NA RALO response to DOC letter
Greetings, all. I am informed by Darlene we took as an action item in our last meeting (in Cartagena) the formulation of a response to the US Dept. of Commerce's letter to Rod Beckstrom on the topic of new gTLDs. The letter can be found at the following URL: http://forum.icann.org/lists/5gtld-guide/pdf4SSmb5oOd5.pdf In essence, the DOC is saying that ICANN failed to respond to concerns raised in a letter the DOC's NTIA sent two years ago. That letter, much clearer than this follow-up, can be found here: http://www.icann.org/en/correspondence/baker-to-dengate-thrush-18dec08-en.pd... At issue is an economic study ICANN was supposed to perform to determine if the cost of expanding the number of gTLDs would outweigh the benefits. The commerce department says ICANN's June 16 publication of "An Economic Framework for the Analysis of the Expansion of Generic Top-Level Domain Names" is insufficient, and that the topic needs further study. You can read the ICANN paper here: http://www.icann.org/en/topics/new-gtlds/economic-analysis-of-new-gtlds-16ju... The December DOC letter takes ICANN to task not only for the paper's failure to live up to what it expected, but also says that citation of data and decision-making process is insufficient, adding up to "bad faith" in light of ICANN's promises to improve accountability and transparency. What should NA RALO's response be? For context, here's what Milton Mueller has to say: http://blog.internetgovernance.org/blog/_archives/2010/12/3/4694980.html We can discuss during Monday's call, unless a consensus emerges prior to. Beau -----Original Message-----
From: Eric Brunner-Williams <ebw@abenaki.wabanaki.net> Sent: Jan 7, 2011 10:17 AM To: Olivier MJ Crepin-Leblond <ocl@gih.com> Cc: na-discuss@atlarge-lists.icann.org Subject: Re: [NA-Discuss] Call for comment ASAP on ICANN strat plan
Oliver,
Thank you, that is helpful. The abandonment of the "Everyone Connected" phrase from the corporate vision statement is harsh, they could have at least substituted something like "Most everyone with some kind of accessibility".
I was invited to join the formation of a U.S. Delegation to the ITU Meeting on IPv6, March 15 and 16 2010 in Geneva on the issue you mention.
... distribute IPv6 addresses using Country Internet Registries (CIR) thus bypassing the Regional Internet Registries (RIR) system ...
I submitted written comments, as CORE's Chief Technical Officer at the time, which I'd be happy to share on this very point, the issues present in both the CIR and RIR models for routing resources.
I still hope to see the older vision statements. If there was one back when the Berlin meeting took place and the Constituencies were formed, it might have been "This might work" or "There is no Plan B".
Eric ------ NA-Discuss mailing list NA-Discuss@atlarge-lists.icann.org https://atlarge-lists.icann.org/mailman/listinfo/na-discuss
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What should NA RALO's response be?
For context, here's what Milton Mueller has to say: http://blog.internetgovernance.org/blog/_archives/2010/12/3/4694980.html
DOC is right, and Milt is wrong. Milt is always wrong, so this shouldn't be a big surprise. Attempts to introduce "competition" into the DNS via adding TLDs have been, in case anyone has had their eyes shut for the past decade, a complete failure. The only change that actually has made a difference is the registry/registrar split. Look at .INFO and .BIZ to see whether clones of existing TLDs add competition. Look at .AERO, .COOP, .JOBS, .TRAVEL, and .MUSEUM to see whether topical TLDs add competition. Look at .ASIA, .CAT, and the rebranded .LA to see whether geographic TLDs add competition. Or look at .PRO and .TEL and .MOBI to see whether service-specific TLDs add competition. There was a real issue about non-ASCII TLDs which appears to be addressed by the IDN fast track. What's left? At this point the only justification for adding thousands of TLDs is that ICANN always assumed they would, and they and their hangers on will make a lot of money. If the argument is that new TLDs will add meaningful competition, nobody's offered a plausible explanation yet of how that will happen. Regards, John Levine, johnl@iecc.com, Primary Perpetrator of "The Internet for Dummies", Please consider the environment before reading this e-mail. http://jl.ly
I agree in part, and disagree in part, with John. Interlinear. On 1/7/11 5:54 PM, John R. Levine wrote:
What should NA RALO's response be?
