[lac-discuss-es] [lac-discuss-en] Repurposing the ccTLD

Mon Jul 3 20:20:00 UTC 2023

[[-- Translated text (en -> es) --]]

Estimados Alejandro y Carlton,

 Definitivamente un tema excelente y productivo para ser incluido en la discusión.
 en nuestra próxima reunión mensual.

 ¿Qué opinas?

 Atentamente,

 Laura Margólis

 El lun, 3 jul 2023 a las 16:44, Dr. Alejandro Pisanty Baruch (<
 apisan en unam.mx>) escribió: 

> Hi,
>
>
> wish this issue was new... or as easy as it is made to appear.
>
>
> To summarize in plain language, the article refers to the fact that
> Anguilla's domain name is .AI and that suggests that it could be used as a
> pseudo-generic TLD instead of any requirements it may have at present to
> favor registrants with residence/citizenship in the island itself, and to
> make a brisk business of it for the operator which at present is a
> community college.
>
>
> The first cases of such repurposing go way back to the 1990's, with .nu
> (Niue), .ag (Antigua and Barbuda, which they thought could be attractive to
> German companies that use the suffix AG, Aktiengesellschaft, a rough
> equivalent to Ltd.), and a few more, of which notably Tuvalu's .tv.
>
>
> Things came to a head when in 2000-2001 the operators in Colombia, our
> very dear friend and a good citizen, Ricardo Pedraza, operating from the
> Universidad de los Andes, tried to repurpose .co as an alternative for
> .com, on grounds both of typosquatting and of .com names already taken by
> other registrants. They had a solid, well-crafted plan to change their
> operation to a for-profit and it was going well until someone in the
> government reacted under the heading "the name of the country is part of
> the country's heritage and you can't sell it" and almost put Ricardo and
> the President of the university in jail. Some of us  - mainly myself as the
> Latin American on the Board of Directors at the time, and a brilliant staff
> person from ICANN org, had to negotiate very hard with the Chief Counsel of
> the Ministry of Telecommunications to help them understand that the Domain
> Name System is a global good and that they should act more prudently,
> respecting the good faith of the incumbent operator and abiding by the
> rules set in RFC 1599 and in ICP-3 (more on that soon.) The memory of this
> event is all the more vivid since it took place in the Montevideo meeting
> of ICANN, on the eve of September 11, 2001.
>
>
> Soon afterwards, an election brought in a new government in Colombia and
> they went on to  actually privatize the whole operation in very much the
> same way .co had proposed. An RFP was put out, a large international
> commercial domain-name operator (Affilias?) came in, and on it went since
> then.
>
>
> .tv is Tuvalu's ccTLD and it has been exploited commercially as an anchor
> name for television networks and the industry in general. It also went
> through much turmoil until it settled into an agreement with an operator
> who would pay a small fee to the country, basically building an airstrip
> and paying its membership in the UN, plus granting domain names to all of
> 9,000 inhabitants.
>
>
> What .co has had to do over the years responds to several key factors of
> which we as At Large users must be wary and are lessons to take into
> account for Anguilla.
>
>
> The very first one is that gTLDs like .com are bound by a lot of rules, by
> contract and by jurisprudence or its equivalent, starting with their
> contract with ICANN and the RRA (Registry-Registrar Agreement.) These
> instruments contain strong safeguards for users, such as forbidding insider
> dealing in which the registry monetizes in its favor the information it
> gets from registrants, who have to use the registrAR operation, not the
> registRY. They have to sign agreements with registrars like GoDaddy,
> provide a dispute-resolution procedure, run a secure, scalable operation,
> and much more.
>
>
> And what do you know, .co or .tv are ccTLDs so they are in the ccNSO, not
> in the GNSO where policies for gTLDs are developed, so basically they are
> off the hook. That is why some ccTLDs have become infamous at times, as
> happened to a Central Assian country, Turkmenistan, with .TM, or Hong Kong;
> lack of control on registrations leads to all kinds of malfeasance, now
