Approval process for gtld service changes

[Thierry Amoussougbo]

Thank you Multer for this work.
I do not have any other comment.

Best regards

Thierry H. Amoussougbo
Regional Adviser
Development Information Services Division
United Nations Economic Commission for Africa
Tel: 251 1 511167 ext 33053
Fax: 251 1 510512
E-mail : tamoussougbo at uneca.org




                      Milton Mueller
                      <Mueller at SYR.EDU>            To:      NCUC-DISCUSS at LISTSERV.SYR.EDU
                      Sent by:                     cc:
                      Non-Commercial User          Subject: Re: [NCUC-DISCUSS] Approval process for gtld
                      Constituency                 service changes
                      <NCUC-DISCUSS at LISTSE
                      RV.SYR.EDU>


                      08/01/2004 09:19 PM
                      Please respond to
                      Milton Mueller






Feel free to suggest modifications --MM

=====
Proposed NCUC statement on
"Procedure for use by ICANN in
considering requests for consent and related contractual amendments
to allow changes in the architecture or operation of a gTLD registry."

NCUC observes that by initiating this procedure, ICANN is assuming that
its contracts alone are not sufficient to provide a predictable and stable
basis for the industry. It is assuming that it needs an ongoing form of
regulatory oversight to supplement its contracts. ICANN should face the
fact that it is expanding further into areas of industry regulation,
although
no one wants to admit that.

In formulating its response, NCUC begins by asking: How are
noncommercial domain name users specifically affected by this change?
The answer, NCUC believes, is that there is no commercial/noncommercial
angle to this issue. It is more a question of:

a) how users/consumers relate to suppliers and what kind of regulatory
procedures are needed to protect consumers given the high switching
costs associated with changing registry suppliers after a domain name
is well-established.

b) what kind of technical regulation or specifications are needed to
protect
third parties using domain names on the Internet from harmful changes
made in registry operation, while preserving as much as possible the
freedom of suppliers to respond to the market and innovate.

NCUC notes that whether consumers or users are commercial or
noncommercial has little bearing on these issues.

We also note that a) and b) are distinct policy issues - a) involves
protection of the parties buying service from a gTLD registry, who may
have options, while b) involves protection of third party users of a domain

name, who probably do not have any options if they want to connect to the
party using the affected registry. We also note that a) involves economic
forms of regulation which also involved competition policy concerns, while
b)
is more a matter of technical coordination.

NCUC strongly recommends that the PDP distinguish clearly between
a) and b) in its consideration of the new process. Is the object
of the process economic regulation or technical coordination?

The document we are asked to comment on proposes no policies,
so our comments can only suggest questions or problems for the
PDP process to consider.

1. One question the PDP should consider is whether all issues
related to a) above should be handled by national regulatory
authorities instead of ICANN. We support ICANN's need for
technical coordination related to matters under b). We are less
confident of ICANN's ability and right to engage in a). We are also
not convinced of its ability to engage in competition policy-related
forms of regulation.

2. The PDP document refers to a "quick look" process followed by
a more involved process if a change fails the "quick look."
A question the PDP needs to face squarely is: What is a subject to
a "quick look" and what is not? What is a "new registry service"?
How is that defined? Who will make that determination initially?
What happens when the registry and ICANN disagree on that issue?

3. The NCUC recognizes the danger that a registry can make
damaging changes, such as in the Sitefinder case. We support
clear, well-defined specifications for registry operation that make
DNS a neutral platform for Internet functions. We also recognize
a threat that innovative changes, such as multilingual domain
names, will be stifled by a central organization such as ICANN
which may have incentives to prevent useful changes in order to
maintain its control over the industry.

4. The PDP should consider whether there should be a distinction between
policies applied to sponsored and unsponsored TLDs. NCUC believes
the answer is no: if the justification for regulation is economic; i.e,
that users are locked in to a supplier and cannot switch service providers
without incurring damaging costs, then the same fundamental economic
problem applies regardless of whether the registry is sponsored or not.
If the justification for the process is technical, the answer is the same:
there is no relevant technical distinction between sponsored and un-
sponsored registries.

5. The PDP should consider whether there should be a distinction
between the treatment of dominant and non-dominant TLDs? In this
case NCUC believes there is a stronger case for a distinction. A major
dominant registry may have the power to move the entire industry and
technology, whereas smaller ones would not. However, the lock-in
problem of consumers applies regardless of whether the registry is dominant

or not. Thus, the policy must identify carefully what problem it is trying
to solve.