Re: [At-Large] FW: My comments on new gTLDs and the role of ICANN

Sivasubramanian Thanks for giving such deep consideration to my proposal, and constructive engagement with it. The following is an attempt to take this dialogue forward. Firstly, I will like the sense in which you use 'free speech' clarified. I do include freedom from commercial constraints as much has freedom from political constraints in how I see 'free speech'. However, many here relate the concept of 'free speech' only (or mostly) to political controls, for whom it must be clarified that the 'dot pdc concept' is not to do with freedom from such controls. It has exclusively to do with freedom from wrongful commercial constraints to our day to day interactions, which most of us do in an open non-commercial spirit, but which in online spaces is rendered by default commercial and IP-ised unless stated otherwise. This I proposed is not a 'natural state' of our social discourse, and attempts should be made to restore the natural state of our social togetherness in the digital space. That leaves two other issues to be clarified. One, your query on, why not promote non-commercial speech and expression in all digital spaces rather than confining it to one tld. Well, we don't want to confine it all all - that will go against the basic principle. I or, if you permit the use of the collective, we consider it a great harm done to the fibre of our social discourse when over the last few decades the legal frameworks have changes to default copyright from default free and non-IP. This shift is related a larger political and social project of neoliberalisation, which I will not discuss any further here. To cut it short, we are against default copyright, and are strongly of the view that all forms of expression should be default open and free, and copyrights should only be granted if expressly asked for, and that too under strict conditions in keeping with larger public interest. In the present adverse 'legal' context, one way to express such popular sentiment will be to create a .pdc like tld and make it more popular that .com, which tld, in its overwhelming dominance of the digital space, represents what is wrong with the way digital space has sought to be rendered dominantly commercial, which, as I said, is not the natural state of most of our social discourse. That is what is being proposed, while we carry on our efforts and advocacy against default copyrights laws world over. In fact, what is being proposed is am important strategy to take such advocacy forward and give it some solid basis. Second issue that you raise is - why not just keep using CC licenses instead? We all know that the CC movement represents a watershed in politics of the digital world. The CC initiative has one important advantage - it allows one to preserve partial ownership over ones 'knowledge produce', in a manner the 'creator' may want to so preserve. This is useful in a large part of 'content space' where idea of individual creation and ownership still has some basis and meaning. Use of CC license principally allows more freedoms to the 'creator'. As the CC website puts it "from "all rights reserved" to "some rights reserved". (Although an extreme form of CC license also allows complete repudiation of all rights, that is giving up the content to the public domain, that is not the way CC license is mostly used.) However, there is much in our social discourse to which we do not instinctively attach the concept of individual creator, and thus some inherent ownership rights. One goes through a day speaking and expressing much without this feeling at back of ones mind. That essential nature of our social being is what has been compromised in the online space through default IP-isation. CC doesn't address the situation vis a vis such non-productized social 'content'. Another problem with CC licensing is that one has to expressly state it every time one wants content to be IP-free (absolutely or relatively). The idea of a dedicated online space, that can only be done through a dedicated tld, is to make an inversion of legal situation vis a vis content ownership through the simple act of making giving up content rights a condition of domain registration and use (there still may be some legal niceties or ugliness-es to be sorted out here). This will enable us to put all such social interaction which is genuinely and inherently of collective social ownership under a non-ownership or non-IP public domain space. It is only a raw idea yet. And, apologies for the long posting. Parminder _____ From: Sivasubramanian Muthusamy [mailto:isolatedn@gmail.com] Sent: Sunday, November 09, 2008 8:54 AM To: At-Large Worldwide Cc: Vittorio Bertola; Parminder Subject: Re: [At-Large] FW: My comments on new gTLDs and the role of ICANN Hello All, I have read a little somewhere on the issues raised in the thread, and have learnt a little more, to add the following: It is harder to run a TLD than it appears on the surface. Vittorio's commitment to preserve a dying language is to be applauded, but is a TLD the only solution? Is it difficult to achieve what is intended with a lower-hierarchy solution, like an SLD or lower, or even simply a portal? Such a solution would cost less and can go up online even faster than the complex solution of a dedicated gTLD. In addition to the general comments on my previous response in this thread, here are some specific comments and questions, this time, pointed directly at Parminder. It appears that the underlying idea of Parminder's domain for "public domain content" is to promote free flow of