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<p>It is not often that someone characterized me as supporting the
status quo at ICANN. ;-)<br>
</p>
<p>I am in strong agreement with Evan that the stakeholder model is
a failure.</p>
<p>I, obviously am a staunch advocate of absolute bottom up - by
humans - governance. But I know that I'm not winning that
argument. <br>
</p>
<p>Political and economic forces are building that may drive the net
to regionalize - either around nations, big companies [e.g.
Facebook or Google], or institutions [e.g. the US military] . And
that could bring a plethora of mechanisms, possibly inconsistent.
My own sense is to prepare for that and seek mitigations rather
than to try to resist to the last breath.<br>
</p>
<p>What to do about ICANN? Well, first we should agree upon the
job(s) that ICANN, or a constellation of ICANN spin-offs, should
be doing. (And, similarly, what it should not be doing.)<br>
</p>
<p>I've always felt that ICANN was too vaguely defined - for
instance has ICANN ever come up with a definition of what is this
"Internet" that they are dealing with? (Until now this has been a
somewhat academic complaint, but there are non-technical forces
afoot that may make this quite important.)<br>
</p>
<p>Much as I like to make noises about competing DNS roots, I
recognize that the current system, technically, is quite well run
and that there is no reason for technical changes to the
operations of the vastly dominant DNS root system. (There are
reasons to consider new protocols post DNS, but that's another
topic altogether.) Political forces may drive the world to have
multiple, but I hope largely consistent, root systems. And we are
in luck that DNSSEC can still work in such a universe. But ICANN
and the root server operators have set a standard of technical
performance that aspirants will have to work hard to match.<br>
</p>
<p>The IETF and ICANN have done a rather good job of dealing with
the linguistic and cultural issues - it's hard to stuff all of
those issues into what is really a sequence of no more than 256
bytes/octets composed of chunks each no larger than 64 octets.</p>
<p>And the IETF and ICANN can declare the provisioning protocols
used by registrars and registries to be a success.</p>
<p>ICANN (and IANA and the IETF) can claim success in getting DNSSEC
in place (even if it is still under-utilized.)<br>
</p>
<p>I don't agree with the business model that ICANN has imposed -
but it is here and in place; we can't just cancel it. (But we can
slowly change it.)</p>
<p>But while that business model structure is in place - and it will
be in place for a long time - part of ICANN needs to manage it.
But I don't think that that management needs to be in one unified
ICANN entity. Some parts could be entirely spun off - IANA really
needs no tie to ICANN at all - it's tie to ICANN is merely a
matter of administrative convenience (and if IANA is spun-off, it
would take the ties to the RIR's with it.) It would be a small
thing, but ICANN could relinquish the L root server job to another
organization.<br>
</p>
<p>It's in the business practices area and the bias in favor of
intellectual property rights over other rights where ICANN is most
in need of serious reform.</p>
<p>Thee are some parts which could be split out and about which I
think we could come to an agreement - for example, a chunk of
ICANN that makes sure that "contracted parties" actually adhere to
the contracts and respond to the public could be a useful and well
confined spin-out.</p>
<p>Similarly, as was mentioned the other day - the gap between
legacy TLD registry costs and the ICANN defined registry fee
(which is what the price-cap removal stuff is all about) ought to
accrue to a public-spirited ICANN spin-off rather than the legacy
registry. We can argue about the level of the mandated registry
fee, but that's a separate issue and involves a long and difficult
discussion whether ICANN (and ICANN mandated pricing) ought to be
used as a tool to fight some internet evils or whether that should
be done by other means.</p>
<p>The three-way fight between registrants, trademark protectors,
and law enforcement over "whois" and accuracy will continue no
matter what we do. But the stakeholder model has, in my opinion,
given too little weight to those whose most immediate interest is
privacy (I don't think that anyone is saying that IP rights or law
enforcement are not important interests, rather this is a debate
about relative weights of the interests and procedures to protect
those interests.)</p>
<p>There was a small tweak to the stakeholder system that I
suggested decades ago but was roundly ignored but which I still
feel could be of value: This would be to require credentials from
those claiming stakeholder roles. For instance, does ICANN
validate that those representing corporations actually have the
permission of the corporation to speak in ICANN on the
corporations' behalf. Same for those who claim to represent
governments - do they really have the credentials from the proper
authorities in those governments to act within ICANN? Such a
requirement might fill those seats with people who have a more
synoptic, broad point of view that encompasses more than whatever
narrow issue drove that person to engage with ICANN.</p>
