Re: [ga] Re: On new TLDs

[Jeff Williams <jwkckid1@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Danny and all former DNSO GA members or other interested
stakeholders/users,

Why should Vint need to be convinced.  He is a servant to the
stakeholder/user
Internet community, whatever that really is.  Hence Vint's and the ICANN

BoD's job is to serve the internet community not the other way around.

Danny Younger wrote:

> Karl,
>
> Sotiris has touched upon a point that I wanted to
> raise with you -- he notes that "Vint's questioning of
> the wisdom of adding new TLDs to the namespace is
> probably where most thinking people ought to be in
> their reflections on the current state of the dns".
>
> My concern goes just a little deeper than that... when
> Vint starts to "question the rationale" of anything,
> we have learned to expect that rather dire
> consequences will immediately follow.
>
> It's easy to convince the choir that new TLDs are a
> "good thing", but let's face it... you've been on the
> Board and probably realize moreso than most Vint's
> singular ability to sway other directors toward his
> position... so, if I may be so bold, let me hear an
> argument from you as to whether we should have new
> gTLDs that is strong enough to sway Vint.
>
> Just so you know, my own opinion (subject to further
> consideration) is that a brief hiatus prior to
> launching new TLDs is required for the following
> reasons:
>
> ?       Does ICANN currently have in place a plan to deal
> with registry business/financial failure?  No.
> ?       Are all ICANN-accredited registrars currently
> escrowing all of their registrant data as required by
> the terms of the RAA?  No.
> ?       Has ICANN hired the necessary complement of
> Compliance Program Managers?  No.
> ?       Is the Internet community satisfied with the
> language embodied in current and proposed registry and
> registrar contracts?  No.
>
> ICANN's house is not in order.  I would sure feel
> better about launching new TLDs if ICANN got its act
> together first.
>
>
> --- Karl Auerbach <karl@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> >
> > On Wed, 7 Dec 2005, Danny Younger wrote:
> >
> > > I would imagine that in Jon Postel's day the issue
> > > wasn't only the competencies and ethics of a TLD
> > > proponent, but also the issue of "circumstance",
> > as
> > > in, "under what circumstances should a new TLD be
> > > launched?"  Clearly Jon's iTLD file lists requests
> > by
> > > competent parties that weren't acted upon.
> >
> > Jon was not a god.  He was just a very nice person
> > who happened to do a
> > particular thing.  We should not ossify the internet
> > around his personal
> > procedures or predilictions.
> >
> > Jon was a pragmatist - he did what needed to be done
> > and didn't dig into
> > motives.  In his time we were getting along with a
> > few TLDs - they had not
> > been overly monitized by a frenzied dot-com boom,
> > nor had the kind of
> > entrenched money-pump mentality that underlies into
> > ICANN come to pass -
> > so the issue of when and why did not rise to the top
> > of the stack.
> >
> > But knowing Jon as I did (which was not close but
> > not distant either) I
> > believe that Jon would have answered a direct TLD
> > request with a couple of
> > questions:
> >
> >    - Does the requestor know what he/she/it is doing
> > (i.e. does the
> >      requestor know how to follow internet protocols
> > and the
> >      end-to-end principle?)
> >
> >    - Has the requestor really done some
> > introspective thinking about
> >      whether they really need a TLD as opposed to
> > doing their thing
> >      at a lower level in the hierarchy?  (Notice
> > that the focus of the
> >      question only asks whether thought had been
> > exercised; the requestor
> >      is given the benefit of trust.)
> >
> > If so then I believe Jon would have said "go ahead,
> > give it a try".  He
> > might also have said, if you fail, please relinquish
> > it.
> >
> > Jon was part of the internet experiment - an
> > experiment which still
> > continues - in which some ideas grew and bloomed and
> > others died.
> >
> > The internet landscape is littered with huge
> > investments in ideas that did
> > not make it: big visible ones like ISO/OSI, medium
> > ones like gopher, small
> > ones like supdup.
> >
> > So ICANN's idea that a TLD application must be
> > microscopically examined
> > and required to demonstrate that it can not fail or
> > that everybody thinks
> > its the greatest thing since sliced bread simply is
> > not neither the Jon
> > Postel way nor the classical internet way.
> >
