On Aug 10, 2008, at 2:20 PM, Alan Greenberg wrote:
Using an auction to resolve the conflict does indeed mean that .web will not likely go to a small not-for-profit organization. If that is your concern, then in my mind, you are being somewhat unrealistic.
I was on the Council when this first came up, and the concern I heard from the ALAC then was about regionalism, rather than "non-profits" v. "for profits." I don't know that we care which among many U.S. corporate entities wins the battle for the next big ASCII TLD gold mine. The ALAC concern, as I understood it, was about whether a foreign registry services provider ought to win the bid for the IDN versions of COM/NET/ORG over a competitor in the region in which the language is spoken. At bottom, it's a debate about free trade v. regional protectionism, a subject on which the nations of the world have significantly different positions. Auctions will produce results that do not account for territories. I understand the view that this is a good thing. But, I have to wonder whether it is politically tenable for ICANN to award .COM in Arabic or .NET in Chinese to a U.S.-based registry? -- Bret