This discussion has brought to light some important points.

Karl's analysis, in particular, is deeply relevant, for instance when he remarks that "ICANN can not be, and ought not to be, a guarantor of anything more than the technical quality of upper tier DNS operations".

But this begs a question: is there an entity, or perhaps a set of processes, which may provide the kind of guarantee we're talking about here, and which is a legitimate expectation of registrants and, more generally, the global Internet user? What is it, what are they? If not, what type of entity and/or process need(s) to be set up?

Best regards,
Jean-Jacques.








----- Mail original -----
De: "Roberto Gaetano" <roberto_gaetano@hotmail.com>
À: "Karl Auerbach" <karl@cavebear.com>, at-large@atlarge-lists.icann.org
Envoyé: Jeudi 10 Décembre 2015 11:41:08
Objet: [At-Large] R: Fwd: [] Final Issue Report on New gTLD Subsequent Procedures

+1
I remember the early discussions on the ICANN Board about the introduction
of new TLDs.
When discussing the risk of failure of the new TLDs, I said that I did not
understand where was the problem: we could, for instance, have a .lousy TLD,
with names sold at a bargain price, but no guarantee of continuity, and a
..perfect TLD with a different profile, but at a higher price. And the
consumer will choose, knowing the risk and advantages in either case.
To a certain extent, this is what is happening now - for sure there are TLDs
that face a higher risk of failure than others - and in the medium term
prices will adjust to this.
Cheers,
R

-----Messaggio originale-----
Da: at-large-bounces@atlarge-lists.icann.org [mailto:at-large-
bounces@atlarge-lists.icann.org] Per conto di Karl Auerbach
Inviato: giovedì 10 dicembre 2015 10:56
A: at-large@atlarge-lists.icann.org
Oggetto: Re: [At-Large] Fwd: [] Final Issue Report on New gTLD Subsequent
Procedures


On 12/9/15 11:31 PM, Avri Doria wrote:

On 09-Dec-15 17:56, Christopher Wilkinson wrote:

More generally, TLD policy should protect the Registrant. Apparently

that

is not part of the new gTLD deal. Or is it?

To an extent.  ...

I very much agree with Avri's positions here.

ICANN was not constructed to be a consumer protection agency.  It was
constructed to assure stability - in fact in the beginning the word

"technical"

was always pre-pended to "stability".  Stability is not permanency.  A DNS

TLD

is stable if it doesn't wobble within time frames measured in weeks and
months.  But "stability" of anything related to the internet does not

extend

to terms measured by unbounded numbers of years.

Now it is true, and remains true, that ICANN denies third party

beneficiary

rights to registrants.  Thus domain name registrants have no legal

standing to

compel TLD operators to meet existing ICANN established standards of
operational quality.  That is something that would be very valuable and

would

be easy to put into place but which ICANN has resisted for its entire
existence.  If anything should be fixed, it is that.

The question should be: "How much larger do we want ICANN's already large
footprint to become?"

ICANN's regulatory footprint is already large and heavy.

ICANN required TLD applicants to set aside a full three years of operating
costs - that was something I have not seen in any other area of business,
even businesses that involve human health and safety.  That cost was an
enormous burden to applicants, and prevented many people and groups to
refrain from even bothering to apply for a TLD.  Isn't three years of

funded

operations "stable"? Should it be ten years, fifty years, a century?

And ICANN already requires the new TLD operators to have hired backup
operators on hot standby.  That added no small amount of initial cost and
creates a significant operational overhead cost.

Much of what is being proposed strikes me as a revival of centralized

five-

year style planning, but this time for the internet.  I can't say that

that kind of

centralized planning has had a great history of success.  And success is
particularly unlikely for something that is so rapidly changing and

evolving as

the internet.

I remember back in the early 1970's when we were playing with packet
switched networks that the telephone companies were raising the roofs
claiming that we were playing with fire, that we would destroy the wonder-
of-the-world which was the national and international telephone network.
They were right; we did, eventually.  But it was not the economic disaster
that was predicted.

 To do more risks
strangling the golden goose of the internet or, more likely, sending the

goose

elsewhere.

The example of VW's cheating on emissions was raised as some sort of
analogy to ICANN.  I do not see that analogy.  In the VW case, express
statements were made to governments and buyers that vehicles would
meet certain emission, power, and mileage numbers. Explicit promises to
buyers were knowingly and intentionally broken - or in the words of the

law,

there was a misstatement of material facts upon which people relied to

their

detriment - in a word, fraud.  In most places fraud is unlawful and those
harmed can bring actions to recover their losses.  And when really bad,

fraud

can rise to the criminal level and those responsible be punished.

No such promises are made by either ICANN nor TLD sellers beyond that TLD
operations will meet certain minimum ICANN established requirements.  And
no one has said that those requirements are not being met.

ICANN's own long term requirement for many TLDs that domain names
registrations be limited to no more than ten years undercuts arguments

that

domain name buyers some how believe that acquisition of domain names is
something with permanency similar to a common law fee simple absolute
right in real property.  Even the word "registration" rather than

"purchase"

tends to suggest impermanence.

I believe that some of the new TLD offerings did make it part of their
business plans to provide very long term guarantees.  But if I remember
correctly, those offerings were orders of magnitude more expensive per
year than the more routine TLD offerings.  In other words, consumers have
options to purchase long term guarantees by choosing those TLDs that make
such warranties.

If one pushes ICANN to be a consumer protection agency than domain name
prices will be forced to significantly rise.  Consider how much it would

cost to

acquire an business continuation insurance policy. The actuaries will

crank the

numbers in order to maintain 100% continuity for an indefinite period in

the

face of even unforeseeable risks and come up with a whopping dollar
number that will strangle DNS innovation or drive people to do what has
always been possible but always been dismissed because the existing system
runs very well: competing DNS systems outside of the ICANN realm.

But if one looks at an even longer time scale - say ten years - it is

becoming

very clear that DNS names - which includes all TLDs - are slowly

submerging to

become internal internet machinery and not really of much interest to

users.

Things like Facebook and Twitter handles and URL's (which don't need to
contain domain names at all) are becoming the names and addresses of the
internet.  In that future *all* TLDs are at risk of loosing revenue

streams.

ICANN is already bloated to the degree that one fears that it is at risk

from

just one thin wafer (that's a Monty Python reference). There is not much
that is funny when one begins to compare ICANN's staff size and budgets to
that of the ITU (especially if one plots the growth of those numbers of

each

body over time and asks "when will they intersect?")

        --karl--

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