<p>An overall issue for ICANN is its tendency for expansion of both
of its role and the size of its org chart. Even though revenue is
down there is still too much of it that is giving people ideas
about new things to do. And the number of employees has grown
beyond my comprehension. (I too often hear conversations that are
almost as if they were a Hollywood movie studio looking for the
next sequel of some successful film - ICANN, the Ultimate
Generation To the Stars and Beyond....) I believe that the
stakeholder model has contributed its piece to this desire to
extend, as has the tsunami of cash from the big round of TLDs a
few years back. But I think the largest cause has been a long
held practice of ICANN's Board of Directors to hire "big name"
Presidents (at ever more grand salaries) and let that person run
the shop with relatively weak oversight or constraint from the
board thus resulting in mission creep - or mission gallop - and
ever growing org charts and staff.<br>
</p>
<p> --karl--</p>
<p><br>
</p>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 6/29/19 4:57 PM, Evan Leibovitch
wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:CAMguqh2nmqp5=jkZi0EP7tKFDO1Q32mTzHHYHaCiD9+iKhF-5g@mail.gmail.com">
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<div class="gmail_default"
style="font-family:tahoma,sans-serif;color:#0b5394">Hi
Roberto,</div>
<div class="gmail_default"
style="font-family:tahoma,sans-serif;color:#0b5394"><br>
</div>
<div class="gmail_default"
style="font-family:tahoma,sans-serif;color:#0b5394">Thanks for
the good words. I agree about the unfortunate situation we now
have of an inability to have a true debate on this. But the
biggest problem with gap between my position and Karl's is
that his is the status quo at ICANN and has zero incentive to
give any ground. There is no reason to change existing
entitlements, no interest to do any thinking inside the box or
out. There are no minor consequences for bad behavior, the
only remedy is the total abandonment of ICANN which is already
begun by China and Russia and increases in popularity as an
idea every time the ITU meets.<br>
</div>
<div class="gmail_default"
style="font-family:tahoma,sans-serif;color:#0b5394"><br>
</div>
<div class="gmail_default"
style="font-family:tahoma,sans-serif;color:#0b5394">What is
telling is that among all the opinions here -- Karl's Barry's,
mine and others -- is a collective assertion that the ICANN
model of multi-stakeholderism is a failure. We all have
different reasons but the same conclusion is reasonable from
multiple directions, and it shares the position implied by the
ITU. So far, what has kept ICANN safe has been the FUD that a
multilateral approach must surely be worse than a
multistakeholder one. But with every year that passes of
excess, entitlement, public harm and failed industry failed
self-regulation, ICANN's case worsens. Change is coming, all
that makes me wonder is whether the change will be incremental
or cataclysmic. We certainly know it won't come from the
"empowered community", which is simply a retrenchment of
ICANN's unaccountability outside of its bubble.<br>
</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>
<div
style="font-family:tahoma,sans-serif;color:rgb(11,83,148)"
class="gmail_default">Given the entrenchment of social
darwinism -- well-expressed by Karl -- deep inside ICANN's
culture, I have serious concerns about its willingness --
let alone ability -- to yield to even the middle ground you
suggest. If that is the case, is even seeking a middle
ground worth the effort?<br>
</div>
</div>
<div>
<div
style="font-family:tahoma,sans-serif;color:rgb(11,83,148)"
class="gmail_default">- Evan</div>
<br>
</div>
<div class="gmail_default"
style="font-family:tahoma,sans-serif;color:#0b5394"><br>
</div>
</div>
<br>
<div class="gmail_quote">
<div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Sat, 29 Jun 2019 at 08:26,
Roberto Gaetano <<a
href="mailto:roberto_gaetano@hotmail.com"
moz-do-not-send="true">roberto_gaetano@hotmail.com</a>>
wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px
0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex">Good
day/night all.<br>
Having carefully read the contributions of Karl and Evan on
this topic, I must say that I lean more on Evan’s side. But
this is by and large irrelevant for what I want to say.<br>
What I find unfortunate is that we seem unable to bring these
two great minds at the same table collaborating for a mutually
acceptable solution rather than insisting in making their own
points - that the other party rebuts with equal insistence.<br>
I think that we all have by now understood the points. The
question is whether we do have a mediation possible that will
be acceptable for both parties that have anyway a common
ground in the attention towards the diverse user community.<br>
Can we try to think out of the box?<br>
Can we propose a price cap that differentiates between
existing registrations and new registrations?<br>
Can we propose to analyse what means “use” and “not use” and
instead of a flat increase in fees have a diversified fee
depending on use (non-use being subject to a higher fee,
obviously)?<br>
Can we propose to set limits for the secondary market, like
for instance a limit for the sell/buy ratio?<br>
