[NCSG-Discuss] new-gtld-committee-not-sure-how-to-handle-closed-generic-applications

[Andrei Barburas]

I am wondering why didn't ICANN open up domain registrations for those
generic TLDs so anybody can register their .app/.music/.whatever domain?

I think a lot of issues would have been avoided and from a revenue
perspective it would have been more profitable on the long term.

Yet, this is only my personal opinion about this matter...



*Andrei Barburas*

Community Relations Services Officer



International Institute for Communication and Development (IICD)

P.O. Box 11586, 2502 AN The Hague, The Netherlands

NPOC, ICANN member


Mobile: +31 62 928 2879

Phone: +31 70 311 7311
Fax: +31 70 311 7322
Website: www.iicd.org



*People  ** **ICT   Development*


On Thu, Feb 7, 2013 at 7:56 AM, Ron Wickersham <rjw at itsmyinternet.org>wrote:

> A possible confusion exists for individual/consumer users of the Internet
> with regard to second-level host names in closed new gtld's.   See below:
>
>
> On Wed, 6 Feb 2013, Milton L Mueller wrote:
>
>
>> I stand ready to be educated by those with different views.
>>
>> OK. Here is a different view.
>>
>> It is not a free speech issue at all. It is a vertical integration or
>> business  model issue, exclusively. Some registries want to create a
>> specific image or environment inside a particular TLD. Those registries are
>> not trying to sell domain name registrations per se, they are selling or
>> doing other things with the domain, perhaps even giving domains away to
>> promote a service. They might also use their authority to control
>> registrations to prevent speculators from grabbing all the "good" names, or
>> to impose a taxonomy on the second level, or to prevent undesirable types
>> from squatting or tarnishing the overall image of the domain.
>>
>> Other registries want to maximize the number of registrations under a
>> TLD. In that case, it makes sense to be "open". In other words, if you are
>> a registrar and want to sell hundreds of thousands or millions of domains
>> to whoever will buy them for whatever reason, then you want "open" or FCFS
>> TLDs.
>>
>> Not surprisingly, the real push for "open" and against "closed" TLDs is
>> coming from traditional registrars who want all the potentially popular
>> domains to be available for them to exploit as registrars. The free speech
>> and competition policy claims are pure diversions.
>>
>> Take .BOOK for example. If someone wants to open that up for anyone on a
>> first-come, first-served basis, there are advantages and disadvantages.
>> Sure, I could register networksandstates.book in an open domain, if I
>> wanted to. But someone else might register it before me, or someone might
>> register nonfiction.books (so there's that "terrible" appropriation of a
>> generic term again). Wrose, 600 different link farms might appropriate
>> other generic terms (sex.books, good.books) and just pile pay per click ads
>> onto them, so that anyone using the domain would never know whether a
>> specific domain was useful or just a commercial diversion.
>>
>> I don't think it's ICANN's job to say that either one of these business
>> models is the right one. I think there is an important place for both
>> models, and the proper decision maker to decide which one to use is the
>> person who risked about $1 million to get the domain and operate it.
>>
>> The competition policy claims are especially laughable, because unless
>> you confuse the market for books with the market for names under .book, it
>> is obvious that possession of the latter does not do anything to give you
>> monopoly control of the former.
>>
>> Likewise, I don't see the freedom issue here. In fact, freedom of
>> expression and property rights are mutually reinforcing in this case. If I
>> register a domain like .IGP and want to use it to push a particular topic
>> or point of view, it's my right NOT to allow, say, advocates of Scientology
>> to register domains under IGP. If I have to lend my domain to promotion of
>> causes and ideas I don't support, my freedom of association and expression
>> rights are being restricted.
>>
>> Edward, you have a domain under USC.EDU. USC is not obliged, on free
>> speech grounds, to allow me to register a name under their domain. This is
>> not a restriction of my right of free speech so much as it is an extension
>> of USC's right of free association and free speech. There are plenty of
>> domains to accommodate diverse views.
>>
>> Generic words in the SLD space have been registered - and restricted to
>> what their owners want them to do - for more than a decade. I don't see how
>> TLD vs SLD changes the issue in any relevant way. Would you contend that
>> your right to freedom of expression is restricted because you can't
>> register <foo>.book.com? If not, why is it a restriction to not be
>> allowed to register  <foo>.book? I think we would both probably agree that
>> if someone else registers book.com before me, then I don't have any
>> right to use the domain book.com. Why is it any different for .book?
>>
>> Remember, new domains are NOT .com; i.e., they have no monopoly power or
>> lock in power on existing registrants. No one has to use them or register
>> in them.
>>
>
> But in .com, there is a protection for trademarks at the second level,
> and a mechanism to contest the _use_ of names at the second level based
> on confusing a consumer.
>
> For instance, if I see the name of a bank, followed by .com, I don't
> expect that wellsfargo.com will belong to a competitive bank.  And if
> .bank were to be an open tld, then Wells Fargo Bank would be able to
> register wellsfargo.bank, and if someone else registered wellsfargo.bank
> the real wellsfargo.bank would be able to contest the registration.
>
> Yet if, for instance, citi bank were to apply for and be granted .bank,
> then a totally hands-off approach would permit them to provide a web page
> at wellsfargo.bank.   They are extremely unlikely to use that page to
> ask for Wells Fargo Bank customers to log in with their password, but
> they could create a page that offers Wells Fargo Bank customers a special
> offer to switch banks, and Wells Fargo would not have any mechanism to
> contest the 2nd level use of wellsfargo.bank in this manner thru ICANN.
>
> Of course, web traffic is only a part of Internet capability.   And I grant
> that a solution to the above dilemma may not exist.   I am interested in
> hearing more discussion on second level in closed generic tld's.
>
> -ron wickersham
>
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