Hi Georges, On Thu, Jul 13, 2017 at 9:37 AM, Nahitchevansky, Georges <ghn@kilpatricktownsend.com> wrote:
I think the basis problem has been and remains that the basis for all this hunting around and data requests is an unfounded claim that there is an abundance of “abusive and overreaching tmch registrations.” The evidence of such alleged widespread abuse has not been presented, because it doesn’t exist. What all this sound and fury about data etc. reminds me of is Donald Trump claiming with basically no evidence that there was widespread voter fraud to explain why he do not get the majority of the popular vote in the US and then setting up a special commission to investigate the matter in the hope of cobbling together some sort of proof. In the end it’s a waste of everybody’s time and money.
These are not "unfounded" allegations. Evidence has been presented that provide a foundation for further analysis with a larger dataset, e.g. see my post at: http://mm.icann.org/pipermail/gnso-rpm-wg/2017-March/001119.html which looked closely at just one of the Top 10 downloaded strings, namely "HOTEL". The identical analysis would apply to the plural HOTELS. Others have noted issues with "THE" and other strings that were detected via sunrises. It's also been well documented that Deloitte is entering figurative marks and other non-standard character marks into the TMCH (the examples that Rebecca produced, and which Deloitte assessed, would have ALL been accepted). Given we've not been given access to the entire list of TMCH marks, the above is just the tip of the iceberg. The only way to demonstrate systematic "widespread" abuse is to access the entire list, or at least a greater proportion of it (e.g. the Top 500 most requested TMCH strings, which I've repeatedly asked for, which The Analysis Group would already have generated, but they're holding it back for whatever reason), it seems that those who don't want the "widespread abuse" to be formally documented have just one strategy, namely to prevent any formal access to more than just those top 10 most requested strings. A comparison with Donald Trump with allegations of "basically no evidence" is not correct. Here, we already have concrete examples, that are just the tip of the iceberg. In my view, that tip of the iceberg is ***already sufficient*** to justify elimination of the TMCH in its entirety. I think what some folks fear is that once more and more data is gathered, it would sway even more unbiased people to that view, including the general public, and that it has been another boondoggle that folks are trying to cover up. I've made long standing requests that ICANN predefine "metrics" as to what constitutes success in its policy-making, e.g. more than 10 years ago for .asia: http://forum.icann.org/lists/asia-tld-agreement/msg00000.html " There should be predefined numeric metrics as to what constitutes "success", e.g. 1 million+ domain names registered by the end of the term of the contract, with a certain percentage (at least 1%) of the global internet traffic going to domains in that TLD. It's typical ICANN "old school" thinking to not define success metrics before something is implemented, and then declare things a "glorious success" later, without reference to any benchmarks." It seems to me that we have some people declaring the TMCH and its implementation "a glorious success" in a similar manner as I warned against. Sincerely, George Kirikos 416-588-0269 http://www.leap.com/