gTLD for developing regions

[Milton L Mueller]

> -----Original Message-----
> 
> That FOSS expertise, we have in abundance. We lacked the USD 185,000
> to be risked in the process (just to get the feet through the door).
> The process was not viable for a non-commercial TLD, specially one in
> the developing economies.

Thanks, Horacio for the dose of reality. Sorry you've had to answer so many questions from the others, but getting people to accept what is plainly before their face when the reality conflicts with their deeply ingrained beliefs often requires substantial repetition.

The case is perhaps even more difficult than you state. Let's say for the sake of argument that the JAS committee would be able to waive the $185,000 fee entirely for a few meritorious applications. 

That is still a risk...and the application fee is still only a fraction of the actual costs!

First, one still has to expend considerable skilled labor resources to plan and prepare an application. Ideally, and realistically, any application would have to be set in motion 2 or 3 years ago, as ICANN's policy development process approved (sort of) the program. (Of course, there were risks that it would be substantially changed or even vetoed along the way, weren't there?) One would then have to pay or support someone to be intimately familiar with the Applicant Guidebook - a 200-page (?) document full of complex rules and requirements in (for some) a foreign language that was CONSTANTLY SHIFTING IN CONTENT over a period of 2 years.  One has to be prepared to plan according to a schedule that was also CONSTANTLY BEING CHANGED. One would have to be prepared for political twists and turns from the GAC and from American corporate trademark lobbying at the Commerce Department which could all impose huge costs. Little wonder that ICANN meetings are crawling with consultants who make their living on helping people wade through this muck.

So you are supporting a staff that plans and monitors the crazy ICANN process for 2-3 years. Not cheap. And let's not forget the resource commitments required to set up a registry infrastructure. (Oh, that! Yeah, you actually do have to run some operations, don't you?) Either you buy that from a global provider like Afilias, Verisign, etc., or you do it yourself. And ICANN's gold-plated requirements make that more expensive, don't they? But hey, that's all in the public interest, right? Can't have low quality (even though VeriSign and all the ccTLDs started that way...)

Now, suppose you can afford to do this for a few years. Suddenly you learn about the JAS program what, 6 months ago? That offers you the possibility of saving $185,000, or maybe less, but ONLY the possibility. And it also creates another application process, with its own rules and bureaucracy. Moreover, the JAS commitment came so late in the day that it would only be of usable to a prospective applicant who was already more or less committed to submitting an application. No organization with limited resources to throw at a TLD application is going to wade through the AG and the JAS rules and the whole ICANN process de novo after hearing about the JAS possibility. Organizations that only started thinking "new TLD" AFTER hearing about the JAS program are more likely to be asking "what is ICANN" and "what is a TLD?" than "how can I get support for a good application?" 

And so you apply for a JAS dispensation. What if you don't get it? You have no experience with how it works. You have no idea how many others are applying So you are really making a bet or assuming a risk. And how many of these people can afford to bet $185,000? 

And folks here are fretting about why the program didn't attract scads of developing countries applicants! What a fantasy world they must live in! I know that you, Horacio, have been in the ICANN environment almost from its inception and even you didn't apply. One can only imagine how unrealistic it is to expect complete novices from developing countries to apply. The idea shows how disconnected from economic and operational reality some of our "policymakers" are. 

Bottom line: I know this is the noncommercial constituency but noncommercial organizations are not exempt from some basic business-oriented realities, such as:
 - if you tell the world for 3-4 years that the unrefundable application fee is $185,000 and then, a few months before, say, "well, maybe not..." don't expect a lot of applications
 - political uncertainty raises costs to killer levels
 - the more regulations and policies you impose on operations the more expensive you make it and thus the more you limit access.
 - the more you randomly or unpredictably change policies and regulations the more risky and expensive you make it and thus the more you limit access.
 - well-intentioned welfare programs slapped on top of a costly program don't change these fundamental constraints, although they may make the policy makers feel more noble.