> > > Might I ask your view of what should prompt the
> > launch of a new TLD?
> >
> > My answer is this: If someone wants to give it a try
> > and can demonstrate
> > that they are willing and able to follow internet
> > standards, to meet
> > reasonable performance requirments (requirements
> > based on their expected
> > user base, not on some hypothetical scenerio where
> > every internet user
> > becomes their subscriber), and that they will
> > refrain from violating laws,
> > then that person should be given his chance to try
> > his/her idea.
> >
> > Some people ask about innocent users who build their
> > names in TLDs that
> > might fail.  My answer is simple: Has there been
> > fraudulent conduct?  Has
> > the TLD provider engaged in a knowing
> > misprepresentation of a material
> > fact, and has the customer relied on that
> > misrepresented fact and suffered
> > harm as a result?  If so, the law provides a remedy.
> >
> > ICANN is crushing innovation on the internet by
> > shifting the rational and
> > reasonable balance between vendor (TLD provider) and
> > customer to the
> > degree that the vendor/TLD-provider can only
> > innovate if even the most
> > stupid of the stupid of customers are immunized
> > against harm - in other
> > words, ICANN is destroying innovation by becoming a
> > consumer protection
> > agency that requires TLD providers insure that no
> > matter how stupid the
> > customer, that customer is protected from harm.
> >
> > ICANN's methods bear a stronger resemblance to those
> > of a bureau in the
> > 1930's Soviet Union that is dictating a 5-year plan
> > than it does to those
> > of an agency tasked to ensure the stable operation
> > of a technical system.
> >
> > > Is it overwhelming public demand?
> >
> > Why should an innovation have to depend on the
> > pre-existance of public
> > demand?  Had the internet had to wait for
> > "overwhelming public demand"
> > than we would never had an internet.  Similarly, had
> > the telephone had to
> > wait for "overwhelming public demand" we would never
> > had a telephone
> > system.
> >
> > The point is this - innovation *preceeds* demand.
> >
> >
> > > Should it be simply because some
> > technically-competent business wants
> > > to profit from a new namespace?
> >
> > Why not?  What's wrong with making a profit?
> >
> > > Should it be just because a municipality (like
> > Berlin) wants one?
> >
> > Why not?
> >
> > > What principles should govern the decision to
> > accept a new TLD in the
> > > root?
> >
> > Beyond the requirements of following internet
> > protocols, maintaining
> > adequate service levels to support the anticipated
> > use, and refraining
> > from violating the law (I won't get into the
> > question of "which law?"), I
> > have only one concern:
> >
> > We know that the root zone can be huge - tens of
> > millions of TLDs can
> > exist and run.  Because from the point of view of
> > serving requests and
> > doing the database lookups a zone is a zone is a
> > zone, the .com zone gives
> > us a good metric of what is technicall possible for
> > the root zone.  And
> > the .com zone is now over 44 million names.
> >
> > However, there are administrative concerns such as
> > time to disseminate and
> > load such a large zone file (we want root zones to
> > recover quickly), and
> > the chance of human or computer error with such a
> > large file.  These
> > administrative concerns argue for restraining the
> > size of the root zone to
> > someting rather less than the technical limits.
> >
> > I've picked a target that is a mere 2% of the size
> > of .com - 1 million
> > TLDs.  Even were we to allocate 10,000 TLDs per year
> > it would take take a
> > century to reach that target.
> >
> > Suppose we take my numbers and reduce them 100-fold,
> > so that we have a
> > target of 1% of the 2% (i.e. 0.02% overall) of the
> > current technical
> > limit, i.e. 10,000 TLDs and allocate them over a 40
> > year period.  that's
> > 250 new TLDs per year.
> >
> > That probabably exceeds demand, so the issue then
> > becomes one of a system
> > of apportionment.
> >
> > First of all - we should be blind to the semantics
> > of a name.  For
> > example, .xxx could be read as the number 30 in
> > roman
> === message truncated ===
>
>
> __________________________________________
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Regards,

--
Jeffrey A. Williams
Spokesman for INEGroup LLA. - (Over 134k members/stakeholders strong!)
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very often the accident of glory" - Theodore Roosevelt

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