From: owner-wg-c-digest@dnso.org (WG-C-DIGEST) To: wg-c-digest@dnso.org Subject: WG-C-DIGEST V1 #59 Reply-To: Sender: owner-wg-c-digest@dnso.org Errors-To: owner-wg-c-digest@dnso.org Precedence: bulk WG-C-DIGEST Wednesday, March 22 2000 Volume 01 : Number 059 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 22 Mar 2000 09:57:59 -0800 (PST) From: "William X. Walsh" Subject: RE: [wg-c] re: Choosing the intial testbed - -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 On 22-Mar-2000 Kendall Dawson wrote: > My person feeling is that the general public should choose the TLDs/registry > by a vote. It seems the only democratic way to do this. Rather than telling > people -- "here are the 10 choices" why not have a Net-wide Web poll > (sponsored by DNSO) to decide this matter? It's nice to toss these great theoretical ideas around, but you must look at them from a realistic point of view. How will voters be validated, and how will we prevent voter fraud and multiple voting by the same people? If you do it by email address, I can have a theoretically infinite number of votes, and I can easily write a small program to automatically vote using each of these infinitely possible email addresses. If you do it by IP Address, then all I have to do is use the over 20 (and growing) number of Free Internet services and login multiple times to each one (and then to multiple cities, since the voting process is short enough that the long distance bill for such calls would be short enough to be cost effective). If you require preregistration, then we have to go through a very lengthly process that would further delay the introduction of new gTLDs by at least a year if not 2 or more. While this may please the Trademark interests, its unacceptable to the vast majority of the rest of us, and to the internet community, who have expressed their own desires for new gTLDs at community sites such as the previously mentioned slashdot.org website. So when making these proposals, give some thought as to how practical it is to implement those proposals. Idealism is nice, but practical reality has to be taken into account. - - -- 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/ iD8DBQE42Qmn8zLmV94Pz+IRAumKAJ9+C4P8S8te3YWZQRvrfypjyJ30/ACeJ91t YgUid2nPghb9JhybJ1kh5o4= =4lfU - -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 22 Mar 2000 13:02:38 -0500 From: James Love Subject: Re: [wg-c] re: Choosing the intial testbed Kendall Dawson wrote: > > I agree that it should be decentralized - but not in the exact way that James has proposed. > > My person feeling is that the general public should choose the TLDs/registry by a vote. It seems the only democratic way to do this. Rather than telling people -- "here are the 10 choices" why not have a Net-wide Web poll (sponsored by DNSO) to decide this matter? > > This way ICANN gets the general public involved, the business/commercial interest does not get to make the choice for the public - and no one can come back later complaining - "we weren't offered any choice". As you know, my own proposal had 1/3 of the TLDs selected by a direct membership vote, and I think this is a good idea for many of the reasons indicated by Kendall. But for a testbed, I don't see a problem in having more than one selection process, more or less "competing" against each other. If the business/registrar community came up with an agreement on some TLDs for the testbed, that would be fine with me. And as I have indicated before, I think the noncommercial constituency will have a different take on this, and should be given the chance to come up with their own consensus proposals. > This method could be used whether the registries are chosen first, or the TLD strings are chosen first. If the registries are asked to apply first - we offer a list of say 100 registries and the string they propose to run. The public then votes on these - and the top 10 are implemented. > > If we go the other route - and the TLD strings are chosen first - we put up a list of 100 strings. The public votes on which ones they want. The top 10 are chosen. Then, the registries bid on who will run them. I would agree that the popular vote method could be done either way. > I know that Paul already has a poll going over at Name-Space. But, this is not "officially sanctioned" by DNSO. If ICANN were to offer something similar to this as an "official" poll that will used to gauge the interests of the public -- we could avoid a lot of the back-and-forth fighting of which ones to add. I would agree that one objective of a system would be to permit decisions to actually be made. At least with a vote, you have a mandate, and you can explain the objective criteria -- the highest vote total. Also, with respect to the consensus on 3 TLDs each for the commercial and noncommercial groups. You could say, if there is no consensus, the number allocated by votes will be expanded. This would give the groups an incentive to get a consensus. Jamie ======================================================= James Love, Director | http://www.cptech.org Consumer Project on Technology | mailto:love@cptech.org P.O. Box 19367 | voice: 1.202.387.8030 Washington, DC 20036 | fax: 1.202.234.5176 ======================================================= ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 22 Mar 2000 13:10:44 -0500 From: James Love Subject: Re: [wg-c] Choosing the intial testbed Dave Crocker wrote: > > I think if you identified the groups that would decide, they would > >end up with decisions. > > I agree, hence my statement of support for the basic idea, though the > concerns that Brunner state are non-trivial and entirely valid. > > > If the non-commerical domain holders could choose 3, they would > > The essential non-existence of that group as a functioning group is not a > minor or subjective point. Hence continuing to assert that they will make > decisions, is much like the famous joke about finishing a complicated > formula by saying "and then a miracle happens". > > We need to be careful about designing things that have fragile, > time-sensitive or unlikely dependencies. I don't understand your comment. There are groups in the non-commerical domain group, including, for example, the American Library Association, CPT, ACM, CDT, and lots of other groups. I thought the formal group already had more than 100 member organizations. I was at a meeting before Cairo that included these and other groups. > > For the voting proposal. ICANN does have a membership system. It is > > It has the framework for one. It does not have one that is > functioning. Hence your proposal pretty much assures that it will be > nearly a year to get a set of names from the at large group. ICANN is proposing an election by this fall. > > > >some other way. Perhaps a lottery by those with "pioneer" proposals, or > > > > > > You would consider giving the rogue registry participants -- the folks who > > > tried to replace the IANA DNS root system -- special position??? > > > > I've never taken a position on the "pioneer" or "rogue" registry > >proposals. I don't know enough about this to make an informed decision > >one way or the other. I'm not sure I want to. > > Interesting perspective for someone proffered as a consumer advocate. At > any rate, please forgive the misunderstanding. > > What DID you mean about 'a lottery by those with "pioneer" proposals'. Well, I'm not sure I follow your point. I know that some have made "pioneer" type claims. They write me frequently. Others seem to consider these "rogues" apparently. I don't know that much about the history and merits of these arguments. I suggested that ICANN could provide one more TLDs by lottery to this group. They could also provide zero. Your note above seems to suggest consumer advocates have some obligation to wade into the "pioneer/rogue" disputes. I'm not sure why you say this. Can't I avoid having to be an expert on everything? Jamie ======================================================= James Love, Director | http://www.cptech.org Consumer Project on Technology | mailto:love@cptech.org P.O. Box 19367 | voice: 1.202.387.8030 Washington, DC 20036 | fax: 1.202.234.5176 ======================================================= ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 22 Mar 2000 13:39:53 -0500 From: James Love Subject: Re: [wg-c] Choosing the intial testbed "Mark C. Langston" wrote: > The alternative is not "please choose three TLDs that best serve your > groups' own fiscal needs/goals", as you've proposed. I wouldn't be > surprised if they required that you allow them to choose the registry > to host the TLD as well. You might as well say, "Here: Each of the > groups on this list may administer X many TLDs for profit. Enjoy." > > This exercise isn't supposed to be about who can position themselves > to make the most money for themselves or their represented interests; > it's supposed to be about doing what's good for the Internet. > > The constituencies aren't General Motors, and this isn't America. I think Mark Langston's point is a good one. I thought that if the business/registrar constituency would agree on 3 names, it would address both the user's interest and the registrar perspective. In general, ICANN's structure is a problem. It has sort of a reverse conflict of interest policy. The more you have a conflict, the more you are put in charge of policy. The DNSO has what, five business constituencies and one non commercial constituency? I think NSI must be represented on what, all 5 business constituencies. (I don't know how to classify the ccTLDs). Now if Mark has a plan for getting the DNSO to look after the public interest, fine, I'm all ears. I assume it is full of conflicts of interest, and the best you can hope for is for various groups to come up with something reasonable. But I also think the noncommercial constituency is ok. At the Cairo meeting, it seemed to be fairly close on policy issues. Maybe this is too optimistic, but