[NCSG-Discuss] NCSG members and the closed generic issue

[Evan Leibovitch]

For what it's worth...

At-Large has a similar diversity in view as I'm seeing here. What enabled
ALAC to, by and large, get past this to a single statement involved the
realization that this was indeed not a choice between absolutes, and that
the binary essence of the question should not be taken for granted and is
itself subject to challenge.

The writers of the statement, studying the At-Large debate (which wasn't
THAT different in substance from the one going on here), realized that it
was not good-versus-evil so much as benign-versus-harmful. Those amongst us
who defend closed generics (ie, the PoV expressed by Milton and Avri) were
not fans of the practise, and actually saw little public benefit to most of
them, but are unconvinced by the claims of harm. So we actually found
surprisingly widespread agreement that most closed generics won't serve the
public good, the disagreement was over whether the potential harm of closed
generics was sufficient for ICANN to override historical policy consistency
and change process mid-stream.

At the same time, many in At-Large who believed on principle that closed
generics are harmful (ie, Kathy's position) also came to understand that
the position was also not quite so absolute, that there are potential
implementations of closed generics that could benefit the public. Consider
that a number of new gTLD applicants -- notably those most under fire for
closed generics such as Google and Amazon -- don't necessarily make money
by selling domains -- they bring the potential for new business models.
What if Google wants to disrupt the domain industry the way it has already
disrupted the email, office software and GPS industries -- by giving away
domains but keeping control over the structure? Google already runs a free
DNS service, and operates both Google+ and blogger.com under this model.
What if Amazon were to offer free .book domains to any bookstore and
publisher, but wanted to reserve the right to create its own policy to kick
out any subdomain operator that violated a code of conduct? It might not be
everyone's choice,  but it's a legitimate option that could offer the
public benefit. By many people's interpretation of the AG such schemes
could only be done under a "closed" TLD. These are two examples, but they
offers a taste of the kind of public-benefit alternative -- of real
innovation in domain name distribution -- that can currently only be done
as a closed domain.

These two factors weighted heavily on the ability of ALAC to create a
single statement that acknowledges the diversity while asserting the
non-binary complexity of the issue.

HTH,

- Evan


On 5 March 2013 09:46, Kathy Kleiman <kathy at kathykleiman.com> wrote:

> Why?  It does not change the positions of the letter (favoring nasty
> closed generics). But it does change the debate to something more
> respectful and less vitriol.  Not a reason to sign on - but a reason to
> support the process of disagreement...
>
> Kathy
>
>
>  Seems a good suggestion to me.
>>
>> will people sign on if it is changed?
>>
>> avri
>>
>> On 4 Mar 2013, at 23:09, Carlos A. Afonso wrote:
>>
>>  Hi people, I generally agree. I suggest we do not use derisive
>>> expressions like "We find these claims to be hysterical...".
>>>
>>> frt rgds
>>>
>>> --c.a.
>>>
>>> On 03/04/2013 06:22 PM, Milton L Mueller wrote:
>>>
>>>> Dear NCSG members:
>>>>
>>>> A group of us, including so far Robin Gross, Avri Doria, Andrew Adams,
>>>> Nicolas Adam and Brenden Kuerbis, have developed a comment with ICANN on
>>>> the closed generic issue.
>>>> You can read our comments at this Google docs link:
>>>> https://docs.google.com/**document/d/1tPuEELJ2y6-d0hwF_**
>>>> qPupQb0V5OEFpqkMwcApDRNZf0/**edit?usp=sharing<https://docs.google.com/document/d/1tPuEELJ2y6-d0hwF_qPupQb0V5OEFpqkMwcApDRNZf0/edit?usp=sharing>
>>>> We can still add names to the list of supporters, or you could file a
>>>> quick and easy individual comment with ICANN expressing your support for
>>>> the statement after it comes out.
>>>>
>>>> Milton L. Mueller
>>>> Professor, Syracuse University School of Information Studies
>>>> Internet Governance Project
>>>> http://blog.**internetgovernance.org<http://blog.internetgovernance.org>
>>>>
>>>>
>
> --
>



-- 
Evan Leibovitch
Toronto Canada

Em: evan at telly dot org
Sk: evanleibovitch
Tw: el56
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