Re: [wg-c] A counterproposal

[Javier SOLA <javier@aui.es>]

Milton,

>Let me respond to this as diplomatically as I can.

The truth is a good way to start

>We are in a committee that is deciding how to dispense what everyone assumes
>will be valuable rights.
>
>Javier, the putative chairman of our committee, is a longstanding member of a
>group of businesses, CORE, which has been registering names under the gTLDs
>.firm .info .web .arts .rec .nom and .shop since 1997.

Are you being untruthful on purpose or just wrong? Milton, as a lawyer, you
should learn to be much more careful before saying what I am and what I am
not. 

I am NOT a member of CORE. I run an 8.000 member non-profit association
interested on the rights of Internet users.

My interest is stability of the Internet, above CORE or anybody else.

>Don't get me wrong.

You are wrong.

>The Chairman of our committee now proposes that we recommend to ICANN that it
>create the seven TLDs now being registered by CORE--and *no others*.

Again, Milton, I have not said anything about CORE. You should think of
stating your own opinions, and allowing me to state mine. I have, at no
time, advocated that CORE should be the registry to run ANY gTLD. I believe
that ICANN should be the one to publish a call for tender for new
registries. Our job is to define the policy and try to figure out what the
community wants. I personally believe in multiple registries, to give
stability to the system.

Do you have any proposals? Any other gTLDs come to your mind?

>I cannot think of a better way to delegitimize ICANN than this. Such a
>proposal, if implemented, would
>a) give existing CORE members an unjust, economically valuable competitive
>advantage over other existing claimants
>b) create lawsuits from people with competing claims to .web
>c) subject DNSO, and by implication ICANN, to devastating charges of conflict
>of interest and unfairness.

I am not at all interested on people's claims to anything or threats with
lawsuits. Our job is to figure out consensus. I believe that we have a good
set of prospective gTLDs and that they should be included in the root,
independently of who the registry is. We should define what a registry
should look like, though.

>Let me put this proposal on the table:
>Whatever solution regarding new gTLDs we adopt should meet the following
>criteria:
>
>* it should not create any special economic advantages or disadvantages to
>particular players in the domain name market.

The only way of doing that is separating the creation of gTLDs from the the
organisations that would run them.

>* it should ensure that the number of new gTLDs is large enough to undermine
>the market power of any registry. In other words, it should be a *lot* more
>than seven, more in the neighborhood of 50 or 60. (This solution is better
for
>trademark owners, by the way--a constrained name space encourages
>cybersquatting.)

You should let IP folks speak for themselves, some of them seem to think
differently.

>* it should treat all registries that have registered names in "unrecognized"
>gTLDs (i.e., those outside the NTIA/ICANN root) equally. IOD, Name.space,
>AlterNIC, CORE--all are in the same boat and should be treated exactly the
>same.

I agree. They should be treated equal. This issue should not be at all
taken into consideration. Only community consensus on which should the new
gTLDs be.

Javier