things seems fairly good at that meeting. I think it's become a stronger constituency with the efforts of the Markle and Ford Foundations to support NGO involvement too. And, I don't see a big conflict with trademark owners in the NC group. > > For the voting proposal. ICANN does have a membership system. It is > > in place. If there was a "ballot" on 3 TLDS, it would give people a > > reason to register as a member. It's open and free right now. It may > > have flaws, but compared to what? > > Actually, the membership system is NOT in place. Nobody has received > the mailings that were supposed to follow the initial on-line registration, > becuase ICANN has not mailed them yet. There is no At-Large membership, > period. ICANN never followed through. Well, ICANN has created the mechanism to become a member. Of course, having a real vote would require more follow through. Is this doable? Of course it is. > > The ballot proposal could include proposals, that included > > management systems. If there were more than one management proposal, > > you could add the votes to make the "cut" and then have a run off on the > > different proposals. Or you could just take the top 3 votes, including > > the proposed management structure. > > The TLDs should be separate from the business model petitions. There > is no reason whatsoever to tie them, and to do so may impart both an > unfair advantage as well as an illusion of 'ownership'. I don't agree completely, although I would be flexible on this point. In some cases, the support for a TLD would depend upon how it would be used. For example, I would be much more supportive of a .union TLD that was restricted or chartered, to an international labor organization, and I would for having .union be handled (mishandled) like .org. But others might see it the otherway around. Kathy K's proposal for a .RTM TLD, available only to owners of registered trademarks, wouldn't make sense if everyone could get it. Also, the policy issue of business model or charter is at least as important as the string itself, which often isn't that important by itself (what was so special about .com or .org, except that they were what people could actually get?). The issue of "ownership" of a TLD is of course, pretty fundemental. But sometimes, possession is 9/10ths of the law. (Ask NSI). Jamie ======================================================= James Love, Director | http://www.cptech.org Consumer Project on Technology | mailto:love@cptech.org P.O. Box 19367 | voice: 1.202.387.8030 Washington, DC 20036 | fax: 1.202.234.5176 ======================================================= ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 22 Mar 2000 10:47:58 -0800 From: "Christopher Ambler" Subject: Re: [wg-c] Choosing the intial testbed Selecting names before selecting registries is putting the cart well before the horse. What if a name selected is .ATT? What if AT&T wants to run .ATT but it's not selected? What if the names selected are .u4x, .hhrhr, and .w83hjf? The middle-road solution is to set down objective criteria that a registry must meet (much like was done for registrars), and accept applications based upon that criteria. Each application will also contain the single TLD that the applying registry wishes to run, based on their business plan and marketing data. - -- Christopher Ambler chris@the.web ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 22 Mar 2000 13:46:09 -0500 From: Kendall Dawson Subject: RE: [wg-c] re: Choosing the intial testbed My second and last post for the day - At 09:57 AM 03/22/2000 -0800, William X. Walsh wrote: >How will voters be validated, and how will we prevent voter fraud and multiple >voting by the same people? If you do it by email address, I can have a >theoretically infinite number of votes, and I can easily write a small program >to automatically vote using each of these infinitely possible email >addresses. >If you do it by IP Address, then all I have to do is use the over 20 (and >growing) number of Free Internet services and login multiple times to each one >(and then to multiple cities, since the voting process is short enough >that the >long distance bill for such calls would be short enough to be cost effective). Sure, I understand what you are saying. The real world unfortunately makes us go out of our way to prevent abuse from thieves and malcontents everywhere. I don't know if you've been following the Arizona election or not - but it was the first state-wide legal public election. All these same issues came up - how do you validate people? how do you prevent fraud ? All legitimate concerns - but, yet they still voted. Should we stop the entire democratic process - or stop trying to prevent abuse from the few rotten apples who continually spoil everything for everyone? My suggestion would be to take away the incentive to cheat. No matter WHAT you do - there is going to be some element of fraud. If you require enough information up-front - Name, Address, Email, Phone, and store it for the duration of the election - it will allow research into fraudulent voting. Any person/group/constituency/registrar/company caught trying to rig the system is not only instantly disqualified -- but penalized severely as well. Something along the lines of -- "5 year probationary period you must wait before you can EVEN apply to be a registrar again". Granted - nothing is perfect - and there will always be holes in the process. But, if you can eliminate 85% of the problems and calculate the margin for error - with a STRICT policy of monitoring, and enforcement. There is no reason that a public election could not take place. >Idealism is nice, but practical reality has to be taken into account. I agree that reality needs to be taken into account - but we cannot stop living our lives because there are some bad apples in the bunch. If we as a whole REALLY want something to get done - it will get done. And, we can overcome the obstacles if we put our minds towards the goal of solving the problems. Kendall ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 22 Mar 2000 14:02:09 -0500 From: "Greg Schuckman" Subject: [wg-c] Market Research and Public Awareness Building on Kendall's suggestion for a poll, this was an idea that was favorably discussed by several registrars in Cairo to both ascertain demand for new gTLDs as well as which strings would be of the greatest interest to prospective customers. Given the difficulty of orchestrating a net-wide Web poll, however, we might want to ask each ICANN-accredited registrar to place a graphic on its site that would link to an independent third party (polling firm) in a pop-up window asking some basic questions about what strings they like as well as what string they would like to have if their choice isn't listed. If you wanted to augment the sample to include participants beyond those who are already trying to register a domain name (or at least considering it), then the polling firm can conduct a net-wide Web poll using statistical sampling (Harris Interactive in NYC is one such firm capable of doing this) which would allow us to look at the results with and without the data gained from the "at-large" community. Addressing Mr. Walsh's quite valid points about voter fraud, etc., he is quite right that the poll results could be distorted by those who would seek to abuse the process if it were limited to voluntary participation. The data that would be collected by the polling firm through its sampling, however, would not be corrupted since they are good at preventing things like that. Personally, in spite of the limitations, I like the idea of having the two sets of data because it could tell us something about the opinions of the "at-large" community on the issue of expanding namespace as well as what current registrants (or to-be-registrants) want today. Should the DNSO support the idea for such a poll, we would be able to conduct the market research that is sorely needed on the subject of new gTLDs (demand, preferred strings, etc...) but would be able to establish credibility for the results since we would have a reputable third party as the host of the poll as well as being responsible for its tabulation. Given the impact that any decision about new gTLDs will have not only on e-commerce but on how the public begins to understand the possibilities that expanded namespace could have, it seems prudent for us to proceed apace with the suggestion and be able to share the results headed into Yokohama. Related to my support for this poll, if I had one criticism to date of ICANN and its various constituencies, it would be the dearth of public information/education that has been produced about what ICANN is, what decisions it must make, and most importantly, how those decisions will affect people's lives. That we may spring the idea of new gTLDs on the public without their being made aware of who made those decisions and why, as well as what else may be coming down the pike with respect to this mysterious thing we call the Internet, will only invite greater suspicion and confusion about what ICANN has been doing for the last 16 months, no matter how open and transparent it strives to be. Being 'open and transparent' when you are largely invisible to the world doesn't mean much now does it? I look forward to your thoughts. Sincerely, Greg Schuckman wg-c in w-dc - ----- Original Message ----- From: Kendall Dawson To: Sent: Wednesday, March 22, 2000 12:03 PM Subject: [wg-c] re: Choosing the intial testbed > I agree that it should be decentralized - but not in the exact way that James has proposed. > > My person feeling is that the general public should choose the TLDs/registry by a vote. It seems the only democratic way to do this. Rather than telling people -- "here are the 10 choices" why not have a Net-wide Web poll (sponsored by DNSO) to decide this matter? > > This way ICANN gets the general public involved, the business/commercial interest does