Input on new gTLD application

[Mawaki Chango]

Hi,

as promised, here is an addendum to our input to the new gTLD policy
development process. please find the word version in the attachment.
feel free to comment and contribute ideas, edit and correct the
language, etc. i'd like, though, to get the substance to the GNSO
final report, thanks.

mawaki

********

ICANN
GNSO Policy Development Process on New gTLDs
February, 2007

The time has come for ICANN to take an aggressive turn toward a truly
global governance, ensuring  further inclusiveness, diversity, and
competition through its processes as well as by their outcomes. There
clearly is a benefit as well as a cost, either symbolic, material or
both, to be the authority that everybody in the industry looks at and
often relies on, at one level or the other. Just as it accepts the
privilege (and benefit) to play such role, ICANN needs to accept to
bear the related responsibility (or cost) toward the whole community,
and this may have different flavors depending on the specific
conditions of the different participant groups or regions, in
connection with ICANN's business.

We need to realize that there is a huge cost for a developing
Non-English
speaking country, for example, (and there are many such examples,) to
bear with regard to the conditions in which ICANN has conducted its
business over the past decade. ICANN may well translate its public
documents in all languages in currency within the United Nations, it
does not, however, process applications, negotiate or sign contacts
other than in English, and furthermore in those processes, it will
often rely on a legal tradition that doesn't go beyond the
Anglo-American cultural and linguistic space. ICANN takes decisions
that impact the possibility of entry in the Internet industry and
market, that is, it take decisions that have regulatory effects. By
default, Internet industry and market must be global, just as the
medium itself. And the cultural and linguistic bias in which ICANN
has operated so far results in a market failure by means of
information asymmetry.

Indeed, the fact that ICANN's tools and processes for policy-making
are in a specific language results in a loss for countries that are
not in any position, at start, to be familiar with those tools and
processes, neither to their cultural environment. For many, this
means, among other things, 8 years or so lagging behind and even
locked out of the industry. Those with poor or very limited
institutional and economic development, in addition, are even worse
off. As a result, it is once again those having less who still get
less, falling farther behind, while paying the same market price as
every one if not more because of their poor organization (cost of
access, international bandwidth and interconnections, etc.)

Obviously, setting application criteria that are tailored (or based
on) the performance of the most developed economies in the world
equates to excluding the majority of the areas and people in the
world.

Finally, in the global Internet community, there are vibrant groups
of users technically capable of running a registry and willing to
serve their grassroots communities on a voluntary basis. Experience
has shown that a non-profit model of registry can work just as fine
as the commercial model.

For all those reasons, we would like to call on ICANN to consider, in
the current new gTLD policy development process, all necessary
measures in order to:

1) Have its governance, policy and contractual instruments translated
at least in all working languages of the United Nations;

2) Receive and process all gTLD applications drafted in at least any
of the UN working languages;

3) Ensure subsequent correspondence with the applicants in the
working language of their choice, that is, the language of their
application;

4) Put in place a mechanism to administer a fee reduction program for
gTLD applicants from developing economies or disadvantaged
communities, which will be funded both by ICANN's proper funds
(whether from the application process or from a specific budget item)
and, possibly, by extra-budgetary sources;

5) Make the threshold for market entry easier for those from less
developed economies, as well as for non-commercial and
community-based applicants who demonstrate the need.

For better or worse (?), the Internet is a global facility, but it
isn't only so from the demand and the user end; it must be so from
the operation and supply side as well. If we chose not to address the
issues raised above, we will be sending a message of exclusion to the
face of people who are concerned and eager to participate actively
and responsibly in the expansion of this unique network.


On behalf on NCUC & Supporters, etc.
Drafted by Mawaki Chango
February 18, 2007
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