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Re: [ga] New top-level internet addresses come with $100,000-plus price tag

  • To: Roberto Gaetano <roberto@xxxxxxxxx>
  • Subject: Re: [ga] New top-level internet addresses come with $100,000-plus price tag
  • From: Karl Auerbach <karl@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Sun, 29 Jun 2008 10:07:44 -0700


Roberto Gaetano wrote:
I am missing something here.
We have been flooded over the years with emails that have been stating how
successfule alternate roots are, on how ISPs all over the world are
increasingly pointing to a system that is able to override what is in the
"ICANN root" with a different choices, and so on.

(I tend to use the phrase "competing roots".)

The idea of having multiple root systems is to provide a way for users and providers to interact, in a way similar to the complicated ways that buyers and sellers interact in a multi-vendor marketplace, to arrive at a relatively stable and relatively consistent set of TLDs without the need for a central decision making authority (such as ICANN.)

The notion is one of "consistency" among the various root systems. By this I mean that the desired goal is a world in which most competing root systems offer a core set of TLDs, and in which some root systems perhaps offer additional TLDs that are aspiring for market share. (I call these "boutique" TLDs.) I'll come back to this in a moment.

But for any given TLD name the idea is that ideally that TLD should represent the same DNS subtree, i.e. .example in the legacy root should be the same as .example in the other competing roots.

How is this "same name, same meaning" obtained? Through the positive application of an idea that has previously been the source of so much trouble: the laws of trade and service marks. If two or more people try to offer different versions of .example then they have recourse to the legal system to resolve that dispute.

And, of course, while there is a viable dispute, few rational root server operators would incorporate what are, in effect, damaged and dangerous goods in its root's inventory of TLDs: root server operators, like the rest of us, do not want their customers to be surprised and to take their custom elsewhere as a consequence.

And, in addition, informed rational domain name buyers will tend to shun TLDs that are in dispute, thus giving the disputants an incentive to resolve their differences.

(It is only through luck that ICANN was not caught in a legal thicket when it chose to create a .biz in conflict with a prior operator of a TLD with that name. Had the prior operator held her ground it is possible, even probable, that ICANN may have found itself denied because of the prior use. ICANN may not be so lucky in the future despite warm and fuzzy noises from ICANN's has-not-always-been-right law firm that would make money from ICANN should such disputes arise.)

It is highly likely that most sane root system operators will pick up the current ICANN/NTIA root zone and add to that zone those additional boutique TLDs that each wants to offer.

Thus we would probably end up with:

  - a legacy root with the NTIA/ICANN root zone and no boutique names.

- Other roots with the NTIA/ICANN TLDs plus such uncontested others as each root choses to add.

- A set of TLDs that are in dispute. We can anticipate that at least some roots, either from lack of knowledge of the dispute or from simple stupidity or bullheadedness, will pick up each of the disputed versions.

- There will be some roots that simply chose to be completely inconsistent. These are like some of the alternate roots today - and they will garner the same, nearly nil, presence.

- Root operators will strive to obtain market share. They will do this by offering enhanced services - such as placing a root server onto a customer's net (and perhaps that server will do recursion and caching in order to reduce name lookup latency for that customer).

And perhaps that root operator will even purchase market share in the same what that Google does - by buying it. Consider a root operator that will pay an ISP $$ if that ISP switches to that root operator. That root operator can data mine (just as ICANN permits Verisign, PIR, and Afilias to do) the query stream and carve out a share to pay ISPs.

Domain name buyers, if we assume that they are informed and rational, will chose whether to buy names in the core set of TLDs that are present in all TLDs. Most will buy names in stable core places - the .com/.org kind of places. Some will chose to buy elsewhere, perhaps due to price perhaps for other reasons (for example a tight community of people, such as a church, may chose a boutique name for their shared purposes) - it will be a marketing effort for those boutique TLDs to obtain customers. It will be an uphill effort but one that is very common in the fight for shelf space that occurs with products in the non-internet world.

Some boutique TLDs will grow, most will wither and die or simply remain tiny and of no real consequence except to its users.

If a boutique TLD grows more and more roots will decide that that TLD should be included into that root's inventory of TLDs. Thus a boutique TLD can naturally grow into a core TLD. (And, of course, core TLDs that fade or become tainted may fade out of the core and become boutiques.)

I know that this is an inadequate description. However, it is merely a copy of the kind of brand-building efforts that go on every day in real-life non-internet market places as new products strive for market share and shelf space. It is a system that works. It is a system that does have conflicts when products stumble upon the same name (or when someone tries to steal market share by forging and usurping an established product name.)

This kind of system eliminates the need for a top-down imposition of names, i.e. ICANN becomes just one of several root zone definitions. It is a truly bottom-up system because it works through the aggregation of independent choices by those who wish to create TLDs and those who chose to use them.

This kind of system allows the natural growth and death of TLDs. And that life cycle depends on the efforts of the TLD providers and the choices of users rather than life supporting decisions from a centralized body of internet governance.

It is good that ICANN is finally opening up to new TLDs. It is bad that ICANN is creating a belief that new TLDs must jump through ICANN defined hoops in which business plans and financial depth are evaluated by ICANN rather than by the marketplace. (Last year I took a stab at putting together what I think should be ICANN's TLD application form. Take a look at the latter part of http://www.cavebear.com/cbblog-archives/000324.html )

By-the-way, one would hope that ICANN will finally grant the applications of the 40 remaining applicants from year 2000. They have already paid their fees and have been patiently waiting for 8 years.

                --karl--



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