Re: [Gnso-newgtld-wg] Public interest generic strings - a different approach
Thanks George, I've been meaning to join this thread all day, but other things pulled me away. That turns out to be fortuitous since I now have your proposal to comment on. To start, I will recount a proposal I made a few months ago. I too was trying to find some "middle ground" that could remove an absolute prohibition and yet satisfy what we suspect will be a GAC (and others - I count myself among them) reaction. I disagreed with the .disaster scenario suggested by Jeff (there are other worthy disaster relief organizations and it was not clear that a TLD run by the Red Cross would give them "equal space" - perhaps if run by the UN it could be acceptable..). But I accepted the concept that there may well be examples of such public interest TLDs. The lack of viable (in my not-so-humble opinion) examples was troublesome. The difficult problem is judging whether a particular application meets that criteria when we have never been able to clearly define what we mean by public interest, and would not likely be able to do so in the time-frame of this PDP. My only answer to this was that the ICANN Board is charged with deciding whether the public interest is being met, so let the Board decide on whether an application is acceptable or not. It quickly became obvious that there would be a hoard of such applications and the Board was not going to address a large number, so I suggested that only not-for-profits could apply. That met with a host of disagreements that for-profits could do good things too. I also believed that the decision on whether the public interest was met in the application had to be non-appealable, particularly if the field was opened to for-profits. That was felt to not be possible under our Bylaws. The proposal died an ignominious death soon after. Your proposal has the same intent and some of the same flavour as mine, but with more detail and hopefully it will get better support. Some specific comments: a) Although I can accept the concept that a for-profit might have altruistic intents, ultimately they report to their owners and likely shareholders. A TLD is for the long term, and I am uncomfortable with a for-profit having custody. Yes, we could add "guard rails" as we have discussed in other areas, but the comfort level is still not high, so I agree that not-for-profic is a likely requirement. You cover the edge case of "some exceptions", b) a major issue of whether the TLD will really be in the public interest, and how to define the "exceptions" is not addressed here and is the proverbial elephant in the room. We were not good at defining the rules for community or subsidized TLDs last time, and I have minimal hope we could do better with this new class this time given our history at not being able to define or even describe "public interest". Saying wise people "will know it when they see it" is not sufficient here. I still believe that only the Board is in the position to ultimately decide on what is in the public interest. Even if the Board were willing to take on this responsibility (not at all clear), the appeal process could draw this out indefinitely. c) I agree with the terms you describe on a transfer of control. And the fact that it is the ICANN Board that ultimately makes that decision reinforces my belief that the Board is the right place for the original go/nogo decision on whether the public interest is being met - perhaps preceded by a panel recommendation. d) As we saw with the .org debate, having an advisory council is probably mandatory, but how it is selected and just what powers it has can make or break the deal. e) As with my proposal, if we can agree on the non-profit aspect (even with some well articulated exception conditions), we may have a chance of doing this. That may reduce the numbers to a sufficiently low number to make it implementable. Alan At 2020-07-12 10:05 PM, George Sadowsky wrote: All, I'd like to outline a different approach to the issue of public interest generics, in the hope that it might (eventually?) contribute to a policy solution for this issue. This is only at the level of a thought experiment. Let's hypothesize the following: 1. The status quo is decided in one direction or another, or is even ignored. I not sure it matters with this approach. 2. There is an unquenchable demand for the possible creation of public interest generic string gTLDs, either for strings that have been identified already or for the emergence of possible such strings in the future. Therefore the GNSO policy has to have a provision for them. (You can use .disaster as a proxy for thinking about this, or not.) 3. Other top level generics, covering industries and markets will not be allowed. Only public interest generics will be allowed. (The arguments against this subset of generics depends upon a different type of public interest argument having a basis that the monopolization of the information space of an entire market by a single organization result in a concentration of power that is not in the public interest. Further the GAC is as likely to object to this in the future as they have in the past, and the new policy must either bypass GAC concerns or lead to a confrontation between the Board and the GAC. Given this scenario, what concerns would we have about delegating such domains to organizations. Each of us has some concerns including, but not limited to, competition among which organization should receive the delegation, control of inappropriate registrations (and who decides), profiteering (under some definition) by virtue of being chosen, and similar concerns. Now, rather than give up on the idea of adopting the public interest string in a gTLD, let's ask under what additional conditions would our concerns be largely or totally alleviated? After all, if there are organizations that think the concept is sufficiently important to invest in, and it appears that the GAC will accept the string as a legitimate public interest issue, shouldn't we work