> generically known as domain-name abuse against which we At Large users have
> taken such an energetic stance through our elected officers and
> representatives.
>
>
> So if the sense of the message to the list is "support Anguilla in
> monetizing its domain name for its semantic similitude to the acronym for
> 'Artificial intelligence' let's first look at the terms in which this would
> be done and make sure we only engage in a proposal that simultaneously
> protects and promotes the interests and principles dear to both Anguilla
> citizens and At Large users world wide.
>
>
> And, doing so, let's make sure participants disclose such interests as
> consulting engagements with the parties involved. We had some trouble like
> that in the .co case.
>
>
> Now for RFC 1599 and ICP-3: as Postel said, "we are not in the business of
> deciding what is and  what is not a country." Policy within each ccTLD is
> the country's or territory's own realm. Deciding who gets the delegation to
> operate the registry is a sovereign decision of the community but it DOES
> undergo review in IANA in order to protect the community from cheats and
> abuses (review the history of Cameroon's .cm for examples.) The change from
> a locally-oriented to an operation of global reach in the feverish market
> of AI may require boosting the College's capacities or may give rise to the
> temptation to shift the operation to a commercial, capable operator. We
> must be on the Anguillans' side to make sure they are not cheated away from
> their heritage if this policy change starts to take place. You may all
> notice that many of the cases of ccTLDs masquerading as gTLDs have taken
> place in small, insular countries, or in heavily underdeveloped or
> misgoverned countries. I would not quite call these abuses "colonial" as
> they were not undertaken by nation-states, but the spirit of business abuse
> is what we are talking about and fending off.
>
>
> Happy to discuss further.
>
>
> Alejandro Pisanty
>
>
> ------------------------------
> *De:* lac-discuss-en <lac-discuss-en-bounces en atlarge-lists.icann.org> en
> nombre de Carlton Samuels <carlton.samuels en gmail.com>
> *Enviado:* lunes, 3 de julio de 2023 12:15 p. m.
> *Para:* LAC-Discuss-en
> *Asunto:* [lac-discuss-en] Repurposing the ccTLD
>
> Where do developing economies go to make a few pennies in the domain names
> business? The business models for ccTLDs are as variable as are the
> national administrations. But every now and then we get a break playing the
> hand we've got. The word is serendipity and Anguilla (.ai) is just the
> latest. One could add .ag, .bz, .pr and .co to his list.
>
> When Oscar [Moreno] (.pr) (May he RIP!) and Patrick [Lay] (.ag) educated
> me on what was actually happening in their zones, it was a very short
> journey to support.
>
> The ccTLD is part of the fabric of works that support end user access to
> the internet. In Anguilla's case, it is a point of major support for
> Anguilla Community College and sustainability is top of mind.
>
> We should affirmatively strive to maximize the crumbs we get so we
> continue to exist and online.
>
>
> https://circleid.com/posts/20230626-dot-ai-you-ready-a-domain-to-add-to-your-portfoli-before-someone-else-does
>
> <https://circleid.com/posts/20230626-dot-ai-you-ready-a-domain-to-add-to-your-portfoli-before-someone-else-does>
> .AI You Ready? A Domain to Add to Your Portfolio… Before Someone Else Does
> <https://circleid.com/posts/20230626-dot-ai-you-ready-a-domain-to-add-to-your-portfoli-before-someone-else-does>
> circleid.com
> On the sunny beaches of Anguilla -- a small island of just 35 square miles
> -- I'm sure artificial intelligence (AI) is the last thing people are
> thinking about. The primary industries of Anguilla, set in the Leeward
> islands in the Caribbean, are tourism and offshore banking. However, this
> nation has been assigned the country code top-level domain (ccTLD) .AI --
> which is being repurposed to represent artificial intelligence.
>
>
>
> CAS
>
> ==============================
> *Carlton A Samuels*
>
> *Mobile: 876-818-1799 Strategy, Process, Governance, Assessment &
> Turnaround*
> =============================
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 --
 Laura Margólis

 margolisl en gmail.com
 Oficina: ++598 27066044
 Móvil / Whatsapp ++598 99690992
 skype: lauri.margolis