There's an important policy issue here about what weight a political process should have in ICANN's decisions. Once upon a long time ago, Jon Postel specifically declined to issue ccTLDs to governments, only to groups representing users, on the theory that governments change, but the users are always here. (ICANN has proven more sympathetic to government interests than Postel.) So if the residents of Berlin want a .BERLIN, but the local government makes it a political issue for one side or another, what should ICANN do? The bidding of the prevailing political party or the will of the users? Do you balance them? What weight do you give each? What if the German government supports it but the municipal government opposes it? .BERLIN is an interesting test case because it is far ahead of other city/municipal-based bids for TLDs. It's also interesting because ICANN has experience with countries (ccTLDs) and even regions (.CAT, .ASIA) but has no experience with municipalities. I have no idea what Berlin is like, but my personal experience is that municipal governments are more volatile than larger political entities, so this could present a different set of issues than what we've seen in the past. Bret On Dec 11, 2007, at 8:20 AM, Evan Leibovitch wrote:

OK, enlighten me. Why is the local political handling of one specific TLD the business of ALAC? Why should the global at-large community (or even EURALO) get involved in what seems to me like a purely local issue?

Bret Fausett wrote:

There's an important policy issue here about what weight a political process should have in ICANN's decisions.

Which political processes -- there are so many to choose from :-P.

Once upon a long time ago, Jon Postel specifically declined to issue ccTLDs to governments, only to groups representing users, on the theory that governments change, but the users are always here.

Arguably, the bureaucracy and institutions of government are more stable than the politicians _or_ the public advocates of the day...

if the residents of Berlin want a .BERLIN,

I doubt all residents want it. I further doubt that even most residents care. So we're talking about an educated and motivated portion of the population that could be anything from a broad grassroots to a small gang of advocates. Does ICANN have a need or responsibility to determine this? We have enough problems with the issues that *are* within our ability to address. I also have a concern about "mission creep" for ALAC as I have for ICANN as a whole. Just as ALAC is (currently) ill-equipped for an ombudsman role, IMO it has neither the resources, the mandate nor the credibility to get involved in local political disputes where both sides have appropriate voices.

what should ICANN do? The bidding of the prevailing political party or the will of the users?

For better or worse, we must assume that the government in a democracy has a public mandate to make policy. I can see ICANN's intervening between political action groups and elected governments to be the cause of much grief and little gain. Having outsiders trying to determine "who speaks for the majority" seems at best needless meddling and at worst cultural/political imperialism, that others can do much better than ICANN ;-). This is a headache ALAC is ill-equipped to handle IMO. To me the issue still appears straightforward. The application for .berlin should proceed within ICANN as a gTLD application, and should succeed if there are no technical obstacles and the registry organizers fulfil their contract obligations. If the local government wants to (and has authority to) regulate or prohibit that activity then that is a local legal/political issue. The city government already has berlin.de which appears to serve it well. As far as ICANN is concerned it cannot and should not have the right to regulate other uses of the name (beyond what local courts would allow it to do); otherwise, it might want to start with the squatter who owns berlin.com. ;-)

Do you balance them? What weight do you give each? What if the German government supports it but the municipal government opposes it?

Personally, I would leave that particular issue to the constitutional experts of the country in question. To me it is pointless and harmful intervention for outsiders to be making judgements of jurisdiction when Germany (and most other countries) already have processes to determine this. IMO we have enough on our collective plates without needing to enter this minefield. :-) What do others here think? Perhaps someone who is not from North America has an opinion on this? :-) - Evan (waiting for someone from Taiwan to apply for .CHINA ;-) )