toward finding a good way to make it happen rather than saying, "There are too many difficulties with the concept, let's give it up." So here are some suggestions for the creation of a policy environment, approved by the GNSO and very likely to be acceptable to the ICANN Board and the GAC, that could allow such strings to exist with appropriate controls that we would feel comfortable with. [Bear in mind that this is written on the fly and is a rough sketch of what might happen, to indicate possibility of concept, not proof. The big question is whether this could be a worthwhile approach rather than if these details are the exactly correct ones.] 1. A new category of TLD is created for such strings, a little like the community status of the previous round. Let's name the category "Generic Public Interest Strings." Rationale: Attempts to fit closed pubic interest generics into structures from the previous round don't seem to work; a new category with new rules is needed for this category of string to work. 2. The applicant must be a not-for-profit organization. With some classes of exceptions permitted, second level registrants should also be not-for-profit organizations or governmental organizations. 3. The application should contain statements of support from initial second level registrants. The group should include a robust selection of organizations that have a material interest in the subject and can contribute through the domain to the public good. Challenges should be possible during the evaluation period. 4. The domain will have a management structure that recognizes the applicant as its leader but has in addition a council of leaders consisting of a representation of second level registrants. Additions and deletions to the registrant list, as well as any decisions regarding structural, behavioral and content issues are the responsibility of such a council that will develop its management charter. 5. The domain must have in it two prominent up to date entries. The first should be a detailed statement of purpose, and the second should be an updated annotated index of all second level registrants and the manner in which their domain can be used to contribute to the public interest related to the string. The first entry should be a part of the application and cannot be changed in any significant manner for the life of the gTLD except by rough consensus of the domain management group. (I strongly recommend a sensitive and insightful exposition of the meaning and implications of "rough consensus" is provided in RFC 7282 by Pete Resnick.) 6. If the domain is to change hands to another manager, the transfer must be judged on the basis of continuity and importance of purpose. The price of the domain will be limited to the original investment in the acquisition and operation of the domain, appropriately discounted, and capped by the increase in some measure such as the rate of inflation or the cost of capital increase during the period of current management, possibly with a multiplier and/or floor of some sort. Rationale: This will insure that public service rather than gain is the motivating factor for applying for the domain. I think that I would feel comfortable that a structure like this would ensure that the domain would adhere to its original public benefit purpose. Other structural approaches are possible also. This approach does require a new set of considerations for a new category. This may not be an easy task, and will take time, but it is not an impossible job. The result -- accommodation for including public interest generic gTLDs --should make such a development worthwhile and, assuming that one agrees with the list of hypotheses at the beginning of the list, directly addresses the possible resolution of existing generic string disputes. Comments? George ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ George Sadowsky Residence tel: +1.301.968.4325 8300 Burdette Road, Apt B-472 Mobile: +1.202.415.1933 Bethesda MD 20817-2831 USA Skype: sadowsky george.sadowsky@gmail.com http://www.georgesadowsky.org/ _______________________________________________ Gnso-newgtld-wg mailing list Gnso-newgtld-wg@icann.org https://mm.icann.org/mailman/listinfo/gnso-newgtld-wg _______________________________________________ By submitting your personal data, you consent to the processing of your personal data for purposes of subscribing to this mailing list accordance with the ICANN Privacy Policy (https://www.icann.org/privacy/policy) and the website Terms of Service (https://www.icann.org/privacy/tos). You can visit the Mailman link above to change your membership status or configuration, including unsubscribing, setting digest-style delivery or disabling delivery altogether (e.g., for a vacation), and so on.
George and Alan and all, I did not read your exchange until after I sent out my email a few minutes ago. However, I think I arrived at a conclusion that is broadly aligned with both your views, though I stop where George starts. This makes me feel pretty good (perhaps the greying goatee I've grown during the pandemic lockdown helped align my worldview). In any event, I think we could give the multistakeholder model a big win if we all could drop the competing "all" or "nothing" scenarios and converge on this path. We need to dedicate ourselves to driving toward consensus instead of deterring it. All consensus is compromise, and we can't reward failure to compromise. Somehow we need to reward the opposite (and not just with a once-a-year trophy). There will at least be psychic rewards in being amongst those who compromise first, or most, or most creatively, or most emphatically, or most emphatically. I bet that if this crew put its mind to it, and we put consensus above all, we could get this done quite quickly. Greg On Mon, Jul 13, 2020 at 12:06 AM Alan Greenberg <alan.greenberg@mcgill.ca> wrote:
Thanks George,
I've been meaning to join this thread all day, but other things pulled me away. That turns out to be fortuitous since I now have your proposal to comment on.
