The TLD debate, again

Wed Aug 31 16:31:26 CEST 2005

Grande Milton, the essential problem of your view is that everything 
that needs to be discussed on the issue has already been discussed 
(particularly in Syracuse), and usually those discussions just point out 
that this is a private business and should be left alone whatever the 
arguments, and you (and I assume your fellow phds) include ccTLDs in 
this (your ideal vision would be a world of competing ccTLDs for each 
and every country -- it seems you still believe in the free competition 
world taught in Economics 101 in Syracuse...).

I do not agree and I feel we need to restart this whole discussion, 
obviously outside of the ICANN realm. I think a working group on this 
would have to be formed outside of the ICANN influence -- including in 
this influence the current non-commercial instances like ALAC and NCUC. 
Of course members of these constituencies would participate, but would 
not lead or bias the formation of the working group in any way.

I trust this idea might gather momentum from now to the end of this 
year, who knows?

fraternal rgds

--c.a.

Milton Mueller wrote:

>Carlos:
>I welcome your interest in this issue. And I appreciate the vigor you bring to your expression of your views. However, to participate in the TLD debate you need to show some awareness of the fact that it has been going on for ten years, and perhaps read some of the studies and debates that have taken place. A good place to start is the NCUC position paper from Feb. 2003.
>http://www.dnso.org/dnso/notes/20030612.gTLDs-committee-conclusions-v7-1.html 
>
>I could also recommend a paper by myself and Lee McKnight, which one of the only scholarly contributions:
>http://dcc.syr.edu/miscarticles/NewTLDs2-MM-LM.pdf 
>
>Your contention that a new commercial TLD has a guaranteed business because of defensive registrations by existing domain name holders is a common argument of the intellectual property interests, but has been disproven by experience. Any commercial TLD that relies entirely on that will not survive economically. The Sapiro report on new TLDs for ICANN has some statistics on degrees of duplication, as do other studies, e.g. by the Berkman Center. Indeed, the more new TLDs are added, the less viable this argument becomes. So if you are really concerned about defensive registrations join us.
>
>Your contention that there is something wrong with .org because it is not a restricted name space is something that was debated vehemently here among NCUC and within ICANN. NCUC, I am proud to say, took the lead in ensuring that .org remained open. Interestingly, it was the business and intellectual property interests who were most interested in restricting it to "verified" nonprofits. We opposed that because a) there is no global standard for verification of "noncommercial" status; b) we didn't want to give people who want to attack online expression yet another excuse to throw people out, and c) because it would drastically increase the cost of registration. .Org has maintained a widespread public reputation as a space for nonprofits through purely voluntary means, thank you very much. The fact that there are a few nasty registrations is not a big deal - certainly not worth sacrificing the freedom and ease of registration we already have. 
>
>NCUC, ALAC, APC (yes, APC, see its Yokohama statement from 2000), CPSR, CPTech and virtually every progressive organization that has looked at the issue in any detail has opposed artificial restriction of the TLD space and supported a more open and objective TLD addition process. Your position is a tiny minority one, and one more often associated with the intellectual property interests. 
>
>Neither you nor NCUC nor any collection of Civil society activists (or governments) is in a position to tell anyone whether they "need" a new gTLD. The central planning paradigm basically died with the Soviet Union, and we don't need to recreate it. Let willing suppliers and willing users interact. If someone adds a TLD name that you don't like, so what? Don't register in it. No one will force you to. If on the other hand you think that "we" collectively have a right to dictate what the rest of the world sees in the name space, then you are probably in the wrong constituency. You should get a seat in GAC, representing Saudi Arabia or China or something. ;-)
>
>TLD additions consume too much time and money, yes. But that is true because ICANN policy is much closer to your views than to mine. ICANN operates on the principle that it must decide whether we really "need" this TLD, whether it has a proper business model, whether every government or interest group approves of it, etc., etc. If we adopted simple, objective procedures, it would not be that difficult at all.
>
>The statement that "there is no need for commercial TLDs" will no doubt come as a surprise to those people in Asia, Africa and even Europe who have had no representation in the name space and who have been shut out of the market entirely. I ask that you discuss this with Mohamet Diop, the African Board member of ICANN. He has strong views about that. I suspect he would view your position as a death knell for the development of the Internet industry in Africa. Try talking that way to people in Asia. See what they say.
>
