Re: [wg-c] new TLDs

[Milton Mueller <mueller@syr.edu>]

This comment attempts to reply to Werner, Karl, Mark Langston, and Jeff S. on
new TLDs.

Karl is concerned about the regulatory/authoritarian concerns about chartered
TLDs that imply top-down definition and policing of registration criteria. I
share those concerns.

Werner suggests that very interesting things can be done with a .bank TLD if
domain names are used to replace SWIFT codes for example, or used as part of a
secure payment mechanism. I agree with him.

Karl and Werner appear to be arguing but I don't think their positions are
incompatible. The real key to a solution here is to have registry applicants --
not ICANN -- defining BOTH the TLD string AND the policy criteria that would be
used to register SLDs within it. This seems to correspond to what Karl calls a
"branded" TLD. In other words, industry associations, governments, commercial
businesses, or non-commercial organizations (Mark L.) come to ICANN with
proposals for TLDs. The nature of the organization does not really matter. Any
type of organization might be able to do something interesting with a TLD.
ICANN doesn't decide which one of these proposals is more "publicly beneficial"
than the other, it simply decides whether the registry proposal is technically
up to snuff and when there are conflicts over the same string it uses a
rationing principle to resolve it.

What should NOT happen is that ICANN decides upon a naming taxonomy first, and
then decides what will be the official charter for the names in that taxonomy,
and then picks a supplier. That's top down. And when ICANN's top-down authority
is linked to certification requirements in various industries involved in
global e-commerce we have the makings of an authoritarian nightmare, as well as
a set of choices that is bound to be badly out of synch with what end users
want.

In short, I am proposing this sequence:

[idea for TLD] --> [application for string] --> [ICANN delegation]

Some others are proposing almost exactly the reverse:

[ICANN selects string] --> [definition of charter] --> [delegation to some
organization]

That is why I disagree with Jeff S. when he proposes that ICANN (or this WG)
select 6 strings to start with. ICANN should be a string-taker, not a
string-maker.

This is an issue we will have to resolve, eventually.

--MM