[ga-org] Re: ensuring 'non-commercial implicit value' in .org

[Jeff Williams <jwkckid1@ix.netcom.com>]

Duncan and all,

Pruett, Duncan wrote:

> Alejandro Pisanty wrote:
>
> > Duncan, re commercial vs. non-commercial operator. Verisign's commitment
> > of 5 MUSD is to fund a non-commercial one; a commercial one will have to
> > stand on its own feet. Just for info.
>
> Thanks for the clarification. Then, in reference to yesterday's posting from
> me, I'd say that I was proposing that the names council, and ultimately the
> board, might want to decide that commercial applicants should not
> necessarily be excluded from applying.

  I see not good reason that commercial applicants to be restricted or
bias showed towards them for taking over .ORG.

>
>
> Kent Crispin wrote:
>
> > Not exactly true. The word "marketing" has been used, but it has been
> > used in the context of ICANN *requiring* a marketing plan on the part of
> > the prospective registry operator. Such a scheme, that is, requires
> > ICANN to enforce those conditions through contractual means -- that is,
> > it requires "policing" or "restrictions" on the registry.
>
> I don't think this necessarily follows, Kent. The contract between ICANN and
> the entity (registry operator/sponsor) might indeed require a marketing plan
> which has a certain focus, as discussed before. Would it therefore follow
> that the only way of testing for the existence and implementation of the
> marketing policy is by checking that only non-commercial entities were
> registering in ".org"? Surely not. Marketing is fuzzier than that. I would
> argue that the only guideline for assessing compliance with such a
> contractual obligation would be checking whether an "appropriate" marketing
> plan were in place. The challenge, instead, is to work out how to assess
> that appropriateness - a sponsor might be the one to do this. Or ICANN
> directly.

  ICANN has a trouble keeping it's web site up.  I don't think they are
a good potential choice for running a registry, none the less deciding
what entity should or can do so.

  As to determining what and "Appropriate" marketing plan is part of any
application for taking over the .ORG.  It is obvious beyond any
reasonable doubt that the ICANN BoD and staff are not capable in 
deciding what is or is not "Appropriate" with respect to marketing.  
And it is not for the ICANN BoD or staff to do as well.

>
>
> And then maybe, at a stretch, ICANN might want to assess whether the plan is
> successful. We could check whether ".org" is getting new registrations? At a
> higher rate than before? At the same rate as before? Or maybe less than
> before (since the appeal of ".org" may be more limited by the mandated
> marketing plan)?. This could be the first marketing plan in the world whose
> success is determined by the extent to which it reduces the popularity of
> the product among certain sectors...which suggest to me that an evaluation
> of marketing success would already be a step too far...

  Good point in conclusion here.

>
>
> As previously argued, a name in ".org" may indeed confer a "non-commercial
> image" on the registrant, without requiring the name holder to be a
> non-commercial organisation. If so, any registrant in a ".org" TLD would
> have chosen to register a name which confers a non-commercial image. That
> can all be done without going near the UDRP, since the TLD focus would be on
> whether someone _chooses_ to be in ".org", rather than whether they have
> _the_right_ to be in ".org".
>
> An interesting parallel comes from the APC networks
> (http://www.apc.org/english/about/work/index.htm). APC (born in 1990) is a
> network of organisations which run online communities for NGOs, trade
> unions, and other activists all over the world (including in many developing
> countries). In all APC members I have came across, anyone was allowed to
> join these communities (ie. no restrictions). But it was very clear that
> having an APC e-mail address associated a person with a certain commuity and
> with certain values. To exclude people who did not fit into a defined
> category would have made it a "club", and not a self-selecting community of
> people sharing certain values. I would imagine that having a name in ".org"
> would be similar (although broader, in terms of values and communities).

  Also a good point here as well.  It is seeming more and more that
the ICANN BoD and staff is behaving more like a "Club" than an
organization...

>
>
> In such a situation, the question is not whether you are attracting the
> "right" kind of registrants, but whether registrants have selected ".org",
> and all that it stands for.
>
> > If post-registration enforcement is used as a means of maintaining a
> > charter, then the problem becomes one of developing appropriate
> > enforcable guidelines, or finding a reasonable sponsor to develop and
> > enforce the guidelines. This is a non-trivial problem, but certainly a
> > solvable one.
>
> I admire your faith in the ability of anybody to come up with enforcable
> guidelines (whether those guidelines are enforced through pre-registration
> or via the UDRP). We believe, as I argued earlier this week, that although
> many solutions could be proposed, none would be either globally applicable,
> nor globally acceptable.

  I would tend to agree.  This is why we believe that any changes in the
practice and policy in registrations in .ORG, by whatever means, would
be a terrible mistake and end in legal wrangling and continued increase
rancor and discord towards the ICANN "Experiment"...

>
>
> __________________
>
> Duncan Pruett
> Information / IT Coordinator
> International Confederation of Free Trade Unions
> Tel: +32 (2) 224 0219
> GSM: +32 (477) 861 903
> http://www.icftu.org
>
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Regards,

--
Jeffrey A. Williams
Spokesman for INEGroup - (Over 118k members strong!)
CEO/DIR. Internet Network Eng/SR. Java/CORBA Development Eng.
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E-Mail jwkckid1@ix.netcom.com
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