not get to make the choice for the public - and no one can come back later complaining - "we weren't offered any choice". > > This method could be used whether the registries are chosen first, or the TLD strings are chosen first. If the registries are asked to apply first - we offer a list of say 100 registries and the string they propose to run. The public then votes on these - and the top 10 are implemented. > > If we go the other route - and the TLD strings are chosen first - we put up a list of 100 strings. The public votes on which ones they want. The top 10 are chosen. Then, the registries bid on who will run them. > > I know that Paul already has a poll going over at Name-Space. But, this is not "officially sanctioned" by DNSO. If ICANN were to offer something similar to this as an "official" poll that will used to gauge the interests of the public -- we could avoid a lot of the back-and-forth fighting of which ones to add. > > Just my opinion. > > Kendall > > > On 22-Mar-2000 James Love wrote: > --------------------------- > > I propose the decision making be decentralized. I would recommend 3 be > > selected by the business/registrar constituencies, 3 by the > > non-commercial domain holders, and 3 selected by the ICANN at large > > members, in an online vote. That's 9, and the 10th could be selected in > > some other way. Perhaps a lottery by those with "pioneer" proposals, or > > something else. This would provide a simple way to reduce the power > > that any one group would have, and it would probably also lead to some > > diversity in the types of management structures considered in the first > > round. > ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 22 Mar 2000 10:58:17 -0800 (PST) From: "William X. Walsh" Subject: RE: [wg-c] re: Choosing the intial testbed - -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 On 22-Mar-2000 Kendall Dawson wrote: > My second and last post for the day - > > At 09:57 AM 03/22/2000 -0800, William X. Walsh wrote: >>How will voters be validated, and how will we prevent voter fraud and >>multiple >>voting by the same people? If you do it by email address, I can have a >>theoretically infinite number of votes, and I can easily write a small >>program >>to automatically vote using each of these infinitely possible email >>addresses. >>If you do it by IP Address, then all I have to do is use the over 20 (and >>growing) number of Free Internet services and login multiple times to each >>one >>(and then to multiple cities, since the voting process is short enough >>that the >>long distance bill for such calls would be short enough to be cost >>effective). > > Sure, I understand what you are saying. The real world unfortunately makes > us go out of our way to prevent abuse from thieves and malcontents > everywhere. I don't know if you've been following the Arizona election or > not - but it was the first state-wide legal public election. All these same > issues came up - how do you validate people? how do you prevent fraud ? All > legitimate concerns - but, yet they still voted. With requiring a physical presence and preregistration, you can do this. But none of this exists on the Internet. The internet is international, Kendall. > Should we stop the entire democratic process - or stop trying to prevent > abuse from the few rotten apples who continually spoil everything for > everyone? My suggestion would be to take away the incentive to cheat. No > matter WHAT you do - there is going to be some element of fraud. If you > require enough information up-front - Name, Address, Email, Phone, and > store it for the duration of the election - it will allow research into > fraudulent voting. Any person/group/constituency/registrar/company caught > trying to rig the system is not only instantly disqualified -- but > penalized severely as well. Something along the lines of -- "5 year > probationary period you must wait before you can EVEN apply to be a > registrar again". Who said that registrars would be the only ones who would want to stack the deck? How would you prove that the fraud originated from any particular organization? Who would bear the costs of international investigations into the backgrounds of each and every voter? Have you really thought this out? Are you volunteering the money (a rather large sum) that this would entail? > Granted - nothing is perfect - and there will always be holes in the > process. But, if you can eliminate 85% of the problems and calculate the > margin for error - with a STRICT policy of monitoring, and enforcement. > There is no reason that a public election could not take place. But we can't even eliminate 85%, heck we can't even eliminate 20%, especially in the time frame we have. There is no way to do strict monitoring, there is no way to do enforcement. There is quite simply no reasonable way to hold a public election on this subject. >>Idealism is nice, but practical reality has to be taken into account. > > I agree that reality needs to