>Fundamentally, you have fallen prey to the same fallacy as so many other novices to the debate. You assume that there is something "special" about TLDs relative to second-level domains, and that by creating one, ICANN is conferring enormous power and money making ability. So people get grandiose notions about how important the additions are, and propose absurd, complicated global mechanisms to vet them. In fact, the TLD space is just a name space like the second level. We have to restrict the number a bit more, to retain the hierarchical structure of DNS, and we have to (maybe) be a bit more careful about the operational stability of licensees. But that's about it. The "power and money" people associate with TLDs is a mirage: if it exists at all it is caused entirely by the artificial scarcity which is just reinforced by your attitude. 
>
>(The purest example is "country codes" which have been turned into a mirror of the territorial monopoly of the nation-state, when of course one could have hundreds of different names for the same country (but that would prevent small elites in control of governments from controlling things, wouldn't it?) )
>
>  
>
>>>>Carlos Afonso <ca at RITS.ORG.BR> 08/30/05 3:18 PM >>>
>>>>        
>>>>
>Grande Horacio,
>
>I write under the impact of the very sad news that Chris Nicol, an APC 
>pioneer and friend, has died after a long, brutal illness. Why so much 
>suffering to end such a wonderful, precious life?
>
>My opinion is that the current process needs to be radically reviewed, 
>dissociating it entirely from the piecemeal "business brokerage" 
>function ICANN is dedicated to (which consumes most of its energies and 
>money).
>
>However, is this possible? No in the current state of affairs within ICANN.
>
>There is no need for new commercial TLDs (certainly not g, and mostly 
>not s either, since in practice there is no difference in several cases) 
>-- this only fulfills business interests to make sure someone gets a 
>quick break-even business and ICANN gets a little more money. If anyone 
>can argue there is a need for a truly non-commercial sTLD  and this is a 
>viable thing to establish within the current ICANN environment, let us 
>see if this is truly viable and possibly support it.
>
>This, however, given the business orientation dominant from the 
>inception of ICANN on this issue (let us recall the whole thing was born 
>from a white paper on e-commerce...), is in my view not possible in the 
>current environment.
>
>So, my view: either no domains should be created, or, better, let us 
>"convince" ICANN to establish a moratorium on the creation of any TLD 
>and insist on the creation of a multistakeholder working group a la 
>WGIG, and establish the proper criteria for new TLD labels which truly 
>take into account the global nature of the network, as g/sTLDs are no 
>longer just generic domains or a thing of the USA, but in practice are 
>global domains belonging to the worldwide community of Internet-related 
>stakeholders.
>
>As to the technical claims it might not be workable to establish dozens 
>or hundreds of additional TLDs, this is not really an honest claim, as 
>DNS server software today runs with DBMS backends, router memory 
>capacity is orders of magnitude above what it was a few years ago, 
>bandwidth and processing power ditto. If DNS today handles about 300 
>TLDs, what is the real difference in making it handle, say, 500, even 
>with the additional DNSSec workload?
>
>In summary, the question is not technical -- it is just the classical 
>case of artificially generating scarcity to increase the value of the 
>commodity.
>
>If a sizable amount of new domains are activated, created after careful, 
>transparent, democratic and pluralist discussion (authoritative and 
>independent from ICANN) is carried out, my dream might come true -- the 
>end of a commodity called g/sTLD, as prices will drop so much that the 
>business will become irrelevant and we might have the opportunity to 
>claim them back to the commons where they should belong from the very 
>beginning.
>
>abraço fraterno
>
>--c.a.
>
>
>Horacio T. Cadiz wrote:
>
>  
>
>>On Mon, 29 Aug 2005, Carlos Afonso wrote:
>>
>>    
>>
>>>Not only that. I insist on the view that new gTLDs (or sTLDs) are 
>>>approved just for the purpose of making more money and thus 
>>>generating more income to ICANN. A sufficient number of major 
>>>second-level domain owners will purchase 
>>><whatever_secondary_domain>.<any_xyz_topTLD> in order to preserve
>>>      
>>>
>>  Como estas Carlos?
>>
>>  Are you then of the opinion that there should be a stop to the 
>>creation of new gTLDs?
>>
>>
>>-- 
>>*****************************************************************
>>* Horacio T. Cadiz |Philippine Network Foundation, Inc (PHNET)  *
>>* ------------------------------------------------------------- *
>>* Free/Open Source Software. No Gates. No Windows. It is Open.  *
>>* No Bill. It is Free.                                          *
>>*****************************************************************
>>
>>.
>>
>>    
>>
>
>  
>

-- 

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Carlos Afonso
diretor de planejamento
Rede de Informações para o Terceiro Setor - Rits
Rua Guilhermina Guinle, 272, 6º andar - Botafogo
Rio de Janeiro RJ - Brasil         CEP 22270-060
tel +55-21-2527-5494        fax +55-21-2527-5460
ca at rits.org.br            http://www.rits.org.br
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++