knowledge by enabling a non-copyright culture and the idea of establishing it as a domain where IP addresses are NOT logged appears to be that of promoting free speech. Why would free flow of knowledge be confined to a specific gTLD? Why not in .com, .in and .org or even in .gov ? There are several tools such as the Creative Commons license available to achieve that Universally - rather than promote this universally why move to confine freedom to a specific TLD? If the idea is to keep an entire TLD open for those who are oppressed and are in need of space for free speech, a TLD isn't right, because EVERYTHING that is free can be filtered out with one stroke - block this TLD, and everything gets blocked. The idea of promoting free flow of knowledge and disabling IP logging needs to become ubiquitous, not restricted to the domain of a domain. Sivasubramanian Muthusamy. http://wealthyworld.blogspot.com On Sun, Nov 9, 2008 at 12:49 AM, Sivasubramanian Muthusamy <isolatedn@gmail.com> wrote: Hello Vittoria, Parminder, I deviate from the encouraging messages that you have received so far, because I think it gets a little complicated when a gTLD is thought of as desirable to promote every cause. When it comes to languages there is an estimated 3000 to 8000 languages spoken in planet earth Apart from languages there are several different causes - for example, the hearing disabled have a cause to ask to for a separate domain. Do we need a domain for every cause? Wouldn't it suffice if there is a collaborative website or a social network? What difference would it make if you opt to have a social network for your people in place of a gTLD? ICANN or any other organ in its place would find it far more complicated to manage a thousand gTLDs and IDNs due to such complications as IP issues, whether or not we agree with the concept of IP or not. And there are several complications that I have not thought about Aside from that,. Parminder's message to the list raises some interesting questions on ICANN's existing policies (without going into aspect of the correctness of the policy a gTLD can be reserved for a social group or a business entity as long as the applicant is willing to pay $185000 upfront and can commit to pay $75,000 a year.) and the limitations of it. The fee is prohibitive, I have my comments on that, but would move on to another dimension, not quite in tune with the discussions taking place on this thread. I fell that at-Large may even have to consider proposing a broader criteria for evaluation of gTLD and other domain applications. 'Ownership' of a gTLD implies a bit of power and status and the ownership of a gTLD in comparison with the ownership of a social networking portal offers the 'owner' a higher degree of credibility, real or perceived. If a gTLD is positioned as a domain for Governments, the prima facie perception is that the website is a government website, if it is positioned as a domain for academia, the prima facie perception is that it is the website of an academic institution etc. That is in general. Parminder's interesting idea talks about administrative such as a domain specific policy to reverse default arrangements such as "all rights reserved" or even technical possibilities such as a domain where the interactions are free of IP logging. Such possibilities make it more important to have a broader criteria for evaluation of the gTLD and other applications. A gTLD that says that is reserved to be a medium for free speech would attract such free speech that the regulators would hate, so the allocation needs to be made on the ability of the applicant to preserve such values. (Don't take this as any kind of comment on Parminder's proposal or as an argument against his overture. It is just that I am prompted to make a general comment triggered by the situation that he presented) What if there is a domain application for a .anonymizer domain that makes users believe that they are anonymous, but in reality a trap where users are even more thoroughly monitored ? Isn't that how most anonymous proxy servers work? Sivasubramanian Muthusamy On Sat, Nov 8, 2008 at 6:42 PM, Parminder <parminder@itforchange.net> wrote: Congratulations, Vittorio, for an outstanding letter. We support both your position on how a 'public forum' should be conducted, and the substantive issue of the need for some pubic interest criteria to guide allotment of gTLDs. My organization, IT for Change, during a workshop on CIRs governance frameworks at IGF Rio had proposed a gTLD exclusively for public domain content - .pd or .pdc (public domain content). Since, the default IP status of all content, where nothing to the contrary is mentioned, is of 'all rights reserved', it will greatly be in public interest to have an online space where this default is reversed (it could be a part of domain taking arrangement). This will help all those who do not have any IP attachments to their online interactions and the content they may put out. From the 'real world' experience we know that this is true of a very big part of our social interactions. This will reverse the un-necessary side-effect of using the virtual space whereby every social interaction gets IP-ized, unless stated otherwise. That, in our opinion, is not the natural state of our world, nor does it represents the desire or interests of the majority. However, it is not possible to take this idea forward, for which we have found very good support among many public interest groups, due to the 'entry barrier' costs associated with GTLD allocation, with no public interest considerations whatsoever. Parminder

