[wg-c] Re: Chartered TLDs

["'Kent Crispin'" <kent@songbird.com>]

On Fri, Dec 24, 1999 at 02:27:32AM -0800, Roeland M.J. Meyer wrote:
> > Possibly, but not so far.  If the registry takes upon itself
> > the task of
> > deciding who gets a TLD, it also takes on the responsibility of being
> > involved in all disputes over a TLD.  In current objective reality,
> > registries and registrars are very anxious to avoid getting in the
> > middle of disputes -- it's a risky, money losing proposition.  Putting
> > those decisions off into some other authority allows the registry and
> > registrars to sidestep most of the disputes.
> 
> We both are advocating "chartered TLDs" but I think that we mean something
> entirely different by that term.

I am discussing at this point "sponsored" TLDs.  Charters and sponsors 
are different things -- not completely orthogonal, but mostly 
orthogonal. 

> Also by who has the authority to enforce
> the charter.

If there is a charter, the sponsor enforces it.  That puts certain 
constraints on the sponsor -- they have to be organizations that meet 
criteria of openness, fairness, representativeness, and the like.  In a 
way, they act as an ICANN surrogate. 

> In my proposal, I maintain that the TLD registry defines and
> enforces the charter with the root-registry providing over-sight.

It is so gratifying to find that you, Feld, and others are discovering
what many of the rest of us thought about a year or two ago  ;-) (You will 
find extensive discussion of chartered TLDs in the PAB email archives, 
and the model had been proposed much before that.)

Now the rest of us have moved on, of course... 

[...]

> Part of
> the TLD qualification process includes the presentation and review of a
> charter enforcement plan along with the definition of the charter. Absence
> of either one, or an inadequate enforcement plan, would invalidate the
> registry application.

Yep, that's precisely what I formally proposed back in, let's see,
November 1996, in a paper on a Shared Registry Licensing Authority (LA). 
This was before ICANN, before the gTLD-MoU, and before the terms
"registry" and "registrar" came to their current meaning:

  "Individuals and organizations that wish to become a registry for a
  new sTLD must submit an application to the LA, a charter for the sTLD,
  and an application fee of $XXXX [5].  Anyone may submit an
  application.  The LA accepts the application, and examines it for
  obvious problems, such as names with obvious intellectual property
  concerns, or charters that have problems [4].  If the application and
  charter pass this initial step, the application is published in an
  internet forum designated for this purpose, and a 60 day comment
  period ensues."

That's from 
http://songbird.com/kent/papers/draft-iahc-stldla-crispin-00.txt.

> Annual reviews are also specified that measure the
> extent to which charter enforcement is effective and an AQL (Acceptable
> Quality Level) rating is administered. The mechanism for enforcing the
> charter could be an outside validating agency, such as in MUSEUM, but it
> doesn't have to be.

If it isn't an outside validating agency ("sponsor"), then it has to be 
ICANN, which means bureaucracy and expense in ICANN.

> The key difference between us is that the TLD registry self-defines the
> charter. The root-registry only polices the TLDs enforcement mechanism on a
> quality-level basis, with penalties for sub-minimal performance. In your
> system, you want the root-registry to both define the charter and do the
> actual policing. I find the former to restricting and the latter too
> expensive [for the root-registry].

You know, sometimes I am dumbfounded at the difficulty of communication
-- it's clear that you totally misunderstand what is being proposed. 
The whole idea of sponsors is to get the "root registry" (ICANN) out of
the business (and the expense) of enforcement.  That is, not only 
do you have my position backwards, but I am miles ahead of you.

Incidentally, you can see my paper on the "root-registry" at
http://songbird.com/kent/papers/rza.txt -- that was Jan 1998 ;-)

-- 
Kent Crispin                               "Do good, and you'll be
kent@songbird.com                           lonesome." -- Mark Twain