<nettime> [Random-bits] ICANN discussions on new non-commercial TLDs

[James Love <love@cptech.org>]

This is a note from the nc-TLDS discussion list, on the creation of 
new non-commerical top level domains.  Jamie
---------------------------------------

Subject: [Nc-tlds] ICANN discussions on non-commercial TLDs
       Date: Thu, 13 Apr 2000 10:46:15 -0400
      From: James Love <love@cptech.org>
 Organization: http://www.cptech.org
        To: Non-commercial TLDs <nc-tlds@venice.essential.org>

ICANN's policies on new top level domains are supposed to come from a
"bottom up" self governance model.  Here is some explanation of that, plus
a note on the discussions in ICANN's Non Commercial Domain Name Holders
Constituency (NCDNHC), that I find quite distressing. 

1.  ICANN has a "names council" made up of 7 different constituency
groups.  These are: 

   gTLD registries (right now with NSI as only member) 
   ccTLDs registries (the 2 digit country code registries, some
non-profit, some businesses) 
   registrars (the businesses that register domains) 
   Commerical and Business entitites
   ISPs and connectivity providers (businesses that provide ISP type
services) 
   Trademark, intellectual property and anti-counterfeiting interests
(speaks for itself) 
   Non-commerical domain name holders constituency (NCDNHC) 

So it should be obvious that the names council is stacked in terms of
commerical interests. 


2.  Within the NCDNHC, there are apparently about 100 member
organizations, and lots of membership applications that have not been
acted on.  There are three persons elected from the NCDNHC to ICANN's
Names Council.  The person with the most votes was YJ Park, who is a
member of this discussion list.  There is also Kathy Kleiman from the US,
who is a lawyer with a big firm, who is the rep from the Association for
Computer Machinary (ACM), and Zakaria Amar from Africa. 

YJ Park was the biggest vote getter, with 34 votes, followed by Zakaria
Amar, who had 30.  Kathy Kleiman (20), the only US person, barely edged
Vany Martinez (17) and Dany Vandromme (18).  There is no one from Europe
or Latin America.  Among the NC members, YJ Park is by far the most
assertive on the NCDNHC list. 

Lots of people on the NCDNHC list have nothing to do with civil society
NGOs.  Not only are there lots of individuals who have not been approved
as members, but you have industry people with "boat club" memberships,
tons of Internet Society Chapters filled with various industry types,
people working for various government agencies, and lots of commerical
groups or country code registries. 


3.  Several persons on the NCDNHC list are attacking the notion on new
TLDs for non-commerical purposes.  Park is quite aggressively pushing for
a position that there will be only 1 in the testbed, .ngo, and she is
opposed to ones that would address specific agendas, like .union,
humanrights, etc. 

4.  There is a very big attack on new TLDs that use english names.  union
is being attacked because there are lots of different spelling of union or
somewhat different meanings in different countries.  One person suggested
there should be 250 different language versions of union in the root, or
none at all.  (This from the person who runs the .nu ccTLD registry). 
None of these attacks so far have offered concrete alternatives for a
single name that would be better.  The putative issue is "we don't like
english taking over the world."  Some have suggested this is simply a
tactic to block new TLDs.

5.  People who work for or have other ties to the ccTLDs are also
explicitly trying to block new TLD on the grounds that it will undermine
registrations in the ccTLD space.  The .ch China registry is very blunt
about this, and I'll post that message to this list, to illustrate the
flavor of this discussion. 

6.  Others seem to be advocating blocking expansion of the root because
they think Asia and other regions of the world need to "catch up" with the
US, before new space is opened up, so the US doesn't dominate it.  The
language issue becomes one way to blocking things.  Some are insisting
that we don't do anything until we have non ascii type TLDs in play.  Or,
suggestions are made for impossible demands that every new TLD work
perfectly in every language in culture.  There is also appears to be a
tendency to have ICANN's NCDNHC's micromanage certain details of a new TLD
proposal, the language issue being one aspect, but there are also people
who want to impose their personal views "how the Internet should work" to
everyone, or to block things that they don't understand or personally
benefit from. 

7. Conflicts of interest seem to be widespread, but not transparent. 


This is a pretty critical description of the discussions on NCDNHC list,
and I could have made it more upbeat and positive, and indeed, I hope
things will improve.  However, it is important to note that there are many
forces in this group that are opposed to moving forward, and want to block
all sorts of things for all sorts of reasons. 


At some point there may be new consensus calls on the NCDNHC list.  It
would be good if real civil society NGOs could actually join the NCDNHC,
and participate in the votes.  This isn't a trivial part of the ICANN
structure.  It would also be good if people from real NGOs would speak up
on the list from time to time. 

