RE: [wg-c] S/K principles [Was: Working Group C agenda]

["Winer, Jonathan" <JWiner@alston.com>]

Jonathan Weinberg, et al, I would like to take another crack at encouraging
this group to think through the implications of applying the S/K principles
to TLDs and registries. My earlier posting suggested that as a matter of
practice, enforcement would (likely) be handled differently among different
registries. I wish to expand upon the thoughts I had earler:

Seems to me there is likely to be little incentive for ICANN or any other
entity exercising a quasi-judicial regulatory function, to police how well
registries are carrying out their function of staying within their mandates,
except in cases of behavior sufficiently outrageous that substantial
consensus emerged that "something must be done" such as already has begun by
ICANN to deal with cybersquats. For the most part, whoever is administering
the tld will in practice self-regulate, and the market response to that
self-regulation will determine market niche and market success.

If one were to accept this view, the adoption of "principles" serves as
guidance not law; standards to be applied in general, but not immutably;
practices to be encouraged but where reasonable people may differ as to
application.

How the principles would be applied concretely comes down to concrete
registration mechanisms -- do you have a human mind reviewing the
applications, or just accept every formulation submitted electronically --
it's a choice the registry makes -- and dispute-resolution techniques used
by the registries when things go wrong, backed in extreme cases by the
possibility of revocation of administrative responsibility in the event that
a registrar's practices have created sufficient damage to the domain system
as a whole to create the juice for the sanction of revocation or suspension.

This approach vitiates the question of whether the principles are absolutely
precise, absolutely enforceable, absolutely the best possible formulation,
or have meaning. If they do not prove to have meaning in practice, what harm
will have been done? If they do, they will have added such value as they
add.

As to whether they should be inherent in a "charter" or only used to guide
in selecting new gtlds, as Bret A. Fausett's posting suggested, why not
both? Chris Ambler's characterization of this as a NSI monopoly protection
act need not prove to be true except to the extent that existing
registrations have already created global recognition of particular
trademarks for which it is a desirable thing for consumers that confusion
not take place (the dueling over the alta vista site was a real pain for
those of us who just wanted to use the browser but kept going to the wrong
place). I'm cautious about open or non-chartered TLDs, because of their
potential for abuse, but an experiment or two with them might answer some of
the questions with the thought that if things turn really ugly, consumers
can choice to avoid them, and if they turn out not to cause problems, we
will have learned something. 
   
Finally, on Tim Wee's issue of multilingualism, some bright software
designer will some day integrate into the domain name system an
auto-translation plug-in that makes .com and .org and .net readable whether
the characters used by the writer are in roman, Cyrillic, Arabic or Chinese
ideograms. In the meantime, anything we can do to foster multilingual TLD
selections is surely desirable.


-----Original Message-----
From: Jonathan Weinberg [mailto:weinberg@mail.msen.com]
Sent: Wednesday, April 05, 2000 11:31 AM
To: wg-c@dnso.org
Cc: philip.sheppard@aim.be
Subject: [wg-c] S/K principles [Was: Working Group C agenda]


	Summarizing the responses, so far, to my request for views on the
S/K
principles:

	Ten people have responded.  They seem to agree that, as a general
matter,
it would be good to have some meaningful set of principles to guide the
relevant ICANN body or process in selecting new TLDs or TLD registry/pairs.
 They're divided, though, as to whether *this* set of principles is a
useful one.

	Four people expressed support: Bob Connelly, Milton Mueller,
Jonathan
Winer (I think his understanding of the principles is that they *don't*
require a registry affirmatively to enforce its charter), & Kendall Dawson
(on the understanding that the principles would not apply to open gTLDs).

	Five people expressed opposition.  Kevin Connolly and Rod Dixon
opposed
the requirement that registries enforce limitations on registration.  Mark
Langston argued that there can be no adequate mechanism for telling whether
a registration is consistent with a TLD's charter - registrations in a
chartered TLD should be tied to the registrant's *identity*, not to the
content it provides.  Dave Crocker and Eric Brunner urged that the
principles are too vague, & incapable of concrete application.

	Finally, Tin Wee made the neutral statement that any version of the
principles adopted by the WG should speak to the issue of multilingualism.

	I suspect that the objections that have been raised by Kevin, Rod,
Mark,
Dave and Eric can't be addressed by redrafting.  As far as the
Connolly/Dixon/Langston objection is concerned, I'd expect Philip Sheppard
to view the requirement that registries enforce their charters as a
fundamental one, not something he could give up while maintaining the
principles' utility.  (Phil - am I right about this?)  And I think that the
set of principles that would satisfy Dave Crocker and Eric Brunner is so
different from this one that one couldn't get there using this set as a
starting point.  (Dave, Eric - am I right about this?)

	There haven't been very many responses yet, and for all I know a
groundswell of support for S/K is about to manifest itself.  But right now,
opponents outnumber supporters.  Obviously, if there's to be any chance
that the working group will in fact adopt the S/K principles as rough
consensus, a whole lot more people will have to express support.   People -
it's in your hands.

Jon


Jonathan Weinberg
co-chair, WG-C
weinberg@msen.com

NOTICE:  This e-mail message and all attachments transmitted with it may contain legally privileged and confidential information intended solely for the use of the addressee.  If the reader of this message is not the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any reading, dissemination, distribution, copying, or other use of this message or its attachments is strictly prohibited.  If you have received this message in error, please notify the sender immediately by telephone (404-881-7000) or by electronic mail (postmaster@alston.com), and delete this message and all copies and backups thereof.  Thank you.
=======================================================