From: owner-wg-c-digest@dnso.org (WG-C-DIGEST) To: wg-c-digest@dnso.org Subject: WG-C-DIGEST V1 #31 Reply-To: Sender: owner-wg-c-digest@dnso.org Errors-To: owner-wg-c-digest@dnso.org Precedence: bulk WG-C-DIGEST Saturday, March 11 2000 Volume 01 : Number 031 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 09 Mar 2000 15:53:02 -0800 (PST) From: "William X. Walsh" Subject: [wg-c] RE: [ga] OBJECTION TO THE RELEASE OF "REPORT (PART ONE) OF WORKI - -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 On 08-Mar-2000 William X. Walsh wrote: >> 1. The members of Working Group C have never given approval of this >> Report. As such, this is not a "Report of Working Group C". > > We know you seek to do anything to delay and block introduction of new gTLDs, > Bob. After all it would cause a depreciation in the value of your ccTLD > registration service. Apology is in order here. This week has been a tough one (death of a close family member) and in my haste of only having about an hour a day to tend to email as well as to my clients, I wasn't paying as close attention as a I should have been. To the best of my knowledge, Bob Broxton is not now, nor has he ever been, affiliated with any ccTLD nor has he been a stringent opponent of new gTLDs. Quite simply, I mistook him for someone else in my haste in replying. However, I do stand by Mr Weinberg's report. Again, sorry about that Bob. - - -- William X. Walsh http://userfriendly.com/ Fax: 877-860-5412 or +1-559-851-9192 GPG/PGP Key at http://userfriendly.com/wwalsh.gpg - -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.0.1c (Mandrake Linux) Comment: Userfriendly Networks http://www.userfriendly.com/ iD8DBQE4yDle8zLmV94Pz+IRAuMOAJ4lX1elURSuT98TfnWFCAbf9hg1AQCfQVgN a2ley1yr7nUl9vsPW1NDh4Y= =PMfU - -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 09 Mar 2000 22:07:05 -0800 From: Justin McCarthy Subject: [wg-c] NY Times Online 3/9 March 9, 2000 ICANN May Add New Internet Suffixes A.P. INDEXES: TOP STORIES | NEWS | SPORTS | BUSINESS | TECHNOLOGY | ENTERTAINMENT Filed at 3:45 p.m. EST By The Associated Press CAIRO, Egypt (AP) -- With Internet domain names ending in ''.com'' running short, the international organization responsible for Web addresses on Thursday considered allowing the use of new suffixes. Increasing the supply of domain names could have far-reaching implications for Internet business and the protection of intellectual property rights. As choice domain names become scarce, some are being resold by entrepreneurs for large sums of money. ``There should be new generic top-level domain names,'' said Jonathan Weinberg, who heads one of two naming committees set up last year by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, or ICANN. If ICANN, which functions as an Internet oversight board, decides to increase the range of Net addresses, suffixes such as ''.info'' and ''.shop'' could be added. ``Expanding the names will diminish the artificial scarcity of names, create opportunities for entities that have been shut out under the current name structure and promote electronic commerce,'' Weinberg told the ICANN board of directors and some 300 participants who gathered for the organization's two-day board meeting in Egypt. Board member Esther Dyson said she expected the two committees to submit proposals to the organization's 19 directors on Friday, but that no movement on the issue was expected before the next ICANN meeting in Japan in mid-July. ICANN has been looking into the introduction of new names for more than a year. It has moved slowly as it grappled with questions about trademark ownership and other commercial implications. Weinberg suggested ICANN start by introducing six to 10 new domain names, and then pause to evaluate. He said his committee, while agreeing on the need to add new domain names, had yet to reach a consensus on how to select them. Mike Palage, speaking for an ICANN committee investigating commercial implications, said adequate trademark protection must be in place before new names are introduced. Companies ``are concerned that there will be a whole new round of cybersquatting, that big trademark owners then have to go out and fight court battles around the world,'' another ICANN director, Jonathan Cohen, said earlier this week. ``The question is what, if any, protection can be offered.'' The U.S. government is shifting administration of the domain-name system to ICANN, which was established in 1998. As ICANN's authority grows, questions about who controls it have arisen. The 19-member board is considering elections for nine of its spots this fall with indirect input from 6,000 Internet users who applied for free membership. But critics question the fairness of the representation and selection process. ------ On the Net: Official ICANN site: http://www.icann.org Independent site run by ICANN critics: http://www.icannwatch.org Ask questions, give answers and tell other readers what you know. Join Abuzz, a new knowledge network from The New York Times. