[wg-c] Re: Oops --

[Milton Mueller <mueller@syr.edu>]

Government policy statements do not "advocate," they make decisions. The citation of commentary in such a decision is relevant only insofar as it supports a decision.

The decision made in the White Paper was to create a new internationally representative private sector corporation that would be responsible for making the decisions about TLDs. The White Paper itself did not make any decisions about the ultimate status of TLDs, except for com, net and org, which it did decide to make into shared TLDs.

Jonathan Weinberg wrote:

> Well, it's been a long day, and I made an assertion below that wasn't completely right. The Green Paper contemplated that new gTLDs would be shared; the White Paper reported -- and did not challenge -- commenters' strong support for that position. It's therefore fair to say that the White Paper contemplated, indeed advocated, shared gTLDs. I was incorrect to state otherwise (although I think it goes too far to say that the White Paper "mandated" them). OTOH, the White Paper was skeptical of the view that registry operators should be nonprofit, as in the "public resource" model.
>
> Jon
>
> Jon Weinberg
> Professor of Law, Wayne State University
> weinberg@msen.com
>
> -----------
>
> >>>>
>
>      This is a belated reaction to a note Kent posted to wg-c-3 last week. He
>      urges that we should have new gTLDs, but that the *only* ones to be added
>      for now should come from the CORE set, and should be operated by
>      not-for-profit shared-registry operators. Why? Because only that
>      decision, he explains, has sufficient consensus support to be adopted in a
>      reasonable time frame. I'm at a loss to understand this. I think there
>      would be little objection to including CORE gTLDs in the first dozen or so
>      rolled out. But the idea that we should include *only* the CORE gTLDs in
>      the ICANN root now, while rejecting any inclusion of proprietary gTLDs
>      until after the attainment of an unattainable consensus, strikes me as at
>      least as controversial as any other proposed approach. If we're to adopt
>      Kent's position, it will have to be on some basis other than its asserted
>      consensus support.
>
>      I'm also puzzled by Kent's assertion that the White Paper mandated that
>      new gTLD registries be shared. The White Paper took no position on this
>      issue, but, if anything, its discussion favors a system of "competitive
>      and/or for-profit" registry operators. Here's the key White Paper language:
>
>      >>>>>Both sides of this argument [whether new gTLD registry operations
>      should be run on a "competitive and/or for-profit" basis] have considerable
>      merit. It is possible that additional discussion and information will shed
>      light on this issue, and therefore . . . the U.S. Government has concluded
>      that the issue should be left for further consideration and final action by
>      the new corporation. The U.S. Government is of the view, however, that
>      competitive systems generally result in greater innovation, consumer
>      choice, and satisfaction in the long run. Moreover, the pressure of
>      competition is likely to be the most effective means of discouraging
>      registries from acting monopolistically.
>
>      Jon
>
>      Jon Weinberg
>      Professor of Law, Wayne State University
>      weinberg@msen.com
>
> <<<<



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