[comments-gtlds] forwarded for John C. Lewis (Comments on the Draft WG-C Report from the Business & Commercial Constituency)

[Jonathan Weinberg <weinberg@mail.msen.com>]

>From: john.c.lewis@bt.com
>To: jsola@aui.es, weinberg@mail.msen.com, wg-c@dnso.org'
>Cc: bcdnso@bcdnso.org
>Subject: Comments on the Draft WG-C Report from the Business & Commercial
>         Constituency
>Date: Mon, 10 Jan 2000 18:14:30 -0000
>Importance: high
>X-Mailer: Internet Mail Service (5.5.2651.23)
>
>Javier, Jon,
>
>Please see below a summary which seeks to represent the views of members
>from BC who have been involved in the dabte and were able to contribute to
>the search for consensus.
>
>BUSINESS & COMMERCIAL CONSTITUENCY OF THE DNSO
>
>SUBMISSION ON THE CREATION OF NEW gTLDs
>
>
>The members of the Business and Commercial Constituency have been working
>for some time to identify a consensus among their members on the issues
>surrounding the introduction of new gTLDs. They have been active both
>through the WG-C discuss group, at ICANN DNSO events and in some cases
>through participating as authors of papers. BC members are also active in
>Working Group B on Famous Names and recognise the linkage between these two
>groups. Some members of the BC constituency participated in a conference
>call to seek consensus on the position of this constituency. This summary
>represents the views of those BC members who actively participated in the
>discussions but does not reflect views of the whole B&C membership. Some
>members may also submit their individual statements to the WG-C directly.
> 
>SUMMARY
>
>The majority of the Business and Commercial constituency participants favour
>deferring the creation of additional gTLDs until a number of major obstacles
>have been satisfactorily resolved in a substantial manner. The BC does not
>consider that the summary of the co-chairs adequately reflects the consensus
>of participants in the WG-C discussion, in particular regarding the
>pre-conditions which need to be fulfilled, and the timing and quantity of
>new gTLDs which should be trialled. There is wide agreement in this
>constituency that the conditions for the introduction of new gTLDs are not
>yet in place to meet fully the diversity of business needs. 
>
>A high degree of consensus exists between the participants in the Business &
>Commercial constituency audio-conference that:
>
>		1.	The case for introducing new gTLDs has not been made
>in a convincing manner, particularly relating to the exhaustion of
>name-space.
>		2.	There are significant problems with the introduction
>of new gTLDs that need to be resolved before implementation, in particular
>taking into account business requirements such as the effective
>implementation of the UDRP and international business practices such as
>jurisdictional domains.
>		3.	When these problems have been satisfactorily
>addressed a very small number of new gTLDs could be introduced.
>		4.	The Business and Commercial constituency recommends
>that there should be a thorough examination of the implications of adding
>new gTLDs before any decision is taken.  These new gTLDs should be
>introduced on a trial basis and only cover a narrowly defined area but run
>under total quality operating procedures. 
>		5.	We are in general agreement that there must be
>defined and established criteria before any new gTLDs are introduced.
>Various proposals have been made on what the criteria should be.   The
>determination of the criteria and the scope of the criteria is still being
>discussed in the BC and we look forward to continuing our work, and to
>providing further input to the NC, if we are able to develop further
>consensus."
>		6.	There should remain a single registry function that
>remains a sole source function, owned as a core responsibility by ICANN. The
>technical database management function should be contracted out on a
>commercial basis, under competitive tender and only for defined periods.
>
>The Business and Commercial constituency participants in this discussion
>concur that while we contributing comments to WG-C, we have reservations
>about the way in which this project has been undertaken and the basic
>approach that the WG has taken to this subject. There is also concern that
>the main participants in the WG-C debate are sufficiently representative of
>the customers for Internet services, as opposed to the suppliers. This
>raises doubts over the validity of the procedures employed in WG-C and
>conclusions from the debate. The WG-C debate must become more inclusive of
>active participants from users of Internet services to assure that the
>founding principles of broad representation that ICANN and the Names Council
>were established under exist in fact as well as spirit.  WG-C must thus
>re-evaluate its procedures and review the scope and conclusions of debate to
>assure that they are neutral, inclusive and representative of the user as
>well as supplier communities.  A separate paper on this topic with suggested
>next steps will be prepared by the Business and Commercial Constituency.
>
>Reservations:
>
>Some companies and associations have expressed concern that they have not
>had sufficient time to gather the views of many of their members. Some of
>those who have expressed their view object to the addition of new gTLDs,
>while other members support the proposition. 
>
>John C Lewis
>WG-C Rapporteur
>Business & Commercial Constituency
>
>
>
>
>