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 10 Mar 2000 16:40:25 -0500 From: Jonathan Weinberg Subject: [wg-c] IMPORTANT: WG-C Report The WG-C physical meeting in Cairo was quite large — about 65 people, most of whom weren't members of the WG. The inestimable Diane Cabell took notes; she's posted them at . At the Names Council meeting, the NC directed us to submit, within ten days, a WG report covering the same ground as the one I circulated on March 2, except that it would also include a description of our ongoing work. The NC's plan was to put the report out for public comment and then take a vote on the consensus items. Part of the reason for the ten days was to give us the chance to get our procedural house in order by taking the formal vote that Bob urged, etc. The ICANN Board then upped the ante by directing the Names Council to submit recommendations *to the Board* on the topic of new gTLDs by April 20. So we've got two immediate tasks before us: First, we've got some more time in which folks can post messages identifying errors in the report, if any, and pointing out other places where the language should be improved. John Lewis has told me that he's identified errors in the report, and that in general, in his view, the document gives inadequate weight to the input of the Business and Commercial constituency. Please let me know about any changes that you think would make the report better. Second, we should take a formal vote on the report. Given our time constraints, these two processes are going to have to overlap. Here's what I propose to do: * we continue working on the language of the report; please get your comments in (if you have any) as soon as you can. * WG members are free to cast votes on the report, yea or nay, as soon as they want, but any vote cast before March 17, midnight UTC can be retracted. * At March 17, midnight UTC the report will be "frozen" — no more changes will be made. * Voting continues until March 20, midnight UTC. (That way, anybody who held off voting until after 3-17 still has three days to vote, and anybody who voted before 3-17 has three days to reconsider.) Majority vote prevails. I'm attaching the current version of the document below. It's essentially the version I circulated on March 2, with some changes reflecting comments people made to me on the list and in Cairo, a couple of typos corrected, and with the new section that the NC asked for. One more thing: We've got a consensus call outstanding. If the consensus call *in fact* manifests a rough consensus, it would be a shame not to include it in the report. (That said, only seven (!) people so far have cast votes on the consensus call. More people need to express their views, if the vote is to mean anything. Get those postcards and letters in, folks. The consensus call is on this compromise description of how to select the TLDs in the initial rollout: "Registries would apply describing their proposed TLD, and an ICANN body or process would make selections taking into account the characteristics of both the registry and its proposed TLD." For details, see .) I issued the consensus call on March 5, and set the final deadline as March 19. To coordinate the consensus call with the report schedule, though, we need to change the closing date of the consensus call slightly: I propose to move it up two days, to 5 pm UTC on March 17. That way, *if* the consensus call generates a rough consensus, I can modify the report accordingly before it's frozen. It will then become part of the overall package that people can vote up or down. I've attached the current draft version of the report. Jon - --------------------- Report (Part One) of Working Group C of the Domain Name Supporting Organization Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers This document is Part One of the Report of Working Group C. It sets out the rough consensus of the group regarding whether there should be new generic top-level domains (gTLDs), and if so, how quickly they should be added to the root as an initial matter. Introduction and summary Working Group C has reached rough consensus on two issues. The first is that ICANN should add new gTLDs to the root. The second is that ICANN should begin the deployment of new gTLDs with an initial rollout of six to ten new gTLDs, followed by an evaluation period. This report will address each of these issues separately. For each of the issues, it will summarize the discussions within the working group, arguments pro and con, and comments received from the public. It will then briefly summarize the ongoing work of the group. Procedural and outreach history The Names Council approved the charter of Working Group C on June 25, 1999, and named Javier Sola (Business constituency) as its chair. On July 29, the working group members elected Jonathan Weinberg co-chair. The working group currently has more than 140 members, not all of whom are active. It includes extensive representation from each of the constituencies. (There is one partial exception: For most of the life of the working group, no NSI representative participated. When WG-C's co-chair solicited greater participation from the Registry