Re: [wg-c] straw vote -- question one results & call for votes on remaining questions

[Milton Mueller <mueller@syr.edu>]

John Charles Broomfield wrote:

> To the question of how many/how fast?
> I favour an approach that starts slowly, and builds up speed, with a
> target of adding a largish number of gTLDs (g as in generic) to the
> root (200-2000?).

The notion of a pre-announced "target" that is on the large side(200-2000) makes our views on Q1 fully
compatible. So if you
don't like being pigeonholed as Option 1 or 2, I don't care
either. What's important is that we can agree on this. I suspect
William could, too. I suspect that most of the Option 2 voters
could.

> Please note to what I am responding. The question I am responding is that
> which I place at the beginning of the paragraph. It is *only* about HOW MANY and
> HOW FAST. There is NO discussion on who "gets" the gTLDs (g as in generic),
> or if companies that have setup zone files in the past/present with certain
> terminations should have or not privileges, or how to choose the registry
> operations company, or shared vs non-shared, or anything else.

Yes, but to some of us the issue of gTLD number cannot beseparated from the issue of how many competing
registries
there will be.

You attempted to dismiss my concerns about this issue in an earlier
post by saying that a .law registry would not compete with a .sport
registry.

Think about this a little harder.

A market structure that has four or five operational
registries in the first stage, when there are only, say, 5 or 6
new gTLDs, has vastly more potential to be competitive
than a market into which only one new registry has been allowed.
This is true regardless of whether there is substitution among
the gTLDs.

As you yourself advocate, ICANN may want
to rebid registry rights from time to time--if so, doesn't it
make sense to have lots of registries already in place out
there? Doesn't that increase ICANN's competition options?

Also, once a registry is established, new gTLDs can be added
into its operations far more easily than starting from scratch.
And some of those new ones (the other 195-1995
you want added) could indeed be "competitive" e.g.,
.per vs .nom.

And finally, the political environment is much different
when there are multiple registries authorized than when not.
I can spell this out for you in more detail, but it's
hard to do so without casting aspersions on certain
interests, so I'll leave it at that.