Re: [wg-c] Re: nine principles for domain names

["Philip Sheppard" <philip.sheppard@aim.be>]

Thank you Eric for the analysis of the revised set of principles. Your
insight is helpful.

1. Classification of the principles
This was originally proposed by Karl Auerbach and your amendments which make
explicit the implied registrar role will be adopted. Also following Karl's
comments, your point on technical constraints was covered in the preamble to
the principles: "subject to
current technical constraints and evolving technical opportunities". This
point is pertinent to the findability principle. This principle may be
revisited when technical improvements mean net users no longer use the
domain name for this purpose. These are principles for today and today
findability is poor.

2. You make a lot of play of two national opinions (the White and USDoC
papers). These are of course relevant vis a vis ICANN but we should be
careful in interpreting their "sense" for the globe. Thank you for your
clarification that the principles on competition, diversity and multiplicity
are indeed within the sense of these papers.

3. Rejecting the principles because they do not apply to .com is a little
harsh. I hope that we are trying to learn from the errors of .com not
accommodate those errors.

4. You reject the differentiation principle as you believe this would
prevent "direct competition" with .com.  Effective competition with .com
will not be achieved with .com2. Dot com has first mover advantage and brand
equity. A .com2 will be second-rate. NSI would be very happy with such a
puny competitor.  Effective competition is achieved in any marketplace when
the new entrant offers value added over the existing players. Value added is
not achieved by duplication. Differentiation is what .com lacks and
differentiation will be the source of effective competition in the DNS. It
is likely this principle is absolutely within the sense of the White and DoC
papers.

5. Semantics.
I agree this point of all may be the most debated. Our sense in drafting it
is based on a belief that gTLDs are seen as having a global character. So
there is a responsibility for each gTLD to not view itself as an island, but
as a part of a greater whole.  We expect there to be a large number of
non-commercial gTLDs for diverse cultural groups. The languages or
characters used in the web pages of those groups (or even the sub-domains)
will be determined by the group. But we believe the gTLD itself will be
better integrated with all other gTLDs if the set of languages for all gTLDs
is limited. Creating exclusive, esoteric gTLDs seems to be out of step with
a system of global communication.

6. Simplicity.
We must be doing something right. The registrars told us that the principles
could be seen as a bureaucratic burden. Eric, tells us that we are being too
liberal. The key word in the principle is "overly". We recognise, like Eric,
there will have to be some burden and we simply caution against this being
too severe.

Philip