All, As an FYI -------- Original Message -------- Subject: Re: [At-Large] Updates to New gTLD Program Implementationandauctioning model. Date: Fri, 08 Aug 2008 21:34:20 -0700 From: "Jeffrey A. Williams" <jwkckid1@ix.netcom.com> Organization: IDNS and Spokesman for INEGroup To: Hong Xue <hongxueipr@gmail.com>,NameCritic <namecritic@blogs.pn>,at-large@atlarge-lists.icann.org References: <489DB449.9050507@vande-walle.eu><54535d540808091503k51f6fd61w9050270d7483197c@mail.gmail.com><008401c8fa80$a76ebf30$0201a8c0@namecritic> <54535d540808091829x456983e6t38f57633bd7d813f@mail.gmail.com> Hong and all, I would agree. But that's not the "ICANN Way", and never has been, and will not likely be unless or until they are forced to do so. Only DOC/NTIA can accomplish such, which is also not likely but does provide a ray of hope. ICANN needs/wants lots of $$. Auctioning off gTLD's or IDN gTLD's is a good way of accumulating a goodly sum in a fairly short period of time. My silent inside sources today have told me this is already a "Done Deal". The announcment was only to give the appearance that such is only now a consideration up for discussion/debate. A debate rat hole. Happy rat hole chasing/discussing/debating! >:) Hong Xue wrote:

What Chris said reminds me of the ALAC statement at the ICANN Public Forum: ICANN should encourage the IDN gTLDs be run by the small-scale, non-commercial and language community-base registries. But under the auction model, these applicants will be simply out of the question.

Hong

On Sun, Aug 10, 2008 at 8:33 AM, NameCritic <namecritic@blogs.pn> wrote:

...

I couldn't agree more and in addition to that, ICANN's staff and BoD seems to think the only viable business plan for a registry or TLD owner is to sell domain names. What if a person has different goals or a business plan that is unique and not just money-motivated, yet they prove they can manage a TLD from a technical standpoint?

They could be giving domain names away and it should not matter to ICANN and ICANN should not assume they know a good business plan from a bad one. It is not their function, nor is it their strong suit to evaluate business plans.

Even those in the past who thought they were qualified to do so shot down business plans because they did not see them as a standard type of plan or one they thought would work. Take Xerox giving away their technlogy for computer interface or hewlett packard turning down the pc or IBM passing up opportunities in the software business.

When ICANN puts itself into the position of having to approve the business plan of a prospective TLD owner, they put themselves in the liable position of having approved that business plan should it fail. If they do not approve someone's business plan, then they are restricting free enterprise and free trade by not allowing them to try it.

ICANN's process of approving TLDs and putting prohibitive costs on the process is flawed and favors large business over small business. This is not fair to small business owners and those at ICANN know it.

Years ago, the federal gov approved 60 million dollars to remodel houses in downtown Philadelphia. They told the city that they could have the money only if they also allowed small contractors to bid on those jobs rather than just the big companies. The city agreed. Then behind closed doors, after accepting the money, they decided to add a stipulation. That anyone could bid those jobs, but they would have to pay for all the materials and labor out of pocket and wait one year after completion to be reimbursed by the city. They knew full well this meant that small contractors would not be able to do so.

ICANN, by charging such a high fee is barring small business owners from creating their own TLD while they tell everyoine it is open to everyone. It's a scam.

Chris McElroy Dot SEO TLD

----- Original Message ----- From: "Hong Xue" <hongxueipr@gmail.com> To: <patrick@vande-walle.eu> Cc: <at-large@atlarge-lists.icann.org> Sent: Saturday, August 09, 2008 6:03 PM Subject: Re: [At-Large] Updates to New gTLD Program Implementation andauctioning model.

Thanks for drawing our attention on this paper. Given that the new gTLD

...

process embraces the IDN TLDs, the paper presents a very surprising, or shocking view, on allocation of TLDs. If the paper is primarily on the economic consideration, I wonder if the ICANN has any other consideration, such as protecting cultural diversity and bridging digital divide, on selection of new gTLDs (IDN gTLDs). As a governing body of a critical Internet resources, ICANN should envisage the values that are more important and fundamental than the highest bidding amount. I echo what has been precisely stated by Vittorio:

Another wrong assumption is that monetary value is the only quantity that counts.In fact, personally I think that the "value" of a TLD is mostly connected to other factors. For example, one is how many final users of the Internet will ever use services located inside that TLD; another one is how strongly these people will feel attached to that TLD, i.e. whether the TLD contributes to build any kind of "community identity" for an online group of people that presently does not have it; a third one is whether the new TLD will spawn innovative uses of the DNS or enable innovative services. None of these is directly connected to monetary value, and it is quite disturbing to me that an organization like ICANN, which is meant to steward scarce global public resources in the interest of the entire community of the Internet, still seems to have such a partial and narrow view of where the value of the Internet itself lies. Hong

On Sat, Aug 9, 2008 at 11:14 PM, Patrick Vande Walle <patrick@vande-walle.eu

...

wrote:

http://icann.org/en/announcements/announcement-08aug08-en.htm

...

ICANN has published a paper from its contractor PowerAuctions LLC, regarding the use of auctions to award new TLD strings in case of contention.

http://icann.org/en/topics/economic-case-auctions-08aug08-en.pdf

I think it would be important that the At Large speaks up. The model proposed in the document is a purely capitalistic one. It is based on the assumption that all gTLDs are created to make as much money as possible. Smaller, community based TLDs seem quite difficult to launch in such context.

The mere possibility of auctions will actually generate contention on some strings. The little guys wishing to establish a not-for-profit TLD will be outplayed by the wealthy ones.

A public forum has been established at http://forum.icann.org/lists/auction-consultation/. Comments to auction-consultation@icann.org before 8 September 2008.

-- Patrick Vande Walle

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