[comments-gtlds] Proposal from some Latinamerican Organizations.

[Raúl Echeberría <raul@inia.org.uy>]

Commentaries. -

            These contributions are done from the point of view of Latin
American noncommercial organizations, and it does not try to be
representative of other organizations of different characteristics or
different regions.

            We agreed with many proposals included in group C  reports  as
far as we recognize the pressure that exists on the gTLD's, specifically in
the  com domain.

            We believe that the situation in USA and the rest of the world
is quite different since in the rest of the world the registry process in
ccTLDs is a valued and used alternative. Although all the companies or
organizations wish to have their SLD under a gTLD, in case of not being
available always exists the alternative of ccTLD.

            On the other hand, in the past, registering long domain names
looked as a very little advantageous from the point of view of marketing,
today is a frequently used option because we have not enough small words in
our languages. Now, we are having very long domain names under gTLD's
Thecreditcompany.com, zonafinanciera.com, thesportsauthority.com, etc,
demostrating that the added value of its services can compensate the
disadvantage of not having the best name.

            WE WANT TO STATE CLEARLY THAT WE UNDERSTAND THAT THE CREATION
OF NEW GTLDS IS IMPORTANT AND POSITIVE, BUT DO NOT SEE IN WHAT SENSE THE
SINGLE APPROVAL OF NEW GTLDS CAN BE POSITIVE FOR DEVELOPING COUNTRIES AND
NON-COMMERCIAL  ORGANIZATIONS. ALSO, WE NEED TO DEFINE THE PROCESS OF
CREATION AND ADMINISTRATION OF THE NEW GTLD

            IN FIRST INSTANCE WE WANT TO EXPRESS OUR SUPPORT TO THE
CREATION OF NEW GTLDS ONLY IF THIS HAPPEN IN THE FRAMEWORK OF A DEFINED
PROCESS OF CREATION AND ADMINISTRATION OF BOTH, THE GTLDS AND
REGISTRAR/REGISTRY SCHEME

            We thought that the creation of new gTLD's doesn't make sense
if the owners of the most important trademarks regitrate them under every
gTLD's. Low prices open the way to speculate (even more) with the new space.

            On that way, we are not solving the problem, and we are
compromising competitiveness of ccTLDs, which are very important for ours
countries. We do not agree in putting in risk the growth and stability of
ours ccTLDs if there is not a clear benefit, at least a well defined
framework.

In this sense we propose:

   1) Any person or organization may propose the creation of new gTLD's.
   2) To be considered the proposal must have the support of a predefined
amount of people or organizations.
   3) the  presentation of the proposal forced the board of the ICANN to
consider the opportunity or not to create this new gTLD.
   4) Once approved by the board of the ICANN the creation of the new gTLD
by procedures and support levels previously defined by the board, the ICANN
will open a public call to choose the registries(ars) for the new gTLD. The
organizations who apply must be organizations without profit aims although
they can have commercial objectives as the commerce chambers or non-profit
association of industralists. The reason for this is that the existence,
essence and stability of the new gTLD must relay on the contribution that
the new gTLD does to the registration and not of the favorable or
unfavorable conjuncture of a business. The organization must include in its
application form  the technical information and the politicies and criteria
that they will use.
   5) The received proposals, must include mechanisms that avoid the
irrational registration (or pre-registration) of new domain names under the
new gTLD, with the aim of having a profit selling this name. The first days
of registration (or pre-registration) will be very important for the
success of this new gTLD . The policies implemented must guarantee that
nobody, neither registries nor the clients could sent massive request
trying to monopolize the new resource.
   6) The ICANN must evaluate the applications and assign the
administration of the new gTLD using a procedure that mus be defined
evaluating the proposals that assure in better form the use of the new gTLD.
   7) If it were not being fulfilled the approved policies of the registry,
the ICANN will have the possibility  of modify the allocations of the new
gTLD's administration, 

            We support the creation of a limited amount of gTLD's in order
to be able to evaluate its operation and the acceptance of the market.

            We think that is not necessary to announce already a goal in
the amount of new gTLD's expected to have in the future, because will be
the actual behavior of registrations which going to indicate the need for
new gTLD's, and the evaluation of the first gTLDs is going to ve very
valuable.

The WG-C should keep working with the goal of developing proposals about
the procedures for the use and adminsitrations of new gTLDs, not only the
amount of them.

Best Regards,


Raul Echeberria
raul@inia.org.uy