Re: [wg-c] Eureka?

[Milton Mueller <mueller@syr.edu>]

Kent Crispin wrote:

> there is only one name
> space.  Either it is planned, or it is not.  It is simply incoherent
> to say that it is planned, but that we allow free choice of names to
> some set of participants -- that free choice undermines any
> possibility of planning.

This is an extreme, ideological claim. All forms of public planning actually
combine free choice with constraints and standards, otherwise they are just bad
plans. People are going to make choices, and if your plan doesn't take that into
consideration it will fail.

More to the point, this is a working group, not a society for debating social
philosophy, as interesting as that is. We will never resolve ideological
differences about the role of planning in society. We need to agree on practical
proposals.

You have yet to explain what practical benefit to real Internet users accrues from
your so-called "planned" name space. Indeed, where is your plan?

Absent a plan, I am quite sure that the practical difference between your
so-called "planning" and the plans and choices made by registries who are able and
willing to operate TLDs is not very significant.

You think there should be 6 gTLDs. It is no secret that your favored 6 corresponds
to the IAHC list, minus (maybe) dot Web.

Now, in my model, Core offers itself as a shared registry to ICANN and says, "we
want to operate .nom, .shop, .info." IOD and perhaps Name.space offer to operate
.web. another company would probably claim .arts, and so on. There is room for new
ideas, however.

In your model, this committee says "we are authorizing .nom, .shop, .info., .web,
.arts and .rec." Your "plan" just means: accept the plan that the gTLD-MoU put
together two years ago.

There are indeed important differences between what you and I have in mind when it
comes to business models, exclusivity, and the degree of consumer and supplier
choice. But in terms of the structure of the name space, you are not proposing
anything significantly different.

Perhaps you do have some master plan for a perfectly structured name space tucked
away in your pocket. Perhaps it is the epitome of Cartesian rationality--it
anticipates anything anyone could possibly want from the name space, now and in
the foreseeable future. Guess what? By the time any "open, public process" gets
finished with that plan, it won't look anything like what you have in mind, and it
won't be any more rational than the supplier-driven additions that I am proposing.
Indeed, from a market point of view it will be considerably less rational.

End users have consistently rejected planned, organized domain name spaces in
favor of open, flexible ones. Most suppliers have shown little interest in them.
Do you not care what the people who actually pay for, use, and supply domain names
want?

> You have a
> tract of land, and you say part of it will be planned development,
> and part of it will be given to a developer to develop, free of any
> plan.  The planned part is to be for residential units.  The
> developer decides to build a toxic waste dump.  The two uses don't
> work together.  In fact, the use of the land as a toxic waste dump
> prempts the use of any of the nearby plots for most purposes.

FYI, these are called "negative externalities." Perhaps you can explain what
negative externalities would be created by the co-existence of shared and
exclusive gTLDs, or the co-existence of "planned" TLDs and unplanned naming
choices. It is hard to understand how the presence of unplanned name choices would
generate some Internet equivalent of "toxic waste"-- something directly harmful to
users or suppliers. Again, try to be specific and concrete. We need to progress.

What I think you really mean--and pardon me if this is a bit cynical--is that you
fear that if name choices and entrepreneurial activity is allowed, users will
choose the "free" names over your "planned" names. And therefore your plan won't
work.

In my book, if users don't conform to the plan, there's something wrong with the
plan. Choice on the Internet is not a negative externality. Choice is not a form
of toxic waste.

> Many people would like to treat the DNS as a wide-open frontier landrush,
> where we need to support homesteading capitalists, and give them the
> widest possible leeway to develop the wilderness.  But many others
> believe that we are well past that stage, and the shop keepers and
> farmers need a more settled and controlled environment.

We are well past the stage of small shop keepers and farmers. We are building
cities with skyscrapers. Large capital investments are needed.