Can we propose that the domain fee not be fixed but related to
the market value of the domain?<br>
I know that most, if not all, the examples I am giving will be
proven (or supposed) impracticable, but that should not stop
us from brainstorming on what could be a common ALAC position
even outside the straightjacket of the perceived limitations
that ICANN is providing us - I am sure that others will have
better ideas to throw in for discussion in search of a common
proposal instead of the basically “well, we really don’t know”
that is the only possible outcome if we only stand in
contraposition of eachother.<br>
In my opinion, for too long we have been held hostage of an
externally defined picket fence. It is time that we start
thinking whether there is something that has to be said and
done for internet users in their own interest, and not just as
a reaction to the topics that are of interest to other parts
of the multi-stakeholder community.<br>
And I have the belief (illusion?) that the ATLAS III meeting
in few months can be the cornerstone for building a strategy
for ALAC that is fully focused on Internet users.<br>
Cheers,<br>
Roberto<br>
<br>
<br>
> On 29.06.2019, at 02:03, Karl Auerbach <<a
href="mailto:karl@cavebear.com" target="_blank"
moz-do-not-send="true">karl@cavebear.com</a>> wrote:<br>
> <br>
> <br>
> On 6/28/19 2:36 PM, Evan Leibovitch wrote:<br>
> <br>
>> Here's another, anecdotal datapoint: I have been
involved in the Internet for nearly as long. But it's been
helping family, friends, small businesses, colleges, religious
institutions, and refugees in camps. I've worked with
entrepreneurs both new and established, struggling to make a
presence on the Internet and finding that their first 20
choices were only available at an aftermarket premium. The
result is that they either had to:<br>
>> * change their brand name to suit the available
names (this has<br>
>> happened more than once)<br>
>> * agonize over whether to settle for a domain name
using hyphens<br>
>> * pay a lesser premium in a new TLD they don't know
is fully reachable<br>
>> * resign themselves to having a non-memorable (ie,
shitty) domain and<br>
>> using other strategies to lead people to them.<br>
> <br>
> I agree that it is sad that we don't live in a world of
pink ponies, unicorns, perfect equity, and no competition for
resources.<br>
> <br>
> Your people want "brand names" - which I read as a
synonym for "trademark" - and find that someone else has
already registered it?<br>
> <br>
> That's pretty normal life in the land of trade names.
Somebody got there first. Somebody else go there too late.
That is not speculation, that is not abuse.<br>
> <br>
> Athol Fugard wrote that "the saddest words ... are 'too
late'."<br>
> <br>
> Or are you arguing that there is some sort of elevated
goodness attribute that should allow "family, friends, small
businesses, colleges, religious institutions, and refugees" to
preempt prior uses? And who shall be the judge that weighs
applicants to measure who is the more worthy?<br>
> <br>
> (Given that my wife and I make large contributions of our
time, labor, and money to non-profit and charitable
organizations, we might find that kind of preemptive power
useful. But I doubt that such a thing would always be
perceived as fair or just by the prior users.)<br>
> <br>
> (And I do wonder about the inclusion of "small business"
and "entrepreneurs" in that list - I'd love to have my small
businesses to have a power of preemption. And in the several
start-ups that I've done I would have welcomed the ability to
take a domain name away from another prior user.)<br>
> <br>
> Are you focusing on the notion of "use"? If so, what is
"use" of a domain name? Must it resolve - for any query from
any source - to an IP address, or a TXT record or something?
If that requirement were put into place you can bet that every
registrar will quickly deploy a "sufficient to pass muster"
resolver service for its customers to use.<br>
> <br>
> (Since you mentioned entrepreneurs - A common practice in
start ups is to register a portfolio of domain names as
candidates for products or corporate names, to hold them in
private for several years, and then to sell off the ones that
were not selected to be put into play. Does that constitute a
"use" or an "abuse"?)<br>
> <br>
> Regarding hyphenated or even non-semantic names - Anyone
these days who depends on humans making semantic sense out of
a domain name is living in days of fading glory. Search
engines, especially when embedded in browser address bars,
have long ago started to diminish the use of domain names as
carriers of semantic content. And the rise of application
handles such as facebook or twitter names has diminished that
further.<br>
> <br>
> --karl--<br>
> _______________________________________________<br>
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<br clear="all">
<br>
-- <br>
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<div style="text-align:center">
<div style="text-align:left">Evan Leibovitch, <span
style="font-size:12.8px">Toronto Canada</span></div>
<div style="text-align:left"><span
style="font-size:12.8px">@evanleibovitch or </span><span
style="font-size:12.8px">@el56</span></div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
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