Proposal for a new ORSC/DNSO project

[Einar Stefferud <stef@nma.com>]

It seems to me, given the content and tone of the NTIA "Cooperative
agreement with ICANN" that it is time for ORSC and DNSO.ORG to put
together a serious proposal to NTIA/ICANN to convene a Fair Hearing
Panel to take on the task of sorting out the facts relating to the
backlog of conflicting TLD registry claims.

The issues of the gTLD backlog has so far not been discussed in any
serious way that I know of, and it certainly was not discussed in any
serious way in Monterey.  Indeed, there ws no place in the results
from Monterey for prospective gTLD to have any kind of voice as a
stakeholder constituency.  This will have to be taken care of soon byt
the DNS community, or some otehr solution will have to be imposed from
otehr quarters.

At the DNSO.ORG meeting in Monterey, there was a solid consensus for
DNSO and for ICANN to enable Fair Hearing Panels for the purpose of
giving all concerned Internet stakeholders a voice with which to be
heard with certainty by those who will be making decisions on their
behalf.

One of the purposes discussed in Monterey, and often discussed in in
the past by ORSC, is the use of Fair Hearing Panels to collect,
analyze, and validate the facts regarding the mass of conflicts among
TLD contenders that have arisen over the last several years.  Indeed,
Fair Hearing Panels were included in the ORSC Bylaws as proposed to
NTIA, and have been on the ORSC agenda for most of the past year.

I propose that the time has come to initiate serious actions to put
the desired Fair Hearing Panels in place.  I suggest that this be done
by preparing a proposal to the NTIA and to ICANN for action under
their new Cooperative agreement.  

I propose that cooperative action now to resolve actual conflict
problems among the involved parties is one of the very best ways for
everyone to demonstrate readiness to proceed with transition of DNS
from US Govt control to Internet Community control.  And I propose
that those of us who are closest to the issues should take the first
steps to initiate action, while ICANN is still groping for its proper
place in the cooperative coordination management structures of the
Internet.

This cooperative effort should be focused on resolving all the TLD
conflicts so that sooner, rather than later, we (of the Internet
Community) can begin to add new TLD registries to the root and thus
remedy the underlying cause of all our problems, which is the market
structure failure created by restricting the expansion of TLD names
and thus spawning the NSI monopoly.

Monopolies are caused by market structure failures, and not the other
way around.  So, one of the early things we need to do is enable
expansion of the gTLD namesapce, and enable competition for NSI, and
thus reduce and someday eliminating the current monopoly situation.

So, how about putting together a joint DNSO/ORSC project team to work
on development of a Fair Hearing Panel Proposal for gTLD Conflcit
Resolution.

Cheers...\Stef