RE: [ga] FW: Comment from the gTLD Registry Constituency

["Gomes, Chuck" <cgomes@verisign.com>]

Fact: An organization under contract with ICANN that is required to comply
with new policies imposed by ICANN is not impacted in the same way that an
organization that is not under contract.  They are not "equally" affected.
They are affected in different ways, one directly, one indirectly.

At the same time, that does not mean that the impact to those not under
contract is not important or even that it is less important.  In fact, I
would argue that the ultimate users (customers) are what it is all about
and, if businesses supporting those users ignore that fact, they will not be
successful over time.

In my opinion, a major problem with the current system of policy development
in the DNSO and more particularly the NC is that five out of seven
constituencies are on the user side of the equation and therefore are in a
situation where they can determine very significant policy issues that have
no direct impact on themselves.  Moreover, in the past year they have
regularly ignored input from those who are under contract, with little or no
regard to that input except to include it as a minority opposing opinion.
To be very frank, they often 'could care less' whether or not the businesses
that are contractually bound are impacted in a negative way as long as they
accomplish what they personally and politically want.  Moreover, they claim
to represent the interests of the broader user community but there is little
hard evidence to support that.  The truth is that they represent relatively
narrow interests at the expense of broader user interests.

What we end up with is a situation where a minority of vocal people have
undue influence over businesses that are restricted via contracts in terms
of what they can or cannot do.  It is extremely effective for the vocal
minority, but I do not believe that it is in the best interest of the
Internet community at large.  First of all, as many on this list have noted
many times, the most important users do not even have direct representation.
Secondly, it results in a non-viable business model for those under contract
because their mode of operation is controlled by outside special interests
rather than overall market forces.

Let me cite one specific example to illustrate what I am trying to say.
Consider the ongoing focus on Whois.  Where has most of the focus been in
the NC and its Whois Task Force?  It definitely hasn't been on the privacy
of registrants.  Why is that?  Isn't the privacy of registrants an important
issue?  Doesn't it impact huge numbers of registrants?  

It is critical that all users have strong influence in the policy
development process but the current system makes it too easy for a small
minority of users to capture the process and focus only on what they want.
It also is clear that it is very difficult to effectively involve "all
users" in the policy development process in a direct way. But there already
is a mechanism whereby the broad base of users can be represented: create a
system where users have real choices in their buying patterns and let them
speak through those choices.  Minimize the regulatory policy control to
those instances where it is clearly needed (e.g., security and stability of
the Internet) and let the market work freely.  Then and only then will users
be broadly represented.  Finally, those businesses under contract who ignore
the statements made by users in the marketplace will lose.

Chuck   

-----Original Message-----
From: Karl Auerbach [mailto:karl@CaveBear.com]
Sent: Friday, September 27, 2002 9:26 PM
To: 'ga@dnso.org'
Subject: Re: [ga] FW: Comment from the gTLD Registry Constituency


On Fri, 27 Sep 2002, Neuman, Jeff wrote:

> As the ERC properly realized, not all stakeholders are equally affected.

That is the same nonsense that told ValuJet and Alaska airlines that they
were affected more by the cost of their mantainence and freight loading
policies than were those who were merely passengers.

Those who use the domain name system are just as affected by it as those
who sell domain names - this is true whether measured on an individual or
cumulative basis.

(As an example of a large affect on a single domain name holder - One
could well conclude that the single DNS user IBM would be affected more
than the total value of neustar by the failure of "ibm.com" to work.)

The "mine is bigger therefore I get more say" argument is one that has 
been one of the primary sources of ICANN's failures.

		--karl--


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