-----Original Message----- From: at-large-bounces@atlarge-lists.icann.org [mailto:at-large- bounces@atlarge-lists.icann.org] On Behalf Of Vittorio Bertola Sent: Friday, November 07, 2008 2:13 PM To: at-large@atlarge-lists.icann.org Subject: [At-Large] My comments on new gTLDs and the role of ICANN

Since yesterday I could not make my comments at the Public Forum, I sent them by email to the Board, and I am publishing them here. -----

Dear Board of ICANN,

as I was standing in line yesterday morning in the Public Forum, but due to prior commitments was not able to attend the "ad hoc" afternoon session to express my views, I am sending them directly to the Board, copying the Chairman, Vice-Chairman and ALAC Liaison so that at least one of them can forward my message to the Board list, and I will publish them somewhere for yesterday's audience.

Before I get to my point of substance... I guess that several people already expressed their discomfort for what happened yesterday. However, please let me reiterate that the Public Forum, where the community and the Board discuss in plenary mode about the main topics of the moment, is one of the most fundamental elements of ICANN's legitimacy and accountability. Everyone knew since the beginning that at this meeting the Public Forum would have been crowded and well attended, and the decision to allot just one hour for it, then letting VIP speeches eat even more into it, is a terrible mistake. I urge the Board to make sure that there is ample time for Public Forums at every ICANN meeting - given that this situation happens often, I see a need for clear directions to staff by the Board.

Now - I would like to comment as a wannabe applicant for a gTLD application which may or may not materialize, but that constitutes a good proof for the remaining flaws in an otherwise well thought-out draft RFP. Its main purpose is to save an ancient language and culture which have been existing in my part of Italy for about a thousand years, but which will disappear forever in twenty years or so, together with the elderly people that still embrace them, unless we can succeed in transitioning them to the Internet age.

A small group of volunteers has been working pro bono for years to create online resources in this language - including, for example, a Wikipedia edition. The existence of a gTLD specifically devoted to that culture and language would make in our opinion a huge difference. It would boost the sense of identity and community, and provide a visible home to gather all efforts. However, this will clearly not be a business opportunity - it is imaginable that initially the gTLD would have just a few dozen registrations, which we would gladly give away for free through a non-profit vehicle.

I think that what we would like to do is a deserving purpose, at least as good as yet another dot com clone, and possibly better than the abundant defensive registrations of any kind that we will see. To run a TLD with such a few registrations, there is no need for big staff and huge server farms - in fact, we are confident that we could get all the time, skills and technical resources as volunteer work and in-kind donations. However, even if we succeeded in this, we would still be facing an impossible task to raise $185'000 now and $75'000 each year just to pay ICANN fees, and we would likely score very badly against operational and financial criteria designed for multimillionaire global ventures.

Yet, if you think that what we are trying to do is obsolete, amateurish or unimportant, please think again. This is the way all ccTLDs and gTLDs started prior to the ICANN era, and most of them have become pretty successful by now; actually, the only ones going for bankruptcy lie among those picked by ICANN through its carefully drafted RFP processes. This is actually the way almost every innovation happens over the Internet, still today.

The Web? It wasn't invented by CERN, it was invented at CERN, by a couple of individuals, in their spare time, as a byproduct of their real job. Instant messaging? Peer to peer? Even innovations that overturned billionaire industries were invented by one or a few individuals with no money at all, or at most by small garage startups. What would happen to innovation if the IETF required $185'000 to submit a new Internet draft?

I understand that there are costs attached to the establishment of a new TLD, though $185'000 per application, even in an expensive country like Italy, is enough to hire five or six people for one year for each application, and one wonders why do you need all that work; and $75'000 per year to keep a TLD in the root, where the work required in the absence of special events is literally zero, is plainly ridiculous. However, if you want to extract money from rich applicants going for remunerative global TLDs, or from big corporations with deep pockets trying to protect their brand, that's fine; but please don't make other uses impossible.

There are several pricing structures that could address this issue: special prices for non-profit applicants, lower fees for TLDs that don't reach a minimum number of registrations, or panels in cooperation with appropriate organizations (say, UNESCO) to "bless" applications that have specific cultural or technological value. Several people have promised to submit practicable proposals in the next few weeks. But it is paramount that ICANN doesn't sell out the domain name space without putting in place features to address this issue.

In the end, while applicants will be judged by the RFP, ICANN will be judged by the overall set of TLDs that it will add into the root. It may get 500 or more of them, but if 90% of them will be private corporate registrations, and the rest will be dot com clones with some kind of vague specialization, ICANN will have failed.

But, looking also at other aspects, I am also afraid that the failure might end up being much deeper. ICANN is becoming a well managed business entity, through increased staffing and the introduction of corporate best practices. However, ICANN is not just a business entity - it is a strange beast with much more than that into it. What is optimal for a business corporation might actually make parts of the community feel not at home any more; and might make ICANN lose touch with its roots, with the nature and spirit of the Internet. If this happens, ICANN is doomed - all the governmental deals and business partnerships won't be enough to preserve its prestige and credibility.

I see as one of the primary strategic roles of the Board that of ensuring that the decentralized, flat and free nature of the Internet is preserved, or at least not attacked, by the policies that ICANN adopts, and even that these policies contribute to, or at least do not stifle, the fulfillment of Millennium Development Goals and other worthy objectives in terms of development and human rights. These are not just high sounding words, they carry a meaning that must trickle down into everything ICANN does when it comes to policies. When you are tasked with a fundamental role in coordinating the Internet, there's more to life than business as usual. Please do not forget this.

Thanks, -- vb. Vittorio Bertola - vb [a] bertola.eu <-------- --------> finally with a new website at http://bertola.eu/ <--------

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