For context, here's what Milton Mueller has to say: http://blog.internetgovernance.org/blog/_archives/2010/12/3/4694980.html
DOC is right, and Milt is wrong. Milt is always wrong, so this shouldn't be a big surprise.
I've held that view since WG-C circa 1998, yet the Board's choice on VI last Fall was closer to the Milton Meuller, Avri Doria, Michael Palage "competition authority" model than to any other model advanced.
Attempts to introduce "competition" into the DNS via adding TLDs have been, in case anyone has had their eyes shut for the past decade, a complete failure. The only change that actually has made a difference is the registry/registrar split.
The divestiture of .org from VGRS to ISOC/AF was a competition policy win. It moved about 10% of the market from the legacy monopoly operator to some other entity. Had the .net divestiture not be aborted, and had it gone to the same operator, then the market would be a duopoly. A means as yet untried was the original SRS model of Crispin, Crocker, Gaetano & Langenbach, presented at IETF-43, 1999. See www.icann.org/en/topics/new-gtlds/presentation-brunner-williams-19oct09-en.pdf I presented this during the VI WG process. Had it been adopted, GoDaddy, holding 25% of the .com market, could become the 2nd largest registrar, reducing VGRS's backend revenues by a quarter, and the quartet of GoDaddy, TuCows, Enom and NetSol could become the 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 6th largest registry backend providers (AF moving from 2nd place to 4th place), bringing VGRS backend revenues down to 49% of the .com backend. To my mind this was, and remains, the best choice. Remove the clever fiction that registries are natural monopolies and allow registrants to select which backend operator of the ".com" namespace should be the data archive, with all backend operators of the ".com" namespace pushing updates to the .com zone publication function, for about $1/domain name year. $5/unit/year under the hood leaving "Verisign" to publish the zonefile for $1/unit/year would at least transform the monopoly market into several competing verticals with "registrar-to-backend" slices of the .com market.
Look at .INFO and .BIZ to see whether clones of existing TLDs add competition. Look at .AERO, .COOP, .JOBS, .TRAVEL, and .MUSEUM to see whether topical TLDs add competition. Look at .ASIA, .CAT, and the rebranded .LA to see whether geographic TLDs add competition. Or look at .PRO and .TEL and .MOBI to see whether service-specific TLDs add competition.
Agree in part, disagree in part. None of the .info,.biz,.name,.pro and the later .asia,.jobs,.mobi,.tel,.travel have introduced competition, and without the .org revenues, Afilias would have exited the registry market, as RCOM did when it abandoned .pro, and as GNR did when it abandoned .name. Similarly, without the NANPA revenues Neu{Level,Star} would have exited the registry market after the initial failure of .biz. However, it is too early to tell for .coop and .cat, and the errors of 2001 that harmed .aero, .coop and .museum may still be reversible. These sTLDs may obtain significant market share for their intended service populations (.aero probably excepted).
There was a real issue about non-ASCII TLDs which appears to be addressed by the IDN fast track. What's left? At this point the only justification for adding thousands of TLDs is that ICANN always assumed they would, and they and their hangers on will make a lot of money. If the argument is that new TLDs will add meaningful competition, nobody's offered a plausible explanation yet of how that will happen.
Agree in part, disagree in part. The growth of the .cn ccTLD is an exception to the .com is the only commercial market claim, and within the .cn market are the .中国,.公 司,.网络 (CNNIC) and “.政务” and “.公益” (CONAC) segments. It is premature to conclude that IDN TLDs will not displace a registry run by a private company located in Norther Virginia, within specific market segments. After five year of operations, just over 50% of all .cat registrations have no "parallel" .com registration, supporting the theory that .cat has achieved parity with .com in the Catalan market. VGRS intends to apply for between ten and twenty IDN forms of "com". The VGRS planners are willing to spend $4m to $8m in application fees alone to ensure that they are the early, and only, adopter of "com" in several IDN markets. Clearly they see risk of not being first, and some opportunity in being first. Granted, this isn't the thousands of flowers advocated by Milton. Eric
participants (3)
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Beau Brendler -
Eric Brunner-Williams -
John R. Levine