[At-Large] New York Internet Society calls for hearings on renewal of management contract for .nyc TLD

Thomas Lowenhaupt toml at communisphere.com
Thu Feb 9 17:24:30 UTC 2017


Fellow Members of the At-Large:

I hope you all will share my delight in last week's resolution by the 
the New York Internet Society calling for the city of New York to hold 
public hearings before renewing its contract with Neustar Inc. for the 
operation of the .nyc TLD. The resolution stated:

*“The Internet Society’s New York Chapter urges the city of New York to 
provide robust outreach and engagement opportunities for the city’s 
Internet stakeholder community prior to renewing the contract that will 
guide the operation of the .nyc TLD registry for the next 5 years.”*

The resolution was sent to Mayor Bill deBlasio and other city officials 
with oversight of the city’s digital resources. It cited 14 areas of 
concern and called upon the city to undertake a three stage review 
before renewing the contract:

 1. The City institute a public comment process.
 2. The City convene a town hall event where all stakeholders may make
    their views known.
 3. That the City review these comments and, as it sees fit, make
    appropriate adjustments.

The Internet Society’s New York Chapter (ISOC-NY) is a NYS non-profit 
founded in 1997 and also a fellow At-Large Structure.

As is touched on in the ISOC-NY letter, there is minuscule opportunity 
for meaningful public engagement in setting our city's Internet policy 
by New York City's individual Internet users. This stems, in part, from 
our city charter having been written pre-Internet. An Internet era 
rewrite is long overdue. And while there was once a .NYC Community 
Advisory Board, it was abolished more than two years ago.  Now the city 
has indicated that it plans to renew the Neustar contract without any 
public consultation. (The city administration is seemingly unfamiliar 
with the concept of multistakeholder governance.)

We would appreciate your thoughts and efforts on achieving our goal of a 
more responsive, transparent, and accountable governance of the .nyc 
TLD. Please take a couple of minutes to send a short note to the mayor. 
This form 
<http://www.nyc.gov/html/static/pages/officeofthemayor/contact.shtml> 
will allow that. You'll need to select a topic, I suggest we channel 
them through the "Ideas or Suggestions" drop down.

Sincerely,

Thomas Lowenhaupt, Director, Connecting.nyc Inc.
Secretary, New York Internet Society

P.S. The full Internet Society resolution is copied below with a .pdf 
attached.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

    February 6 2017

    The Internet Society Chapter of the Greater New York Metropolitan Area

    To: Mayor Bill deBlasio,
    Cc: Letitia James, Gale Brewer, Melissa Mark-Viverito, James Vacca,
    Sree Srinivasan,
    Miguel Gamiño, Jeff Merritt, info at ownit.nyc

    Dear Sirs & Madams,

    On March 31 2012 New York City signed a 5 year contract with Neustar
    Inc, to manage the .nyc Top
    Level Domain (TLD).[1] The domain was delegated by ICANN on March
    20, 2014 [2], and went into
    operation on May 5 2014 [3]. According to tldstats, as of February
    6, 2016, 72,919 domains are
    registered.[4]

    The Internet Society’s New York Chapter (ISOC-NY) is a New York
    State registered non-profit founded
    in 1997 with the mission “to assure the beneficial, open evolution
    of the global Internet, and to
    promote local initiatives, maximize the societal benefits which the
    Internet can bring to the New
    York area.” As such we have taken a keen interest in .nyc as a
    public resource. This has included
    promoting, recording, webcasting, (and, on occasion, hosting) any
    and all public events where the
    development of the .nyc TLD has been discussed.

    Noting that the Neustar contract is imminently due for renewal, on
    January 31, 2017, the ISOC-NY
    Board of Directors passed the following resolution:

        *“The Internet Society’s New York Chapter urges the city of New
        York to**
        **provide robust outreach and engagement opportunities for the
        city’s Internet**
        **stakeholder community prior to renewing the contract that will
        guide the**
        **operation of the .nyc TLD registry for the next 5 years.”*

    I therefore ask that, before the contract be renewed.

    * The City institute a public comment process.
    * The City convene a town hall event where all stakeholders may make
    their views known.
    * That the City review those comments and views and, as it sees fit,
    make appropriate adjustments.

    Sincerely,

    Joly MacFie,

    President, Internet Society New York Chapter
    218 565 9365 president at isoc-ny.org


    [1]
    http://www1.nyc.gov/assets/forward/documents/dotnyc/Neustar-TLD-Signed%20Agreement_Redacted.pdf
    [2] https://www.iana.org/reports/c.2.9.2.d/20140314-nyc
    [3]
    https://newgtlds.icann.org/en/program-status/sunrise-claims-periods/nyc
    [4] https://ntldstats.com/tld/nyc
    [5] http://bit.ly/2kiAozP
    [6] http://bit.ly/2kAci22
    [7] http://bit.ly/2kA9mma
    [8] http://www.ownit.nyc/faq
    [9] http://www.ownit.nyc/restricted-reserved
    [10] http://www1.nyc.gov/site/forward/initiatives/dotnyc/dotnycdocs.page
    [11] https://youtu.be/yH0clLwPEfo

    -----

    Appendix 1 - Observations & Nitpicks

    * Since a December 2015 high of 87,960 the number of registrations
    has been in
    steady decline - down approximately 16% [4]

    * 60% of registered domains are parked. [4]

    * According to connecting.nyc many auctioned premium names are
    non-functional/up
    for resale. [5]

    * Neustar Inc.itself is being sold [6]

    * The Community Advisory Board set up by the City [7] never had
    public meetings
    or published minutes, and appears to have been summarily disbanded.

    * The FAQ on the ownit.nyc website appears not to have been updated
    since
    the launch.[8]

    * Also the ownit.nyc site does not include a list of reserved names
    (link is RGP list). [9]

    * However, in 2015, the Mayor’s Office did make a proper info page. [10]

    * The contract says: “Neustar shall publish the website in English
    and the top six
    non-English languages spoken by City residents, as set forth by
    Executive Order
    120 (dated July 22, 2008) (“E.O. 120”). This is only done using
    google translate,
    thus not checked for accuracy.

    * After outreach “community webinars” were held in just 2 of the 5
    boroughs. The
    rollout of ‘neighborhood names’ seems stalled.[11]

    * The neighborhoods.nyc template only includes modules from the
    City’s vendor
    with no open API or process to include 3rd parties e.g. BetaNYC.

    * Clause 6(g) of the contract calls on Neustar to conduct 50 nexus
    spot checks/week.
    There is no documentation that this has been done.

    * The nexus requirement, while desirable, may inhibit personal use
    of .nyc because of
    privacy concerns, as all info is available via whois. The City might
    want to
    instigate a proxy mechanism for individuals.

    * ownit.nyc is not available via IPv6. And also the IPv6 nameserver
    appears to
    give a different result to the IPv4 nameservers. If so, this is not
    kosher.

    ...end...

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