[At-Large] Thoughts on Delaying New gTLDs

[JFC Morfin]

Dear Brett,
I read your documented points. They all are correct, provided you 
accept the so called Internet for the Rich strategy. That strategy is 
questionable because no serious risk study about a resulting e-9/11 
has been made.

The namespace we created under FCC license was open to all. By then, 
limitations came from PTT monopoloies. Direct US interconnects for 
US, large, and then smaller private or local networks permitted to 
bypass them. Today ICANN's more or less accepted monopoly becomes 
technically stupid, politically biaised, and money led.

- Everyone knows managing a zone.  Everyone knows when registering 
with a ccTLD they depend on the ccTLD rules and QoS and not on ICANN 
rules (and this is why some ccTLDs manage to survive and other develop well).
- IDNA and the IANA 3166 political attempts in favor of the US 
industry would be laughable if they did not lead to an Internet balkanization.
- the most dangerous issue is the money based racist discrimination 
against sociocultural TLDs. They permit private e-colonization and 
defeat e-empowerment. This is a warmonger attitude we will all regret 
when we start learning what Unrestricted Warfare really is.

I have no objection to the ANZA dynamism (spacially Joop Teernstra) 
but I am afraid Joe Sims was wrong not to impose an ICANN general 
equilibrium. Moreover the South-Pacific ICANN dominance is not 
supported by a comparable IETF presence able to explain it the risks. 
I suspect ICANN's policy and attitude and international adhesion 
might differ should it have a more diversified regional basis. For 
example, an Italian Chair, a Chinese ccTLD Chair, an US CEO, one 
African Member at the Compensation Committee, a VietNamese Risk 
Committee Chair, a Governmental Relations Russian Manager, a Root 
Zone Services Spanish Manager, an Indian EXO and VP Corporate 
Affairs, an Iranian ALAC Chair, etc. might have helped a more 
diversified culture and a less unilateral proposition.

jfc







At 21:28 09/01/2009, Bret Fausett wrote:
>I've been an advocate of new gTLDs for over ten years now, and time
>and again I have seen the process delayed by studies and the need for
>further preparation. The truth is that we cannot foresee with 100%
>certainty all of the consequences of this, or any, change in the
>fabric of the Internet. We will always have something to study and
>something new on which to ponder and prepare. The last five years have
>seen a concerted effort on behalf of the GNSO, ICANN Staff, and the
>ICANN community at large to move this process forward, finally, and we
>now have a very thoughtful, if not always perfect, set of 
>guidelines  prepared by ICANN Staff. As a much smarter man once 
>observed, "the
>perfect is the enemy of the good." We cannot wait for perfection or we
>will never go anywhere at all. These guidelines are going through yet
>another revision now, and we almost certainly still have the
>opportunity to provide meaningful input into the process and impact
>the final version.
>
>While I can understand the desire to make the RFP and implementation
>guidelines the best they can be, I don't support the call or further
>delay. Let me comment briefly on the reasons advanced as supporting a
>delay of the process (copied from Beau's recent email):
>
> > * The economic impact study promised in 2006 [needs to be] released
>and evaluated.
>
>This was the principle reason advanced by the NTIA, but it rests on a
>faulty premise. The NTIA assumes that the primary purpose of
>introducing new gTLDs is to compete with .COM and the other
>incumbents. They believe -- as do I -- that new gTLDs will not alter
>the market power exercised by the incumbents in the TLDs they operate.
>Based on this assumption, they then make the leap that ICANN may not
>need to introduce new gTLDs at all. While increased registry-to- 
>registry competition might be a happy consequence of new GTLDs, that
>is far down on the list of reasons for adding new gTLDs. As I have
>always seen it, new gTLDs will serve new communities, and in some
>cases serve those communities with their own languages, not served by
>the current suite of gTLDs and ccTLDs. From a user perspective, the
>2006 economic study will not change the fact that currently under- 
>served groups will gain new identifiers, in their own languages or in
>words meaningful in their own communities.
>
> > * ICANN [needs to] develop and implement compliance processes to
>manage all requirements
> > in existing registry and registrar contracts.
> > * ICANN [needs to] develop compliance processes for any new or
>different requirements in new contracts.
> > * That IDN gTLDs and IDN ccTLDs [should be] delayed as well until
>similar issues regarding
> > contract compliance are clearly addressed and disseminated to the
>user community.
>
>We can make contractual and compliance issues a focus of our work
>without delaying the introduction of new gTLDs. Keep in mind that from
>the time ICANN releases the final new gTLD RFP to the time a TLD is
>selected and the registry operator signed up to a contract is close to
>a year. (The time between those two points is spent preparing the TLD
>application and then, after it is filed, evaluating it.) Let's get the
>RFP finalized and then turn all resources we wish to allocate to it to
>the issue of contractual compliance -- keeping mind that contractual
>compliance is another tail we can chase forever if we choose to spend
>our time doing it.
>
> > * That ICANN evaluates user community concerns with specific
>details contained
> > in the new gTLD applicant guidebook, to be conveyed in a separate
>communication
> > to the ICANN board, and provides a timely response to them.
>
>This is the only battle I would join now, but even here, I think we
>can advance the user community's interests without delaying anything.
>If we think user interests are being trampled, then, yes, we should
>advocate delaying the process. I think, however, that we can advance
>user interests, both with the Staff and the Board, within the current
>time frames and make meaningful improvements in the current draft.
>
>We are going to see many calls for additional study and additional
>delay come from those who wish to shut this process down entirely.
>Some groups will never be satisfied with the results of any study, any
>process, or any decision that allows even one new TLD. Let us not join
>those who want to (ab)use the policy process, and the elusive search
>for perfection, as a tool for advancing the agenda of the status quo.
>
>     -- Bret
>
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