gTLD for developing regions

[Evan Leibovitch]

On 12 July 2012 00:14, Avri Doria <avri at acm.org> wrote:

> Hi,
>
> So another candidate reason to add to the list of:
>
> - Pathetic outreach
> - underdeveloped Ry/Rr capabilities
>
> is
>
> - ridiculous pricing
>

Careful. After all, we worked a* lot* on JAS, and it was designed to
address that flaw which had been anticipated long in advance.
Yet only three bodies applied for JAS, and they all had insider connections.
So if people were aware of the TLD expansion, and even a cursory search
would indicate the existence of the JAS program (and other forms of
assistance offered to qualified applicants), the issue is far more complex
than "ridiculous pricing"

As I have argued (as is apparently now referred to as "the Evan question"
:-) ), owning a gTLD presents little value over beyond speculation, vanity
and luxury. As a luxury item, one can easily do without it and still
maintain significant Internet presence (as so many already do). So as
Milton said, anyone doing a hard analysis would find that in most cases a
gTLD just isn't worth not only the ICANN fees, but also the substantial
human and logistical expense of regulatory compliance, marketing, WHOIS
maintenance, reseller/registrar relations, government meddling, trademark
industry meddling, etc. Not to mention having enough of a reserve to help
your registrants -- who depend upon your domains -- in case you have your
own sustainability problems.

In other words, for the VAST bulk of the world's organizations (let alone
people) owning a new gTLD just isn't worth the multiple costs and
challenges -- not just within the developing world, but also in much of the
developed part, too. How many applications are there that don't come from:

   - existing ICANN speculators
   - telcos and infrastructure companies
   - multinationals for whom the expense is small enough to be able to
   completely write off or absorb the entire effort without pain

So before just talking about ridiculous pricing, let's ask those who shied
away what amount of cost would have been "non-ridiculous". Even without the
$185K, back-end registry operational challenges are substantial and are not
all solved in software.

I have more than a passing interest in open source and development, amongst
other things having keynoted at the very first IDLELO
conference<http://idlelo.net/sites/default/files/Idlelo1%20Report.pdf>,
led a 22-person open source delegation at
WSIS1/ICT4D<http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/wsis/Leibovitch.html>and was
involved in the formation of
FOSSFA<http://mailman.greennet.org.uk/pipermail/plenary/2003-December/001793.html>.
And I would be the first to suggest that while just about everything needed
software-wise to run a registry could be done in open source (if it hasn't
already), software cost/licensing is such a trivial part of the expense of
running a registry that FOSS issues (and expertise) are essentially
irrelevant here.


> I think collecting reasons and then doing a bit of scientific
> falsification and relation testing work might help us in terms of figuring
> out how to fix this mess.
>

Assuming it's fixable, at least in this round. It's probably another decade
at least before round 2 unfolds.

- Evan
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