constituency, Don Telage explained that NSI had chosen not to involve itself in the WG-C process. That representational gap has been filled now that Roger Cochetti and Tony Rutkowski, WG-C members from the start, have joined NSI in senior policymaking capacities.) On October 23, 1999, the Working Group released its Interim Report. That report described the issues on which the Working Group had reached rough consensus to date. It also included seven "position papers," setting out alternative scenarios for the introduction of new gTLDs. On November 23, 1999, the Names Council formally requested public comment on the Interim Report. This call for comments was publicized on a variety of mailing lists maintained by the DNSO, including ga-announce, ga, and liaison7c (which includes the constituency secretariats). In addition, WG-C's co-chair spoke at the meetings of most of the constituencies at the Los Angeles ICANN meeting, and urged constituency members to file comments. Nearly 300 comments were filed in response to the interim report. They included responses from leading members of all of the constituencies but two - the record does not include comments from the ccTLD or Registry constituencies (although ccTLD members participated in the discussions that led to the Interim Report, and WG-C's co-chair expressly solicited the comments of both of those groups). This report was circulated to the working group on March 2, and a version of the report was presented to the Names Council on March 8. [rest of this paragraph will summarize the list discussion through 3-17 and the final vote] Issue One - Should There Be New gTLDs? Discussions within the working group The working group quickly -- by mid-July, 1999 -- reached consensus that there should be new global top-level domains. There was very little dissent from this position. Arguments supporting the consensus position Expanding the number of TLDs will increase consumer choice, and create opportunities for entities that have been shut out under the current name structure. Today, .com stands astride the name space: it has more registrations than all other top-level domain names combined, and is ten times the size of the largest ccTLD. Yet it has become nearly impossible to register a new simple domain name there: Almost a year ago, in April 1999, a survey found that of 25,500 standard English-language dictionary words, only 1,760 were free in the .com domain. Millions of additional names have been registered in .com since then. This situation is undesirable. It requires companies to register increasingly unwieldy domain names for themselves, and is inflating the value of the secondary (speculators') market in .com domain names. Existing second-level domain names under the dot com TLD routinely change hands for enormously inflated prices. These are legitimate trades of ordinary, untrademarked words; their high prices reflect the artificial scarcity of common names in existing gTLDs, and the premium on .com names in particular. Companies that currently have a domain name in the form of have an extremely important marketing and name-recognition tool. They have an advantage over all other companies that do not have addresses in that form, because the companyname.com firms are the ones that consumers, surfing the Net, will be able to find most easily. If the name space is expanded, companies will be able to get easy-to-remember domain names more easily, and the entry barriers to successful participation in electronic commerce will be lowered. Addition of new gTLDs will allow different companies to have the same second-level domain name in different TLDs. Those businesses will have to compete based on price, quality and service, rather than on the happenstance of which company locked up the most desirable domain name first. Similarly, addition of new gTLDs could enlarge noncommercial name space, and allow the creation of top-level domains designed to serve noncommercial goals. One proposal made in WG-C, widely applauded in the public comments, advocated the creation of a new top-level domain to be operated by North American indigenous peoples. Other examples are easy to imagine. In response to the unsatisfied demand for new gTLD names, several ccTLD registries, including .nu, .cc, and .to, have transformed themselves into gTLDs, marketing their names globally as alternatives to .com, .net and .org. This is undesirable from the perspective of protecting trademark rights, since no mechanisms are in place to ensure that these TLDs enact the same trademark-protective procedures (such as the UDRP) now in place in the gTLDs. The transformation of ccTLDs into globally marketed commercial gTLDs deprives the local Internet community of the benefits of a ccTLD more closely oriented to serving that community. To the extent that ICANN wishes to deploy new gTLDs subject to community-determined policy guidelines, finally, the growth of ccTLDs in response to pent-up demand for TLDs frustrates that goal. Creation of new generic top-level domains can be beneficial in other ways. One proposal before WG-C, with