gTLD for developing regions

[Avri Doria]

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

My point is that if it is fixable there is no reason to wait for another full round to fix it.
A targeted remediation round could be argued for given the failure.

Of course if you and MM are right, and no one in their right mind would want one of these things anyway, then it might be a waste of time.  
I am just not convinced, so I will continue to tilt away at these windmills.
And especially in the IDN space which is integrated with the rest of the gTLD program, i remain unconvinced.

So tell me, how many people who are into major IPC and IPC4D in developing regions know about the opportunities for IDN gTLDS?

BTW, I was not jumping on ridiculous pricing as the only reason for failure, but was adding it to my list of possible contributing failure reasons.

avri

On 12 Jul 2012, at 14:54, Evan Leibovitch wrote:

> 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, led a 22-person open source delegation at WSIS1/ICT4D and was involved in the formation of FOSSFA. 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
>