[ga] Re: [At-Large] FW: My comments on new gTLDs and the role of ICANN

["Joe Baptista" <baptista@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I'm a member of the at large - but for some reason can't post there.  I am
therefore refering my reply to the GA - which also is very much interested
in the topic.

On Tue, Nov 11, 2008 at 10:42 AM, Vittorio Bertola <vb@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> Sivasubramanian Muthusamy ha scritto:
> > Hello Vittoria, Parminder,
> >
> > I deviate from the encouraging messages that you have received so far,
> > because I think it gets a little complicated when a gTLD is thought of as
> > desirable to promote every cause. When it comes to languages there is an
> > estimated 3000 to 8000 languages spoken in planet earth Apart from
> languages
> > there are several different causes - for example, the hearing disabled
> have
> > a cause to ask to for a separate domain.
>
> Sure in the world there are several thousand languages and it could be
> hard to imagine that each of them gets a TLD.
>

Hard to imagine?  Hardly!  I can imagine a world of millions of TLDs.  If
the .COM zone can have millions of TLDs - there is no technical reason why
the same could not also be applied to ICANN. And the demand is there.  The
HEX project in the Netherlands originally sponsored by Herman Xennt and now
Martijn Burger proved conclusively that demand exists for millions of TLDs -
right here - right now.  IDN is still a small fraction of that demand - but
a fraction thats growing.

But in the world there are considerably more corporations that can
> afford to spend $185'000 as part of their brand protection and promotion
> strategy, so to have it as a TLD, and ICANN doesn't seem to be concerned
> with that.


Yes - it is strange that an organization dedicated to the Intellectual
Property communities protection in the realm of SLDs does not seem as
dedicated to promoting those same principles for TLDs.

Now the $185,000 is absolutely ridiculous.  It will leave out hundreds of
thousands of potential TLD holders - now every corporation can justify
$185,000.  And many language communities in the market for a IDN TLD would
be hard pressed to raise that capital.



>
> Either there is a consideration on whether the application is "worthy"
> and "useful", or there isn't. However, what ICANN plans to do is that
> they judge whether an application is "worthy" only by the fact that it
> comes from a wealthy and well organized applicant that can afford a high
> amount of money.


and constant ICANN ass kissing.


>
> So any billionaire could have a personal "vanity TLD", but an NGO
> working to protect an indigenous people could not: why? Is that a good
> policy?


no - it is a policy of greed.  once you start letting in the rabble it
become more and more difficult to justify the fees ICANN wants.


>
>
> Finally, it seems to me that you entirely miss the symbolic value of a
> TLD. I've heard objections like yours for years by the people who
> created the Internet; I remember Vint Cerf telling in public to the
> Nokia people "but why do you need .mobi? Couldn't you just give away
> subdomains under mobi.com?". Yet the boost that .mobi has given to the
> development of content specifically designed for mobile phones, and of
> mobile-based Internet access in certain parts of the world, is undeniable.


Ah yes, the Vint Cerf jeddie technique for hypnotizing people in public.
The Nokia people had a great idea there.


>
>
> This objection reminds me of when the engineers were complaining about
> people insisting to see semantic value in domain names, and thus
> requesting content-oriented policies, such as the UDRP.


That sort of nonsense is not really fair to the users.  Many users register
SLD just because they sound good to them.  To the user a domain is just an
identity.  Just because the purpose of the .ca gTLD is to provide domains in
canada - there have been cases of people creating domains from outside
canada.  the gTLD .ca I understand is very popular in california.


> The engineers
> kept saying "but it's just identifiers, like telephone numbers - it's
> just your misperception".


Thats the truth of it.  Technically speaking its just labels and numbers.
The numbers exist for machines to communicate between each other and the
labels that map to the numbers are usually designed to be human friendly -
easy to remember - unlike numbers which are to made hard.


> Yet, in reality, perception is everything; so
> they failed to convince the other billion users of the Internet that
> they should refrain from considering the semantic value of domain names,
> and nowadays there is no question anymore: domain name policies must
> keep into account semantic values.


Perception is everything.  I agree.  The problem with ICANN is lack of
choice.


>
>
> So, TLDs can do a lot to promote a sense of identity among online
> communities, and to provide credible online entry points for those who
> are still offline; yes there's not much of a difference in practice,
> it's just URLs, but it does a lot of a difference in terms of perception
> and identity.


Many countries today run their own IDN TLDs.  China is one of the largest to
do so.

regards
joe baptista

-- 
Joe Baptista
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