Re: [ga] Re: On new TLDs

[Jeff Williams <jwkckid1@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

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

Your concern here has been discussed many times before on this
forum/list.  It is not well founded.  This is because Verisign is not
too interested in such a venture unless they can make a good
business case for doing so.  As .COM is their bread Butter
creating competition for .Com internally would very possibly be
a not so good business decision.

As to limiting the number of new TLD's, again this concern
has also been debated at some length on this forum/list only
more than one occasion.  Review of those archives might
be helpful if you or anyone else was not participating at that
time.  In any event, there is also a unlikely possibility of a
rush to create business to support a TLD as if minimum
standards as Karl has again eluded to would act as a good
limiting factor.  None the less the free market system would
take care of the rest as it did with dot museum and dot Name.

kidsearch wrote:

> Karl, should there be limitations to the number of tlds one entity can
> create?
>
> My worry is that should the scenario you described happen and anyone can
> create a TLD, what is to stop a company like Verisign to immediately put up
> a ton of money and grab up tlds the way a domain name speculator grabs up
> domain names?
>
> Chris McElroy, President,
> Kidsearch Network
> http://www.KidsearchNetwork.org
> http://www.MissingChildrenBlog.com
> http://www.RunawayTeens.org
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Karl Auerbach" <karl@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
> To: "Danny Younger" <dannyyounger@xxxxxxxxx>
> Cc: <ga@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Sent: Wednesday, December 07, 2005 5:24 PM
> Subject: [ga] Re: On new TLDs
>
> >
> > 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 numerals or as some
> > sort of representation of the three crosses on Calvary mount.  We should
> > refrain from digging into semantics.
> >
> > Second, ICANN's notion of "sponsored" versus 'general' TLDs is totally
> > contrived and artificial and, as has been seen from the experience with
> > ICANN's sponsored TLDs, of little general interest or value.
> >
> > Third, ICANN's beauty contests are simply subjective - remember how ".iii"
> > was tossed out because one member of the ICANN board had trouble
> > pronouncing it?  And .web has never been allowed in the door because the
> > proponents once stood up for what they perceived to be their rights and
> > raised that concern in a proper forum for the resolution of such
> > questions?
> >
> > Fourth, ICANN should not pick names - proponents of TLDs should simply be
> > granted "slots" to which they can assign an character string they want as
> > long as it is not already used.
> >
> > Fifth, let the law do what the law does.  If someone picks a TLD that is a
> > trademark, let the owner of the mark use existing trademark law to police
> > any offending concrete act of the TLD.  Who knows, a .FORD TLD might
> > actually be used to run a database of good places to cross rivers, a use
> > that might not constitute an offense under trademark law.
> >
> > Sixth, unadultrated auctions tend to give the prizes to the wealthiest.  I
> > personally like auctions, but I like my auctions to be mitigated by a
> > set-aside of at least a portion of the "slots" to be allocated by a
> > lottery mechanism.  Yes I know that lotteries can be biased by buying
> > strawman to act as ticket holder proxies for the wealthy.  But we can't
> > fix every problem and obtain perfection; I think auctions+lotteries is
> > good enough.
> >
> > I discussed many of these issues back in my "platform" when I ran for the
> > ICANN board in year 2000 (take a look at the "Domain Name Policy" links):
> >
> >   http://www.cavebear.com/icann-board/platform.htm
> >
> >   --karl--
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >

Regards,

--
Jeffrey A. Williams
Spokesman for INEGroup LLA. - (Over 134k members/stakeholders strong!)
"Obedience of the law is the greatest freedom" -
   Abraham Lincoln

"Credit should go with the performance of duty and not with what is
very often the accident of glory" - Theodore Roosevelt

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