Bob Bruen wrote:
I was around in the early days of the Internet creation and remember some of what was said and what happened. It sounds like (from the emails) that only a few others were also there, most have come to the table much later. As one example of early day change that happened, .com was supposed to be for commercial entities only and you had to have a machine connected (or ready to be connected) to the network to get a domain name. That changed pretty suddenly as people saw the potential money to be made. In the same light, ccTLDs were an attempt to provide countries with their own piece of the Internet, not as a commodity to be sold.
"Their own piece of the Internet" and "a commodity to be sold" are not necessarily mutually exclusive. Unless there were ground rules at the beginning that required registrants in ccTLDs be nationals of the country, the ccTLD operators were free to do as they wanted. I would suggest that the governments of Niue and Tuvalu are not completely disappointed with the deals they made, and other countries have sought to copy the model.
The ccTLDs were handed out to those who understood what was coming, which was not always the governments. Individuals got control of many ccTLDs, many of which still keep control. The intent, which I believe is correct, is that each country would get their own .xx.. Like it or not, this is an issue of national sovereignty.
This is, of course at odds with the original post that started this thread, which defends the operators of the ccTLD operator for Honduras (an NGO) against its goverment's recent attempt to gain control of it.
I also believe that this feeds directly into the issue of local languages being available on the net. If *.yy were controlled by the local country of yy, all the sites on .yy could be in the language of yy. Seems like a no-brainer. This should be a priority issue for us, in spite of other issues of importance.
It's not a no-brainer. Such decisions are up to the individual country. If a country wants a ccTLD in languages other than its own official languages, that's within its total discretion. Saying otherwise is imposing your values on them.
It is a problem for me when ICANN signs over the control of a .yy to an individual or company just because they ask for it. If it belongs to the country, the country should get control of it. If the country then wants to contract out the running of .yy to that individual or company, so be it. The people of the country ought to have a say in what happens - that is more like the multi-stakeholder issue at the local level and of course more democratic.
Maybe the ccTLD operator for .hn may be more democratic than the government of Honduras, but as you say that's not the point. If governments have ultimate authority about ccTLD deligation, than we can't pass judgment over whether any particular ruling regime is worthy of controlling its country's TLD. We also have to allow that governments are allowed to make deals with their ccTLD opertators that allow their registries to do things with which we don't agree -- such as sell domains to foreigners or in non-official languages. It's up to us to identify when that behavior constitutes fraud, misrepresentation or abuse -- of registrants or of the Internet-using public.
ICANN has pretty much ignored the issue of ccTLDs until a report by Garth was read at Sydney, which caused a large, nasty backlash, followed by an RFP from ICANN to do a study on the ccTLDs. The backlash on this mailing list is similar.
No. I was at Sydney and the reaction is FAR less hostile here. You're simply losing credibility with those who are actually capable of making a comparison. This is not personal attack, it's an attempt to sort through the points to identify specific problem(s) and potential solution(s). Part of the problem is that we are confusing multiple very separate issues in this single thread: 1. Who has authority over a ccTLD -- the government, or a registry operator that may have laid original claim before the government was aware of its entitlement? 2. Should we be concerned if a government willingly delegates its ccTLD operations to foreigners? 3. What role -- if any -- is ICANN mandated to play in disputes between governments and ccTLD registries? 4. Why is ccTLD domain abuse not held under the same scrutiny as gTLD abuse, especially when the ccTLD is operated similarly to a gTLD? If a country wants to delegate complete or partial operation of its ccTLD to an American company that is its right, even according to you. Simply making a list of ccTLDs operating with the help of US-based companies or resources, without other context (ie, is it with the consent/contract of the government) is IMO sensationalism that does not help the debate.
My opinion is that there are people set to lose money, so they are doing what they can to silence discussion and sunshine. There are also people who are trying to keep the status quo for personal reasons.
Bob, this is the NARALO list, not the public forum. Before you start tossing around generalizations of ill intent here you ought to back it up. I'm just trying to make sense of things, and I appreciate neither your accusations nor what I saw as fear-mongering in Garth's shopping list. And, believe me, I'm not making money off of any of this. If there's an identifiable problem (from the public POV) let's identify it. If ICANN can do something about the problem, let's put that forward. If this is something that ICANN should be watching (and it's in ICANN's mandate) but being ignored, let's tackle that. But if the problem is something that ICANN was never designed to address, let's identify that and determine what (other) channels need to be used. Maybe the best thing we can do is produce a chart for each ccTKD outlining the information we have, what are their policies, how much do they operate like a gTLD, where is their registry located and what is the registry's relationship with the government? Starting from a point of accurate information helps everyone.
This is a serious problem that should not be ignored, as it has been for years.
Clarity, please. Let's know the problem before we can hope to address it. - Evan