[ncsg-policy] Re: One or two PDPs?

[William Drake]

Hi

> On 25 Jan 2010, at 16:11, Mary Wong wrote:
> 
>> Just a quick note/reminder to everyone - the 3 NCUC Councillors and the 3 other NCSG Councillors will need to decide on how to vote on the 2 possible motions on vertical integration.
>> 
>> The motions will be debated and voted on this Thursday 28 January during the Council call-in meeting.
>> 
>> Currently the 2 motions are either to (1) delay a PDP for a year (proposed by the Registrars)

Actually, the current motion says " the GNSO Council will consider initiating a PDP on this issue 1 year after the launch of the new gTLD program."   We could propose making that "will initiate" in the hope of eventually replacing ad hoc implementation practices with a coherent policy, but that wouldn't be sufficient if we really believe that in the meanwhile damage could be done to competition and consumer interests.  I've not seen anything that give me confidence in believing either way, that this will or won't occur; it seems like blue skies guesswork.  

Would anyone care to make the case for imminent harm ensuing from a delay?

>> ; or (2) initiate a PDP (along fairly broad lines to look at vertical integration for both new and existing gTLDs, proposed by the Commercial Stakeholder Group).
>> 
>> I do not know if it will be possible to have a consensus position within the NCUC in time. Our not having one will not stop the clock or hold up the vote, so I'm still hoping more members will weigh in on this issue.

Councilors are scheduled to have a call in a few hours with CSG counterparts to determine whether there's possible common ground on this motion. I'm not clear how we can have inter-SG cooperation if there's no consensus within NCSG.  But with the registries and registrars said to be supporting motion 1 and the ISPs said to be abstaining, four of us would have to support 2 for it to fly, which provides leverage if we could define friendly amendments that'd square the circle within NCSG.  Alas, it's not obvious what these might look like.  Some of us strongly desire an integrated PDP, some fervently want a separation. Some think a PDP can be done on a tight time table to avoid delaying new gTLDs, others think this cannot work.  

Would anyone care to identify possible common ground?  Otherwise, I suspect we may have a somewhat directionless meeting with CSG today and a fragmented NCSG vote in Council on Thursday.

Bill



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William J. Drake
Senior Associate
Centre for International Governance
Graduate Institute of International and
 Development Studies
Geneva, Switzerland
william.drake at graduateinstitute.ch
www.graduateinstitute.ch/cig/drake.html
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