be taken into account - but we cannot stop > living our lives because there are some bad apples in the bunch. If we as a > whole REALLY want something to get done - it will get done. And, we can > overcome the obstacles if we put our minds towards the goal of solving the > problems. More idealism, Kendall. I would really like to see a more practical proposal if you think this can work. How will it be funded, where will the funding come from, how will enforcement investigating be conducted, and by whom? How will you verify that each and every vote is indeed a natural person who voted? You realize this would cost several million dollars to do? - - -- 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/ iD8DBQE42RfJ8zLmV94Pz+IRAp+TAJ4pTQ7AM4exa0+N0oOrK3RVQgPTywCgwv09 SoXQ4/ppJlb3g3XtUCndYIA= =TezX - -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 22 Mar 2000 11:00:42 -0800 From: "Mark C. Langston" Subject: Re: [wg-c] Choosing the intial testbed On Wed, Mar 22, 2000 at 01:39:53PM -0500, James Love wrote: > > Now if Mark has a plan for getting the DNSO to look after the public > interest, fine, I'm all ears. I assume it is full of conflicts of > interest, and the best you can hope for is for various groups to come up > with something reasonable. A start would be to scrap the constituency model and move towards a more open democratic model. The only purpose I can see the constituency model serving is to limit capture of the various controllilng boards by any one corporation. The entire model is broken; while paying lip-service to bottom-up democracy, it's anything but. The IETF, often touted here as a model for how the DNSO and ICANN should operate, isn't a fair comparison. To a very great extent, the IETF is full of technical experts who may also have a vested financial interest in the decisions made, but at least have the good taste to suppress their urge to let that interest guide their decisions most of the time. ICANN, on the other hand, is pure, unbridled land-grab in the guise of a technical policy group. Given that, the best we can hope for is to reign it in at every opportunity, since demolishing it completely is out of the question. Does this mean that no progress will be made? of course not. But it does mean that, if people are successful in restraining the capitalistic tendencies masquerading as policy decisions, the majority of the players are going to get upset, and quite possibly exit the process. Is this a good thing? I don't know. The interplay right now is a dynamic tension among all the various companies, who are out to maximize their profit from this process. They only thing keeping them in check is their own competition. Unfortunately, in these types of situations, those without the financial captial and legal resources (read: individuals) get left out entirely, because they have no leverage with which to change the dynamic. > > But I also think the noncommercial constituency is ok. At the Cairo > meeting, it seemed to be fairly close on policy issues. Maybe this is > too optimistic, but things seems fairly good at that meeting. I think > it's become a stronger constituency with the efforts of the Markle and > Ford Foundations to support NGO involvement too. And, I don't see a > big conflict with trademark owners in the NC group. > The noncommercial attendees at the Cairo meeting? Which noncommercial constituency members had enough money and time to travel all the way to Cairo for just over a day's worth of open meetings? Let's not forget that noncommercial does not equal individual stakeholder. They've made that VERY clear. As far as I can tell, the NCDNHC is full of ISOC chapters and university groups, and several 'questionable' groups, such as Kent's boat club. Just because the title includes the word "noncommercial" does not exclude the participants from having a financial interest in these decisions. Indeed, I do believe several of the NCDNHC members would easily qualify as members of other constituencies, all of which are commercial. > > > > For the voting proposal. ICANN does have a membership system. It is > > > in place. If there was a "ballot" on 3 TLDS, it would give people a > > > reason to register as a member. It's open and free right now. It may > > > have flaws, but compared to what? > > > > Actually, the membership system is NOT in place. Nobody has received > > the mailings that were supposed to follow the initial on-line registration, > > becuase ICANN has not mailed them yet. There is no At-Large membership, > > period. ICANN never followed through. > > > Well, ICANN has created the mechanism to become a member. Of > course, having a real vote would require more follow through. Is this > doable? Of course it is. > It's "doable" but ICANN seems to be unwilling to do it. They already fear the Great Unwashed Masses enough to have completely changed the manner in which the public can join the ICANN BoD, and have held up completing the registration process until some unannounced