significant support, urges the creation of multiple registries, each capable of managing registrations for multiple TLDs, so as to eliminate the single point of failure for the registration process. Under this view, multiple new gTLDs are necessary to support the multiple registries needed for stability. Adding new gTLDs to the root, finally, is an important part of ICANN's mandate. ICANN was created because the institutions that preceded it were unable to resolve the intense political and economic conflicts created by demand for new top-level domain names. The U.S. Department of Commerce's White Paper saw the establishment of policy "for determining the circumstances under which new TLDs are added to the root system" as one of ICANN's fundamental goals. Arguments opposing the consensus position Three arguments were made, or suggested, in WG-C that cut against the addition of new gTLDs. The first relates to trademark policing concerns: Expansion of the domain space will create additional opportunities for the registration of domain names that are confusingly similar to existing trademarks. The relationship between domain names and trademark rights presents an important and difficult issue, and is appropriately addressed by registry data maintenance requirements, dispute resolution mechanisms such as the UDRP, and any other device that ICANN may choose to adopt. Trademark owners' concerns in this regard are important ones, and not to be overlooked. The argument that ICANN should impose substantial delays on the initial deployment of new gTLDs in the interest of adopting or perfecting such mechanisms, however, did not win much support within the working group except among Intellectual Property constituency members. Second, some working group members suggested that an increase in the number of top-level domains could confuse consumers, because it would be harder for consumers to keep in mind and remember a larger set of top-level domains. Accordingly, any increase in the number of new gTLDs should be cautious. Notwithstanding requests, though, no working group member offered studies or other evidence backing up this view. Finally, some working group members suggested that the perceived need for new gTLDs was illusory. For the reasons described above, it is the sense of the working group that that view is incorrect. Public comments The comments received by the working group fell into several categories. A few commenters questioned whether new gTLDs were indeed needed: this group included Bell Atlantic, Marilyn Cade and John Lewis (writing on behalf of some members of the Business constituency). Some commenters took no position on whether new gTLDs should be added. Rather, they focused their comments on the position that deployment should be delayed until after implementation of the uniform dispute resolution procedure, improved domain name registration procedures, and protection for so-called famous marks. These commenters included, among others, Jonathan Cohen (then an NC member, IPC), Dr. Victoria Carrington, AOL, British Telecom, Disney, INTA, Nintendo of America and Time Warner. Comments noting the need for caution in deploying new gTLDs, but not explicitly referencing famous-marks protection, were filed by the Software and Information Industry Association (which supports adding new gTLDs, but only after the creation of a robust, responsive whois system), John Lewis (writing on behalf of some members of the Business constituency), and Steve Metalitz. A third set of comments urged the addition of new gTLDs without further delay. These commenters included, among others, Hirofumi Hotta (NC member, ISPCPC) (emphasizing that discussion of famous-mark protection should not delay the gTLD rollout), Kathryn Kleiman (NC member, NCDNHC), Michael Schneider (NC member, ISPCPC), Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility, Melbourne IT, AXISNET (Peruvian Association of Users and ISPs), the United States Small Business Administration's Office of Advocacy, Register.com, InterWorking Labs, Tucows.com, InterAccess Company and PSI-Japan. Raul Echeberria (then an NC member, NCDNHC) filed comments urging that the establishment of new gTLDs was important and positive, but that rules should be devised to avoid massive speculative purchases of domains in the new TLDs, or trademark holders simply duplicating their existing domains. A fourth, and by far the largest, set of comments supported the creation of a specific proposed new domain: .NAA, proposed as a new gTLD to be run by North American indigenous peoples. Issue Two - What Should be the Nature of the Initial Rollout? Discussions within the working group In September 1999, the WG-C co-chairs made the determination that the working group had reached rough consensus supporting a compromise proposal that the initial deployment of new gTLDs should include six to ten new gTLDs, followed by an evaluation period. Because there had been no formal consensus call, though, the working group held a vote in December 1999 to reaffirm that consensus. Following the lead of Working Group B, the working