[ALAC] Fwd: Thoughts on Consumer Metrics for new gTLDs

Thu Oct 11 17:58:19 UTC 2012

Interesting.

I disagree with the proposal to send the letter back.

The number of private domains -- and especially private domains that are
closed to public access -- should absolutely be reflected in the stats.
And, well, if that doesn't reflect too well on the results of the program
that's too darned bad.

As a matter of public interest, it is *certainly* a good thing -- and
should be required -- for an explanation to be offered on what each TLD is
and how it is allocated. Even (maybe especially) private ones.

I fully disagree with re-examining the questions because the answers may be
embarrassing or inconvenient to some. A privacy policy link takes up
valuable space on a web page but there are public interest reasons for that
too.

- Evan

On 11 October 2012 11:24, Alan Greenberg <alan.greenberg at mcgill.ca> wrote:

> An interesting message regarding the Advice Letter of the Consumer
> Metrics group.
>
> Opinions welcome as this will be a topic of discussion in the GNSO
> Council on Saturday afternoon in Toronto.
>
> Alan
>
> >From: "Neuman, Jeff" <Jeff.Neuman at neustar.us>
> >To: "council at gnso.icann.org" <council at gnso.icann.org>
> >CC: Steve DelBianco <sdelbianco at netchoice.org>
> >Date: Thu, 11 Oct 2012 10:52:15 -0400
> >Subject: [council] Thoughts on Consumer Metrics for new gTLDs
> >
> >All,
> >
> >A number of us have recently been discussing the motion up for a
> >vote next week in Toronto to adopt the Working Group's draft advice
> >letter on Consumer Trust, Consumer Choice and Competition.  First, I
> >want to commend the working group on the job that they have done and
> >the meticulous detail incorporated in the letter.  I believe that
> >they group did as good of a job as anyone could do to come up with
> >metrics based on their best predictions as to what the future gTLD
> >landscape would look like.  At the time that the recommendations
> >were created, and the draft advice letter went out for comment, no
> >one knew the number of applications, types of applications, etc.
> >
> >Now, after the reveal, we have more information about the landscape
> >and believe that the original criteria included in the final advice
> >letter may not be well suited for a large number of gTLD
> >applications (which later will be TLDs).  While much of the criteria
> >is extremely relevant towards the open gTLDs, they do not
> >necessarily map well to a large number of the other closed, brand,
> >single-registrant or even geographic based TLDs.  Over 1/3 of the
> >applications are for brand TLDs, with many of them being
> >single-registrant TLDs.  Some of the criteria included in the
> >measure of consumer choice section of the Final Advice Letter, for
> >example, are not applicable to the brand TLDs and may, in fact, give
> >misleading results when looking at the issue of consumer choice.  By
> >way of example, the criteria for consumer choice looks at whether
> >the website clearly discloses the benefits and restrictions of the
> >name space (Section 2.1).  This makes sense for open registries, but
> >for a closed TLD (like .neustar), it does not.  As a fairly large
> >$2.5 billion public company, if Neustar converted its homepage to
> ><http://www.neustar>http://www.neustar, we would not put anywhere on
> >our home page the benefits/restrictions of .neustar.   As a closed
> >TLD, there would be no other registrants other than Neustar itself
> >and using up valuable space on our homepage to even mention why were
> >are using .neustar just would not make sense.  In addition, Section
> >2.3 (gTLD registry benefits and restrictions should be
> >understandable to registrants and users) and 2.12 (geographic
> >diversity of registrants) would also not be applicable to the
> >closed-TLDs or regional TLDs.  There are other examples.
> >
> >Therefore, our recommendation is that the Council consider sending
> >back the letter to the Working Group to revise their advice based on
> >the current gTLD application landscape before passing such advice on
> >to the board.  If this means bifurcating the advice based on the
> >type of TLD, that may make some sense as well.
> >
> >We do not want the group to be disheartened, because they did an
> >excellent job with the information that was available at the
> >time.  We now know more and believe that although the letter
> >presents an excellent starting point, it needs some additional work.
> >
> >We look forward to discussing this further in Toronto.
> >
> >Best regards,
> >
> >
> >
> >Jeffrey J. Neuman
> >Neustar, Inc. / Vice President, Business Affairs
> >46000 Center Oak Plaza, Sterling, VA 20166
> >Office: +1.571.434.5772  Mobile: +1.202.549.5079  Fax:
> >+1.703.738.7965 /
> ><mailto:jeff.neuman at neustar.biz>jeff.neuman at neustar.biz  /
> www.neustar.biz
> >
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-- 
Evan Leibovitch
Toronto Canada

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