understand why I refuse to endorse it.
>>
>> The main saving grace of all this is that, in the scheme of things, it's
>> not very important. If ICANN botches how it measures its success, others
>> (with non-ICANN-positive biases) will be happy to step in to fill the
>> void.It's not even policy (which makes me wonder why the Board gave this
>> to
>> the GNSO in the first place).
>>
>> If anyone is interested in working with me on an alternative ALAC
>> statement
>>  on how ICANN can demonstrate the improvement of consumer trust in its
>> actions, please let me know. Otherwise, I'll explain my objection, vote
>> appropriately if endorsement comes to a vote, and move on.
>>
>> - Evan
>>
>> (*) yes, QR codes and shortening services still require the DNS, but they
>> don't need a TLD expansion either, as they could work with obscure or
>> third-level domains in existing TLDs.
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>>
>
>

-- 
Evan Leibovitch
Toronto Canada

Em: evan at telly dot org
Sk: evanleibovitch
Tw: el56