group determined in advance that a two-thirds margin would constitute adequate evidence of rough consensus. The vote reaffirmed the compromise position as the rough consensus of the working group, by a margin of 44 to 20. (A substantial number of working group members did not cast votes. In addition, some working group members, having been solicited to vote, sent messages to the list explaining that they were declining to take a position at that time, and listed themselves as consequently abstaining. Neither the non-voters nor the abstainers were counted in figuring the two-thirds majority.) Members of the working group had expressed sharply varying positions on the nature of the initial rollout. Some working group members urged that ICANN should immediately announce its intention to authorize hundreds of new gTLDs over the course of the next few years. While ICANN might interrupt that process if it observed serious problems with the rollout, the presumption would be in favor of deployment to the limits of the technically feasible and operationally stable. If ICANN simply deployed a small number of new gTLDs with no commitment to add more, they argued, the public would have to make registration decisions based on the possibility that the small number of new gTLDs would be the only options. This would give the new registries oligopoly power and the ability to earn greater-than-competitive profits; it would encourage pre-emptive and speculative registrations based on the possibility of continued artificial scarcity. By contrast, they urged, an ICANN decision to deploy a large number of gTLDs would enable competition and a level playing field: If ICANN announced an intention to add hundreds of new gTLDs over a three-year period, no new registry could exercise market power based on the prospect of a continued artificial scarcity of names. Other working group members took the opposite approach. New gTLDs, they urged, could seriously aggravate the problems facing trademark rightsholders in the existing domain name space. Accordingly, they urged, new gTLDs should be introduced only slowly and in a controlled manner, and only after effective trademark protection mechanisms had been implemented and shown to be effective. A third set of working group members took still another approach. In the long term, they stated, it would be desirable for ICANN to allow the deployment of new gTLDs to the limits of the technically feasible and operationally stable. As a short-term matter, however, the immediate deployment of hundreds of new TLDs would not be prudent. The operationally safer course, rather, should be to deploy a smaller number, and to follow that deployment with an evaluation period during which the Internet community could assess the initial deployment. ICANN would go on to deploy additional TLDs if no serious problems arose in the initial rollout. The proposal that ICANN start by deploying six to ten new TLDs, followed by an evaluation period, was crafted as a compromise position to bridge the gap separating the three groups, and to enable a rough consensus to form in the middle ground. Arguments supporting the consensus position The consensus position has the advantage of being a compromise proposal supported by a wide range of working group members. In a bottom-up, consensus-driven organization, broad agreement on a policy path is valuable for its own sake. The sense of the bulk of the working group is that this proposal strikes an appropriate balance between slower, contingent deployment of new gTLDs and faster, more nearly certain, deployment. Arguments opposing the consensus position Three arguments were made in the working group against the proposal. The first was that the contemplated initial deployment was too large; rather, some WG members urged, it would be appropriate, following the implementation of effective intellectual property protections, for ICANN to roll out no more than two or three new gTLDs. Most WG members felt, however, that this figure was smaller than caution dictated, and that such a modest deployment would not give ICANN the information that it would need to make sensible later decisions. The second argument was that the contemplated initial deployment was too small: that, as detailed above, a deployment of only six to ten, without an upfront commitment to roll out many more, will be a half-measure that would grant oligopoly power to the lucky registries selected for the initial rollout. This argument has considerable force. Most of the working group members felt, however, that an initial commitment to many more than six to ten would not be operationally sound. Until we see the consequences for the domain name space of adding new gTLDs, there are advantages to a more circumspect path. The final objection raised was that the consensus agreement answered the wrong question: The working group, said some, should not be addressing the number of new gTLDs at all before resolving such issues as whether the new top-level domains should be general-purpose (like .com), special-purpose, or some combination of the