Evan

Let me play devil's advocate for a moment.

A pause to tune the program is one thing. But a full stop to wait for a

full evaluation that needs an unlimited time maybe ten / twenty or more

years would likely be seen as really being a call for a complete halt.

That would be akin to creating a new layer of "haves" in the Internet

domain space. That seems obnoxious.

Also if the program is so destabilising then the consideration may need

to go further and roll the program back? That isn't going to happen is it.

On the grounds you mention for intervening. Cyber Security is a good hot

topic of course but the expansion of tlds hasn't expanded the problem

space just the domain space it can exist in. For  users the same

caveat's need to apply across all that space. So there is no substantial

change in the problem scope for users.

The monetary return or bankruptcy of speculators is a matter for them

and market regulators. ICANN presumably was well aware of the risk where

a domain may cease to be economically viable and fails to consolidate

into stable registry operators.

But bit-rot is an ever present problem of many Internet protocols. We

see http sites, and services disappearing all the time without systemic

implications for the Internet. It is annoying of course and makes for

appalling implications for the historical record.

But in an era where the right to be forgotten is being made law a few

inadvertent disappearances due to resolution failures that in one

protocol perspective (DNS) isn't in itself a systemic issue.

Of course if the health industry for example should run all online

monitoring services through one tld and that goes down then that would

be a severe disruption for that sector. So probably a bad idea to create

such unhelpful industry integrated dependencies. But when did a silly

idea not become a hot marketing ticket?

The point about user confusion is valid I think. But the problem here is

that no data network or IT device or service I've seen has had users

sufficiently familiar with it before it was introduced. Thirty years

after the introduction of GSX, GEM, Mac and Windows 1.0 most users are

still skimming the surface of using GUIs. It is over 50 years since

Command lines and even fewer can use these effectively. Familiarity to

reach universal acceptance to wait before new innovations is an endless

argument that has no chance of being heard in the market.

What we need are better mechanisms for users to take control themselves

of Internet resources and devices they depend on. In that sense seeing

more from the vast pools of cash being generated by incumbencies created

through the economic and political force that hierarchical protocols

create into empowering users to exert market control over them would be

a good use of our time.

Can a hiatus in new tld roll out achieve a step in that direction?

Christian

Evan Leibovitch wrote:

On 22 September 2015 at 12:09, Christian de Larrinaga

<cdel@firsthand.net <mailto:cdel@firsthand.net>>wrote:

     A *full* evaluation could be a long ... hiatus :-)

​What's wrong with that?​

  

     That horse bolted and

     ​ ​

     took the stable  (ICANN) with it. I doubt it can be put back in its box.

​Why not?​

​Until a new round is approved ... a new round is not yet approved :-)

I am not sure what is irreversible in this regard. There is no

obligation for ICANN to accept new applications if it deems that the

current expansion did not deliver what was promised and that further

expansion must be examined before commencing.

We know, at very least, that the monetary promises of the expansion have

materialized but a small fraction of what was originally predicted. So

even based on that a stop to reflect is warranted.

There are other issues such as public confusion, spikes in phishing

using new domains, the performance of PICs and the lack of " universal

acceptance" that collectively make this a stability matter as well.

  ​- Evan

--

Christian de Larrinaga

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