NEW gTLDs -- NEED FOR PROMOTION OF INTERNET IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES POLICY DEVELOPMENT FOR INTRODUCTION OF NEW gTLDs Rahul Bhonsle The internet is an elitist revolution in as much as it caters for knowledge management for the privileged in any community particularly so in developing countries where the ordinary citizen who lives just above subsistence level lacks the basic tools for connecting with the global community. It is the tyranny of being poor, if you are under privileged you lack the resources for progress, if you lack the wherewithal you cannot achieve higher levels of development and so on. In the World today even for the agrarian worker, resource is not land but information and knowledge. For instance if he has the information of the weather a few days hence or even tomorrow, he can plan the agrarian activities of sowing, watering and reaping which are part of his agricultural routine which are otherwise at the mercy of the element of unknown. Again it is common knowledge that for marketing goods, the internet will provide the necessary inputs to rid the farmer from the clutches of the trader dictated price mechanism. The information, communication and entertainment revolution has also enabled placing of knowledge to each and every individual on this planet, hyperbole notwithstanding. Thus the farmer in Uganda, the reaper in Philippines or the tendu lead grower in India all have a great opportunity to leverage this information to advantage for their betterment in generational leaps rather than age band plodding of the tortoise the bane of human progress in the pre internet age. While the hardware and software characteristics of internet development can ensure that it can reach the nooks and crannies of the World, be it through the satellite dish, the optic fibre or the television cable. Here we need to specifically focus our attention to ensure that the content of the internet can be accessed by constituents of the developing World who may not be, "net and knowledge savvy", speedily as well as easily so that they can be assisted in their daily lives. Identifying these needs that would provide factoid value addition to these individuals and groups would be essential before we suggest any gTLDs for them. These issues are concerned with the basic business of life, earth, water and fire. When should he undertake his agricultural activities, how much water should he draw and wet his fields with, what are the rates in the local markets for his produce, what is the diagnosis for the pain that he is feeling in his chest, what are the local medicines for snake bite, what are the educational opportunities for his son, how can he improve his knowledge of science, apply for colleges beyond the immediate geographical limits, how can he communicate with his daughter a thousand miles away at an instant, who has the land rights for the patch of land that he is in possession so that nobody can really defraud him on his property and on and on, there are perhaps no limits by which he can access knowledge for his progress and gain exceptional security even at the most basic levels of education. For we are catering for local needs from a globalised data base interpreted in the manner which is easily understandable by the man in the field. The need for word based understanding is also eliminated by providing active images, videos and slide based presentations which can be easily understood and replayed again and again by some one with even the most basic education levels as that expected from our target audience overcoming a major problem of unrestricted knowledge dissemination at present, lack of modern education. It also eliminates the autocracy of language for the idiom of the internet is universal especially when it is communication of the image and the video. Do the present gTLDs assist him in achieving these most simple aims which we have identified for ourselves above? The development of the TLD system need not be gone into here, though it would be only appropriate to highlight that these developments have taken place purely on commercial first, then geographical, national, technical and organizational criteria. Thus .com, .edu, .org, .gov, .biz, .in, .au and so on came to be developed. Presently the gTLDs are biased towards the elitist interests of business, educational and knowledge workers and companies including government interests. A review of all these would also reveal that they lack the ability to cater for the needs of our target audience being either too generalized or unrelated to the specific needs of the group. Now country specific TLDs provide geographic sourcing, these need to be supplemented with gTLDs designed to meet these requirements. This is perhaps the basic argument for adding new gTLDs to the existing genre on priority for internet proliferation in the developing World and would considerably provide the benefits of digital dividend to those denied its advantage thus far. This may well mark a new phase in the information revolution when it attains a truly egalitarian value while at the same time bringing millions of people on the net providing the eyeballs which the net business men are hankering for. So how do we provide the etymological tools for locating our interests on the internet for the uninitiated in the lattice of the vast maze that is our net today. We will have to denote the gTLDs with care and great attention to detail. What would come to mind straightway is three to four character gTLDs as .land to provide information of sites giving land records, .met for metrological data, .agr for agricultural details are three which come immediately to mind, there could be a few more which can be evolved over the days to enable pigeon holing of the right type of information for the developing worlds lowest data crawler. But these perhaps caters for the most basic information that a primarily agricultural oriented developing world individual needs for his survival and which is not catered for in the present hierarchy of TLDs. An important facet of this process is that of allotment of the gTLDs. Internet gurus as Tim Berner Lee have been opposing additions to TLDs as it is providing a leverage to the registrars, the squatters and the deviants of the internet world another place to make merry. [1] When done on a first come first served basis, such a problem is anticipated so we need to find innovative means for registration. This could be done to provide all registered companies an automatic link to the new gTLDs. Thus msn.com will automatically gain registry access to msn.land or msn.met and msn.agr with registration charges which will be decided by the regulatory authority but these will not be available after a freeze period to any other company or firm desirous of such registration. This will ensure that a registered company has the right over the new TLD until it abdicates the same. After the initial period is over say of six months to one year, the TLDs will be open for registration for all takers on an auction basis to cater for the losses that could have been suffered in the initial stage of free registration. The new gTLDs will cater for the developing world commoner, providers of information on meteorological data, producers of goods for such markets, consumers of goods and services produced by these and allied businessmen, traders, manufacturers, government agencies, non government organizations and so on and of course the information and service providers operating in the information technology space. Such a wide band of usage will provide it the commercial viability. Thus there is no doubt that such a venture is not only the need for bringing the large mass of humanity in the developing World on board the net but can also prove to be of benefit to those who make a living on the internet. Properly regulated, it can overcome the very rightful apprehensions of our gurus as Tim Berners Lee. So long live the internet and as Google motto says, "Don't be evil". ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [1] Tim Berners Lee, "New Top Level Domains Considered Harmful". Downloaded from icann.org