two. These issues are discussed in this report under the heading of "ongoing work," and certainly it would not have been inappropriate for the WG to have sought to reach conclusions on those matters before discussing Issue Two. But most members of the working group concluded that the size of the initial rollout could and should be addressed first, before resolving less tractable issues. Public comments As with Issue One, public comment on this issue was divided. Bell Atlantic and Marilyn Cade supported the introduction of just a single new gTLD at the outset. John Lewis, on behalf of some members of the Business constituency, suggested the introduction of a very small number; British Telecom and Time Warner urged the initial rollout of only a few. Other commenters, including Jonathan Cohen (then an NC member, IPC), Dr. Victoria Carrington, AOL, Disney and Nintendo of America, generally endorsed the statement that the introduction of new gTLDs should be slow and controlled, and should incorporate an evaluation period. By contrast, Hirofumi Hotta (NC member, ISPCPC), Kathryn Kleiman (NC member, NCDNHC), Michael Schneider (NC member, ISPCPC), Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility, AXISNET, InterWorking Labs, Tucows.com and InterAccess Company supported the position that ICANN should, at the outset, announce a schedule for introducing hundreds of new TLDs. The Office of Advocacy, U.S. Small Business Administration concluded that ICANN should start with a limited introduction of new TLDs followed by an evaluation period, but that ICANN should announce in advance that it would continue with a steady introduction of additional TLDs so long as pre-announced technical criteria were met. Raul Echeberria (then an NC member, NCDNHC), by contrast, emphasized that ICANN should evaluate the operation and market acceptance of the TLDs added in the initial rollout before creating or announcing more. Melbourne IT, PSI-Japan and Register.com all supported the compromise position of an initial rollout of six to ten new gTLDs followed by an evaluation period. Ongoing work The next question before the working group relates to how the new gTLDs deployed in the initial rollout, and their associated registries, should be selected. In discussion and straw polls, working group members fell into several camps. One group urged that ICANN should first select new gTLD strings, and only then call for applications from registries wishing to operate those TLDs. A second group urged that ICANN should select new gTLD registries on the basis of objective criteria, and allow the registries to choose their own gTLDs in response to market considerations. A third group has suggested that registries should apply describing their proposed gTLDs, and that an ICANN body or process will then make selections taking into account the characteristics of both the registry and its proposed gTLD. The working group is now considering the third option, viewed as a possible middle ground, as a consensus call. The consensus call relates only to selection of gTLDs for the initial rollout; it is possible that other considerations might govern the deployment of gTLDs in the longer term. [section tba describing the result of the consensus call - whether it succeeded or failed - etc.] The strong sense of the working group (although no consensus call has been taken on the issue) appears to be that the namespace should have room for both limited-purpose gTLDs (which have a charter that substantially limits who can register there) and general-purpose gTLDs. The working group has extensively discussed a set of eight "principles," drafted by Philip Sheppard (NC member, Business) and Kathryn Kleiman (NC member, NCDNHC), against which applications for new TLDs might be judged. The proposed principles, in their current iteration, incorporate the keywords Certainty, Honesty, Differentiation, Competition, Diversity, Semantics, Multiplicity and Simplicity. The working group has not yet, however, achieved a consensus on this matter. - -------------- A detailed summary of the public comments on the working group's Oct. 23, 1999 interim report is available at . ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 10 Mar 2000 18:24:40 -0500 From: "Rod Dixon, J.D., LL.M." Subject: RE: [wg-c] IMPORTANT: WG-C Report "Registries would apply describing > their proposed TLD, and an ICANN body or process would make selections > taking into account the characteristics of both the registry and its > proposed TLD." I vote yes on this consensus call. Rod Dixon, J.D., LL.M. www.cyberspaces.org rod@cyberspaces.org ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 10 Mar 2000 20:23:40 -0600 From: david@aminal.com Subject: Re: [wg-c] IMPORTANT: WG-C Report > "Registries would apply describing > their proposed TLD, and an ICANN body or process would make selections > taking into account the characteristics of both the registry and its > proposed TLD." FWIW, this statement has my support. David Schutt Speco, Inc ------------------------------ End of WG-C-DIGEST V1 #31 *************************