To start, I will recount a proposal I made a few months ago.
I too was trying to find some "middle ground" that could remove an absolute prohibition and yet satisfy what we suspect will be a GAC (and others - I count myself among them) reaction.
I disagreed with the .disaster scenario suggested by Jeff (there are other worthy disaster relief organizations and it was not clear that a TLD run by the Red Cross would give them "equal space" - perhaps if run by the UN it could be acceptable..). But I accepted the concept that there may well be examples of such public interest TLDs. The lack of viable (in my not-so-humble opinion) examples was troublesome.
The difficult problem is judging whether a particular application meets that criteria when we have never been able to clearly define what we mean by public interest, and would not likely be able to do so in the time-frame of this PDP. My only answer to this was that the ICANN Board is charged with deciding whether the public interest is being met, so let the Board decide on whether an application is acceptable or not.
It quickly became obvious that there would be a hoard of such applications and the Board was not going to address a large number, so I suggested that only not-for-profits could apply. That met with a host of disagreements that for-profits could do good things too. I also believed that the decision on whether the public interest was met in the application had to be non-appealable, particularly if the field was opened to for-profits. That was felt to not be possible under our Bylaws. The proposal died an ignominious death soon after.
Your proposal has the same intent and some of the same flavour as mine, but with more detail and hopefully it will get better support.
Some specific comments:
a) Although I can accept the concept that a for-profit might have altruistic intents, ultimately they report to their owners and likely shareholders. A TLD is for the long term, and I am uncomfortable with a for-profit having custody. Yes, we could add "guard rails" as we have discussed in other areas, but the comfort level is still not high, so I agree that not-for-profic is a likely requirement. You cover the edge case of "some exceptions",
b) a major issue of whether the TLD will really be in the public interest, and how to define the "exceptions" is not addressed here and is the proverbial elephant in the room. We were not good at defining the rules for community or subsidized TLDs last time, and I have minimal hope we could do better with this new class this time given our history at not being able to define or even describe "public interest". Saying wise people "will know it when they see it" is not sufficient here. I still believe that only the Board is in the position to ultimately decide on what is in the public interest. Even if the Board were willing to take on this responsibility (not at all clear), the appeal process could draw this out indefinitely.
c) I agree with the terms you describe on a transfer of control. And the fact that it is the ICANN Board that ultimately makes that decision reinforces my belief that the Board is the right place for the original go/nogo decision on whether the public interest is being met - perhaps preceded by a panel recommendation.
d) As we saw with the .org debate, having an advisory council is probably mandatory, but how it is selected and just what powers it has can make or break the deal.
e) As with my proposal, if we can agree on the non-profit aspect (even with some well articulated exception conditions), we may have a chance of doing this. That may reduce the numbers to a sufficiently low number to make it implementable.
Alan
At 2020-07-12 10:05 PM, George Sadowsky wrote:
All,
I'd like to outline a different approach to the issue of public interest generics, in the hope that it might (eventually?) contribute to a policy solution for this issue. This is only at the level of a thought experiment.
Let's hypothesize the following:
1. The status quo is decided in one direction or another, or is even ignored. I not sure it matters with this approach.
2. There is an unquenchable demand for the possible creation of public interest generic string gTLDs, either for strings that have been identified already or for the emergence of possible such strings in the future. Therefore the GNSO policy has to have a provision for them. (You can use .disaster as a proxy for thinking about this, or not.)
3. Other top level generics, covering industries and markets will not be allowed. Only public interest generics will be allowed. (The arguments against this subset of generics depends upon a different type of public interest argument having a basis that the monopolization of the information space of an entire market by a single organization result in a concentration of power that is not in the public interest. Further the GAC is as likely to object to this in the future as they have in the past, and the new policy must either bypass GAC concerns or lead to a confrontation between the Board and the GAC.
Given this scenario, what concerns would we have about delegating such domains to organizations. Each of us has some concerns including, but not limited to, competition among which organization should receive the delegation, control of inappropriate registrations (and who decides), profiteering (under some definition) by virtue of being chosen, and similar concerns.
