gTLD for developing regions

[Mary.Wong at LAW.UNH.EDU]

Putting aside (for a moment) the very real political, substantive, procedural and cost issues that plagued the launch of this first round of new gTLD applications, it seems to me that the remediation issue Avri brings up is a very real subject that NCSG members can rally around. Specifically, we may either have the "in house" expertise, or be able to persuade those outside this community that do, to help answer the following questions - hopefully in a sufficiently concrete manner so as to minimize the risk that the next round will also fail in this regard:
 
- what would potential developing country applicants without a deep background or industry experience need to know about running a registry that basic training or briefings can at least start them off with?
 
- what (besides fees and costs) are the barriers to entry (e.g. the uneven geographical distribution of registrars? the patchy reseller network?)?
 
- what demand is there in different developing regions/countries/communities for new gTLDs that isn't already substantially available (i.e. the Evan question)?
 
- who/what are the entities/organizations/companies/consultants/individuals who would be qualified and willing to work with potential applicants through an application round?
 
And so on ... I know a number of these issues have been discussed already, but perhaps it would be useful for NCSG to come up with some kind of position paper or set of concrete recommendations between now and the next round.
 
Cheers
Mary

 
Mary W S Wong
Professor of Law
Chair, Graduate IP Programs
Director, Franklin Pierce Center for IP
UNIVERSITY OF NEW HAMPSHIRE SCHOOL OF LAWTwo White StreetConcord, NH 03301USAEmail: mary.wong at law.unh.eduPhone: 1-603-513-5143Webpage: http://www.law.unh.edu/marywong/index.phpSelected writings available on the Social Science Research Network (SSRN) at: http://ssrn.com/author=437584>>> 


From: Avri Doria <avri at ACM.ORG>
To:<NCSG-DISCUSS at LISTSERV.SYR.EDU>
Date: 7/12/2012 12:02 PM
Subject: Re: [NCSG-Discuss] gTLD for developing regions
Hi,

And for that short announcement interval we especially have the g-council to thank, which I would estimate delayed our work by close to a year.

Things I want to note:

- for anyone who read the whole JAS proposal, they know it contained a lot of non financial aid beyond the late to come financial support, and much of that was setup by Staff long before the announcement of the financial aid program, but hardly anyone knew about it.
- this constant delaying tactic by both the incumbents and those who do not beleive in the principle of a development right that ICANN has an obligation to help alleviate is my motivation for starting the push toward remediation in, and hopefully before, a next round.
- just fixing one of the failure modes of this program won't be sufficient.  If we want to provide opportunity to developing regions, in such a way where they can decide the Evan question on their own (aka why would i want one of these things anyway?) without prohibitive barriers, we need to understand all the contributing reasons to the failure - not just one perspective's favorite reason.

avri



On 12 Jul 2012, at 11:28, Norbert Klein wrote:

> Thanks, Horacio and Milton.
> 
> 
> On 7/12/2012 9:47 PM, Milton L Mueller wrote:
>>> -----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.
>>> 
> ...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...
> 
> -- 
> Norbert Klein
> Phnom Penh/Cambodia
> nhklein at gmx.net
> http://www.thinking21.org

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