future date. > > > > The ballot proposal could include proposals, that included > > > management systems. If there were more than one management proposal, > > > you could add the votes to make the "cut" and then have a run off on the > > > different proposals. Or you could just take the top 3 votes, including > > > the proposed management structure. > > > > The TLDs should be separate from the business model petitions. There > > is no reason whatsoever to tie them, and to do so may impart both an > > unfair advantage as well as an illusion of 'ownership'. > > > I don't agree completely, although I would be flexible on this > point. In some cases, the support for a TLD would depend upon how it > would be used. For example, I would be much more supportive of a .union > TLD that was restricted or chartered, to an international labor > organization, and I would for having .union be handled (mishandled) like > ..org. But others might see it the otherway around. > > Kathy K's proposal for a .RTM TLD, available only to owners of > registered trademarks, wouldn't make sense if everyone could get it. This isn't a discussion about business model or registry then; it's a discussion about whether some (any?) of the new gTLDs will be chartered, and how that charter will be enforced by the chosen registry, as well as how said registry will be policed to prevent the .com/.net/.org result. > > Also, the policy issue of business model or charter is at least as > important as the string itself, which often isn't that important by > itself (what was so special about .com or .org, except that they were > what people could actually get?). > Marketing. It's all marketing, unless there's a charter. And there was (is?) a charter for .com,, .net, and .org. NSI and others have long since chosen to ignore it, however. > The issue of "ownership" of a TLD is of course, pretty fundemental. > But sometimes, possession is 9/10ths of the law. (Ask NSI). > Funny, you can't tell it by looking at the UDRP process. - -- Mark C. Langston mark@bitshift.org Systems & Network Admin San Jose, CA ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 22 Mar 2000 11:19:27 -0800 From: "Mark C. Langston" Subject: Re: [wg-c] Choosing the intial testbed On Wed, Mar 22, 2000 at 10:47:58AM -0800, Christopher Ambler wrote: > Selecting names before selecting registries is putting the cart well before > the horse. > > What if a name selected is .ATT? Are we now to apply the IP constituency's demands to TLDs as well? > > What if AT&T wants to run .ATT but it's not selected? Too bad? The fact that AT&T exist does not give them the right to be a registry, have a TLD, and so on. > > What if the names selected are .u4x, .hhrhr, and .w83hjf? > Then prospective registries may or may not make proposals to run one of them. If nobody volunteers to host a TLD, scrap the string and find a new one. You're thinking as is ICANN were going to force companies to run TLDs; I'm arguing from the opposite position. > The middle-road solution is to set down objective criteria that a registry > must meet (much like was done for registrars), and accept applications > based upon that criteria. Each application will also contain the single TLD > that the applying registry wishes to run, based on their business plan and > marketing data. > I'm perfectly happy with that. I'm just saying that the selection process for the initial (and future) TLDs should be completely seperate from this process. Then, after the TLDs have been agreed upon, if a registry so wishes, it can present exactly the proposal you just described, given that the TLD is in the pool agreed upon. If not, too bad. - -- Mark C. Langston mark@bitshift.org Systems & Network Admin San Jose, CA ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 22 Mar 2000 11:13:11 -0800 From: "Bret A. Fausett" Subject: Re: [wg-c] Choosing the intial testbed For the selection of new gTLDs, especially the selection of the ones for the initial testbed, I share the concern voiced by others that picking a TLD, in the absence of a specific proposal from an organization/company to operate the TLD registry, would not be optimal. While we could certainly pair TLD proposals with technically competent registry providers, NSI, or any other registry operator, is unlikely to bring the same passion and commitment to, for example, a .naa as is the Indigenous Nations of North America. Or, what happens when, in a WG's divine wisdom, it picks a TLD name that no registry wants to run? This is not inconceivable, as some frequently suggested chartered TLDs (.xxx) may impose such high costs (screening, content management) or legal liability as to make them unacceptable for anyone to actually operate. In the recent report, Jonathan wrote that the Working Group is now turning to "the mechanism through which new gTLDs and registries should be selected." I think the selection process in the initial testbed ought to link those two concepts, and any voting be tied to a vote on both