Re: [wg-c] There is no "consensus"

[Javier SOLA <javier@aui.es>]

At 01:34 18/07/99 -0400, Jonathan Weinberg wrote:
>	Three thoughts:
>
>	1. A couple of recent postings seem to assume that we are choosing between
>authorizing 1) commercial/proprietary TLDs; 2) shared/nonprofit ones; or 3)
>some of each.  That's wrong, though, because the issue of whether TLDs must
>be {shared, unshared} and {for-profit, nonprofit) are separate ones.  ICANN
>could well decide that: [1] all new TLDs must be shared, because it
>benefits the consumer to have a choice of registrars; but [2] all new TLDs
>need *not* be non-profit, b/c it is for-profit registries that will be best
>motivated to offer good customer service, keep prices low, and otherwise do
>good things by virtue of competing for business with other TLD registries.
>Indeed, in a system with a substantial (but not huge) number of new TLDs,
>at least some of which are general-purpose, it seems to me that that would
>work pretty well.

John,

There is another way of having a registry to be efficient and assure
customer service. Give it to its customers.
In this case the customers are the registrars, it is in their interest to
assure that the registry works in the best possible way, that it never
stops and that it gives wonderful customer service to the registrars.

If you add another non-related owner to this structure, you will have
somebody whose interest is to get as much money as possible from the
registry. This can be done only in two ways 1) You reduce the expenses of
the registry, reducing quality of service 2) You increase the revenue
(price). Reducing quality of service goes against the interest of the
registrars and of the users, who will indirectly get worst service.
Increasing the revenue will ed up in higher prices for the users.

A registry that works on a cost recovery bases can very well have a
director whose head depends on reaching a given quality of service. It can
spend as much money as it wants on infrastructure and salaries to give the
quality of service that it wants to give. It will get the money back from
the registrars. It is the cost of giving good service. If the customers
think that he is overdoing it, they have the right to remove the director.
In a for-profit model a given amount ot money is assigned to expenses, and
the director (who cannot be fired by the customers) has to do what he can
with the alloted amount. 

And dont see the for-profit model to add any advantages, only brings
foreing interests in the economic model.

>	2. We've been caught up in an argument between the folks who argue that
>ICANN should pick the new TLD strings and then issue RFPs for folks to
>operate registries associated with those strings, and the folks who argue
>that ICANN should select new registry administrators and then let *them*
>pick the TLDs they think the market will support.  Javier urges that the
>former is the better approach, because that way it is "the Internet
>Community," rather than crass entrepreneurs, who will be doing the
>selection.  I'm skeptical about this, since it seems to me that it won't be
>the "Internet Community" doing the selecting — it'll be a few people,
>starting with ourselves, who will be acting in the *name* of the Internet
>community but surely will not be representative of it.  The ultimate
>decision will be ICANN's, and I don't especially think ICANN is shaping up
>as an especially good embodiment of the "Internet community."  Indeed, if
>we want the "Internet community" to make the decision as to what names to
>pick, the best way to accomplish that would be to get a whole lot of TLD
>names into the root and then let each and every person registering a new
>domain decide which ones he or she would patronize.  Some new ones would
>thrive; others would stagnate; and it would be the Internet community that
>decided.  Such an approach could easily accommodate both for-profit and
>non-profit registries.

We are a drafting committee. We are just the first part of a public
process. Whatever we come out with will be put out for public comment. It
will be announced by the constituencies and will reach most of the people
who have shown some interest in the process, and many more through them. 

All these people will be able to comment on what we have prepared (we MUST
make it simple). We will have to rework on our report after three weeks of
comments, and put a new report out, which will, again, be commented on,
then the Names Council will prepare a final report and send it to the Board.

ICANN will never decide "which" gTLDs are addded to the root. Deciding that
is the job of their DNS policy body, us.  They will either accept our plan
or not accept it, but, unless we royally screw up and are unable to present
a plan, ICANN should only approve or not aprovee our plan.

On the other hand. Having somebody pick up a gTLD arbitrarily is exactly
the oposite, not giving anybody a chance to choose, understand what the
needs of the Internet and the community are, deciding only on personal
economic factors of the prson choosing.... 

We are creating a process for public consultation. We are bending over
backards for openess, encouraging participation and global awareness... and
now we hear, inside all this open process, proposals saying that things
have to be decided behind close doors... let's use the structure that we
have put in place. 

>	I'm especially concerned about ICANN picking all of the new TLDs because
>it seems to me that this is the approach that centralizes the greatest
>degree of decisionmaking authority at the top.  I think it's important to
>expand the name space -- but as ICANN takes its first few halting steps, I
>don't think this is the time to give it any more decisionmaking power than
>it has to have.

Please correct me if I am wrong, but, are you saying that ICANN should not
pick the names... it should pick the guy who pick the names? I would
personally would not like to give ICANN such power, I rather have the names
choosen by as many people as possible in the most open possible process.

>	3. A few people have urged that we need to keep the number of new gTLDs
>small (say, 6 or 7) because trademark interests will lobby hard against a
>larger number.  To the extent that this thinking is based on "practical
>political reality," as opposed to the view that it would in fact be bad
>policy to add more than a small number of new gTLDs, it may be misplaced.
>Fact is, whatever number this WG may come up with, there will be folks from
>the trademark community lobbying ICANN to cut it in half, because that's
>where they see their interest. 

This will happen only if we are not able to reach consensus with them in
the working group. The WG is supposed to assure that no specific community
(constituency) is strongly opposed to the results, if these results affects
them directly.

Javier