Now, rather than give up on the idea of adopting the public interest string in a gTLD, let's ask under what additional conditions would our concerns be largely or totally alleviated? After all, if there are organizations that think the concept is sufficiently important to invest in, and it appears that the GAC will accept the string as a legitimate public interest issue, shouldn't we work toward finding a good way to make it happen rather than saying, "There are too many difficulties with the concept, let's give it up."
So here are some suggestions for the creation of a policy environment, approved by the GNSO and very likely to be acceptable to the ICANN Board and the GAC, that could allow such strings to exist with appropriate controls that we would feel comfortable with.
[Bear in mind that this is written on the fly and is a rough sketch of what might happen, to indicate possibility of concept, not proof. The big question is whether this could be a worthwhile approach rather than if these details are the exactly correct ones.]
1. A new category of TLD is created for such strings, a little like the community status of the previous round. Let's name the category "Generic Public Interest Strings." Rationale: Attempts to fit closed pubic interest generics into structures from the previous round don't seem to work; a new category with new rules is needed for this category of string to work.
2. The applicant must be a not-for-profit organization. With some classes of exceptions permitted, second level registrants should also be not-for-profit organizations or governmental organizations.
3. The application should contain statements of support from initial second level registrants. The group should include a robust selection of organizations that have a material interest in the subject and can contribute through the domain to the public good. Challenges should be possible during the evaluation period.
4. The domain will have a management structure that recognizes the applicant as its leader but has in addition a council of leaders consisting of a representation of second level registrants. Additions and deletions to the registrant list, as well as any decisions regarding structural, behavioral and content issues are the responsibility of such a council that will develop its management charter.
5. The domain must have in it two prominent up to date entries. The first should be a detailed statement of purpose, and the second should be an updated annotated index of all second level registrants and the manner in which their domain can be used to contribute to the public interest related to the string. The first entry should be a part of the application and cannot be changed in any significant manner for the life of the gTLD except by rough consensus of the domain management group. (I strongly recommend a sensitive and insightful exposition of the meaning and implications of "rough consensus" is provided in RFC 7282 by Pete Resnick.)
6. If the domain is to change hands to another manager, the transfer must be judged on the basis of continuity and importance of purpose. The price of the domain will be limited to the original investment in the acquisition and operation of the domain, appropriately discounted, and capped by the increase in some measure such as the rate of inflation or the cost of capital increase during the period of current management, possibly with a multiplier and/or floor of some sort. Rationale: This will insure that public service rather than gain is the motivating factor for applying for the domain.
I think that I would feel comfortable that a structure like this would ensure that the domain would adhere to its original public benefit purpose. Other structural approaches are possible also.
This approach does require a new set of considerations for a new category. This may not be an easy task, and will take time, but it is not an impossible job. The result -- accommodation for including public interest generic gTLDs --should make such a development worthwhile and, assuming that one agrees with the list of hypotheses at the beginning of the list, directly addresses the possible resolution of existing generic string disputes.
Comments?
George
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ George Sadowsky Residence tel: +1.301.968.4325 8300 Burdette Road, Apt B-472 Mobile: +1.202.415.1933 Bethesda MD 20817-2831 USA Skype: sadowsky george.sadowsky@gmail.com http://www.georgesadowsky.org/
_______________________________________________ Gnso-newgtld-wg mailing list Gnso-newgtld-wg@icann.org https://mm.icann.org/mailman/listinfo/gnso-newgtld-wg _______________________________________________ By submitting your personal data, you consent to the processing of your personal data for purposes of subscribing to this mailing list accordance with the ICANN Privacy Policy (https://www.icann.org/privacy/policy) and the website Terms of Service (https://www.icann.org/privacy/tos). You can visit the Mailman link above to change your membership status or configuration, including unsubscribing, setting digest-style delivery or disabling delivery altogether (e.g., for a vacation), and so on. _______________________________________________ Gnso-newgtld-wg mailing list Gnso-newgtld-wg@icann.org https://mm.icann.org/mailman/listinfo/gnso-newgtld-wg _______________________________________________ By submitting your personal data, you consent to the processing of your personal data for purposes of subscribing to this mailing list accordance with the ICANN Privacy Policy (https://www.icann.org/privacy/policy) and the website Terms of Service (https://www.icann.org/privacy/tos). You can visit the Mailman link above to change your membership status or configuration, including unsubscribing, setting digest-style delivery or disabling delivery altogether (e.g., for a vacation), and so on.
participants (2)
-
Alan Greenberg -
Greg Shatan