 Jamie



Subject: 
       Opinion from China regarding new gTLD.
   Date: 
       Thu, 13 Apr 2000 10:33:05 +0800
  From: 
       "YJ Park" <yjpark@aptld.org>
    To: 
       <ncdnhc-discuss@lyris.isoc.org>




============================================
FYI, Opinion from CHINA which has totally different voice
regarding new gTLDs and

to avoid some misunderstanding about my position,
I also attached my response to China message.
============================================

Dear APTLD Non-commercial members:

    ICANN is planning to expand gTLDs. I don't think this is a good idea
for most of the countries and ecomomies. The existing gTLDs such as .COM
NET and so on are historically formed. Initially, these gTLDs were set for
being used in US. During the early time of the Internet, when people
outside the USA want to use Internet, they have to be registered in these
gTLDs. 

    Now things are changed, every countries or ecomomies have their own
ccTLD. If .COM is too crowded, people can register their Domain Name under
their ccTLDs. 

    Setting up NEW gTLDs will be a bad practice: 

1, If a company XXX is registered under .FIRM because there is no space
for it to register under .COM, when users need to connect to their WEB
page, they normally try WWW.XXX.COM first, then WWW.XXX.FIRM. This is not
efficient. 

2, The NEW gTLDs will be surely tightly controlled by the ICANN, because
they controls the ROOT. 

3, The NEW gTLDs will attract more and more companies from their country
(or ecomomy) ccTLD. Taking China as an example, China will pay more money
to the registries (I don't think that ICANN will give the registries of
the NEW gTLDs to China). And when resolving the Domain Names, it will need
more international traffic. The expensive international link (payed also
for example by China)  will be wasted. 

4, For being easily found by users, the companies already registered in
COM will surely want to register in the NEW gTLDs. This kind of
duplication will make the NEW gTLDs a nonsense. 

5, For the developing countries (economies), many of their conpanies have
not been connected to the Internet yet, when they need a name in the
future, they have to buy their name from developed countries.  This is
unfair. 

    In my opinion, we do not need gTLDs except .INT. Let companies to
register their name under their ccTLDs. This will make things more simple
and more fair. Presently, most of the disputes are caused by gTLD. The
ccTLDs are very well managed by different countries (economies). 

Hualin Qian from CNNIC

============================================================

Dear Hualin Qian and all,

This is my 2 cents thought on this position. 

>     Now things are changed, every countries or ecomomies have their own
> ccTLD. If .COM is too crowded, people can register their Domain Name
> under their ccTLDs.
>
>     Setting up NEW gTLDs will be a bad practice:
>
> 1,   If a company XXX is registered under .FIRM because there is no 
> space for it to register under .COM, when users need to connect to 
> their WEB page, they normally try WWW.XXX.COM first, then WWW.XXX.FIRM. 
> This is not efficient.

This is based on the reality right now.  However, if we imagine 5 years
later, people are all aware of .shop, .firm as well as .com. So, this
issue will not be that much problematic. 

The beauty of new gTLD is you can have more choice. 

> 2, The NEW gTLDs will be surely tightly controlled by the ICANN, >
because they controls the ROOT. 

Yes, so far.

> 3, The NEW gTLDs will attract more and more companies from their country
> (or ecomomy) ccTLD. Taking China as an example, China will pay more money
> to the registries (I don't think that ICANN will give the registries of
> the NEW gTLDs to China).

WHY NOT?

If you are interested in this and ready to carry out this, no reason or
right for ICANN to reject China nor any other Asia registry. 

If they intentionally or politically don't choose us, we, Asia, will not
be as quiet as we had been in the name of APTLD(APDN).:-) 

> And when resolving the Domain Names, it will need more international 
> traffic. The expensive international link (payed also for example by
> China)  will be wasted.

Most people in China including myself, we are dreaming of "ONE BILLION"
power can show your power on the Internet.  And then you would realize how
desperately you would need such kind of new space not only ccTLD but also
gTLD. 

What we have to understand is all the decision should be made upon
Internet users rather than any entity or country. 

That's why we APTLD has been soliciting your participation in this
Internet Governance to have more distribiuted way of decision making
process instead of US-driven process. 

In conclusion, if people want to have this, I don't think there would be
no compulsive way of preventing this. 

People out there who embarked on the NET earlier than us, they have been
thirsty for new spaces, which I think we have to understand. 

> 4,  For being easily found by users, the companies already registered 
> in COM will surely want to register in the NEW gTLDs. This kind of 
> duplication will make the NEW gTLDs a nonsense.

This is strongly related with Famous marks issue which is being discussed. 
However, the situation is likely that new gTLD is coming soon. 

Then, what should we do?  We have to prepare not to lose more. 

> 5, For the developing countries (economies), many of their conpanies 
> have not been connected to the Internet yet, when they need a name in 
> the future, they have to buy their name from developed countries.  
> This is unfair.

TRUE.

So, if we admit we cannot block the forthcoming deluge with our fingers,
we have to take actions to decrease this kind of damage. 

>  In my opinion, we do not need gTLDs except .INT. Let companies to 
>  register their name under their ccTLDs. This will make things more 
>  simple and more fair. Presently, most of the disputes are caused by 
>  gTLD. The ccTLDs are very well managed by different countries 
>  (economies).

It is already out of our hands, man.:-(

Regards,

YJ

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