the gTLD name and the gTLD registry operation. Otherwise, it may very well be that a popular gTLD name either has no registry operation tied to it or is tied to a registry that is not competent. This suggestion is not meant to preclude, in any way, the possibility that a gTLD would be paired with a non-profit shared registry. That said, once the gTLD/registry proposals are submitted, Jamie's polling suggestion seems a fine way to gauge the relative consumer demand for some percentage of the new gTLDs. The results of GA votes, membership votes, recommendations of constituencies, or any other such data all should be presented to the Names Council with the new gTLD recommendations, together with a recommendation on how the NC ought to make the final recommendation to the ICANN Board. (e.g., "the WG recommends that the NC select 1/3 based on popularity, 1/3 based on constituency recommendations, and 1/3 to satisfy minority interests that would not win a popularity contest"). But the NC, and ultimately the ICANN Board, should be selecting from among complete proposals for a gTLD coupled with a registry. -- Bret ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 22 Mar 2000 11:34:43 -0800 From: "Christopher Ambler" Subject: Re: [wg-c] Choosing the intial testbed > > The middle-road solution is to set down objective criteria that a registry > > must meet (much like was done for registrars), and accept applications > > based upon that criteria. Each application will also contain the single TLD > > that the applying registry wishes to run, based on their business plan and > > marketing data. > > > > I'm perfectly happy with that. I'm just saying that the selection > process for the initial (and future) TLDs should be completely > seperate from this process. Then, after the TLDs have been agreed > upon, if a registry so wishes, it can present exactly the proposal you > just described, given that the TLD is in the pool agreed upon. If > not, too bad. So the registry that wants to run .foo is out of luck if .bar is chosen? Ridiculous. Companies willing to enter the market will have already done their (expensive) market research to determine what TLD to apply for. In the case of Image Online Design, there was quite a bit of research in selecting .web back in 1995. When the approval process for TLDs begins, this is the TLD IOD expects to submit. Ironically, I suspect that if it ever did come down to voting, .web would be in the top 3 anyway. - -- Christopher Ambler chris@the.web ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 22 Mar 2000 11:47:35 -0800 From: "Mark C. Langston" Subject: Re: [wg-c] Choosing the intial testbed On Wed, Mar 22, 2000 at 11:34:43AM -0800, Christopher Ambler wrote: > > So the registry that wants to run .foo is out of luck if .bar is chosen? Until and unless new TLDs are added, yes. Couldn't think of a better incentive to get namespace opened up. Besides, this way the selection of the new TLD strings will be done in a context-free manner, independent of everything except the string's own merit and possible charter. This is as it should be, unless the DNSO and ICANN want to be in the same position the DoC was in when it handed .com,.net,.org, and the rest over to NSI. And unless we want to be faced with 6-10 mini-NSI situations when the contracts run out or the registries are found to be lacking. The registry MUST NOT own the TLD, and must not be allowed to even infer that some ownership exists, or we'll just be creating problems for everyone, and perpetual fiefdoms for a select few. > Ridiculous. Companies willing to enter the market will have already > done their (expensive) market research to determine what TLD to > apply for. And I'll refer you to my earlier statement: If their string isn't in the initial batch, then they have that much more market impetus to do what is necessary to ensure namespace is expanded further. This benefits the community by providing the tension necessary to work against infringement fears and get new TLDs added to the roots. > In the case of Image Online Design, there was quite a bit > of research in selecting .web back in 1995. When the approval > process for TLDs begins, this is the TLD IOD expects to submit. > Ironically, I suspect that if it ever did come down to voting, .web > would be in the top 3 anyway. Then neither you nor IOD have anything to worry about, do you? We're all well aware of your claims of ownership for .web. Between you and name.space, this WG seems less like a technical policy forum and more like a spamvertisement at times. If and when .web is among the TLDs to be added to the root, I'm sure you'll be given a fair and equitable opportunity to make your proposal, and a chance to be the registry for .web. The same fair, equitable oppportunity everyone else should have, if we do this right. - -- Mark C. Langston mark@bitshift.org Systems & Network Admin San Jose, CA ------------------------------ End of WG-C-DIGEST V1 #59 *************************