Re: [wg-c] Comments?

[Craig Simon <cls@flywheel.com>]

Hi Tony,

Yes, I've been reviewing the agreements and see that at least one
section of my proposal is incompatible, especially if the Registry
Agreement is going to be approved by ICANN on Nov 4. 

I personally don't see my proposal as so "far-fetched," except that it's
not likely to take this group by storm. It's not solidly in one camp or
the other; I suspect it reflects my views as a minority of one. 

The thrust of my thinking on this is that I have a predisposition in
favor of non-proprietary gTLDs, but that I'll accept a private gTLD
model for the sake of keeping the Internet's name space unified. Today's
proposal reflects my strong preference, but not my bottom line.

My earlier proposal was more oriented toward trying to build a specific
compromise, and it didn't do well. This one is an attempt to put forth
what I believe would be a more general and consistent policy for adding
gTLDs to the root, let the chips fall where they may.


On other matters.

It seems to me that NSI is the big material winner in today's
agreements. But ICANN gains as well, getting some income and the
much-needed boost of legitimation from signing such a detailed
arrangement with NSI and DOC. In fact, they all probably see each other
as very useful partners right now. 

In hindsight, it seems to me there were strong winds at the CPSR
conference that hinted how comprehensive this treaty might be. There was
something odd about Esther Dyson and Don Telage expressing such happy
agreement on an otherwise vague definition of consensus (It seemed very
strange to me at the time because it involved lots of talk about
ratification, and apparently nothing about execution).

Anyway, Tony, you've been talking about ICANN in the past tense for some
time. A slide in your presentation focused on ICANN's "unlawful and
abusive actions," and you told me you expected a crippling lawsuit
against ICANN within the next month. Now you're saying (elsewhere
online) that this deal "potentially reforms ICANN" (which suggests, by
the way, that you didn't have a lot of detailed foreknowledge of what
was coming).

It doesn't make much sense to put more time into this working group if
ICANN is certain to be blocked, but now it seems that NSI won't be the
party bringing suit. Who else would do it? In fact, ICANN and NSI
probaably need this working group now more than ever to help articulate
a new gTLD policy.

From the Agreement Summary:

"ICANN's authority to set policy for the registry may be terminated if
.... (c) the Department of Commerce concludes that ICANN has not made
sufficient progress towards entering into agreements with other
registries and NSI is competitively disadvantaged. "

I think that comment about "other registries" can be interpreted to mean
new gTLDs. I see no cause to suspend the deliberations of this working
group.

Craig Simon

"A.M. Rutkowski" wrote:
> 
>  >Principles to Guide ICANN's Delegation of gTLD Management.
> 
> Craig,
> 
> Clearly all of this - especially the far fetched
> provisions - need to be re-evaluated in light of
> the new agreement that defines ICANN's future.
> Most of these religious belief kind of provisions
> are non-starters, and many contrary to the agreement.
> 
> The fact sheet is a good place to start:
> 
> http://www.ntia.doc.gov/ntiahome/domainname/agreements/summary-factsheet.htm
> 
> --tony