Re: [wg-c] S/K principles

[Eric Brunner <brunner@world.std.com>]

Responding to Philip Sheppard's two contributions at the closing bell.

------- Forwarded Messages


> The debate on the nature of competition and whether the differentiation
> principle curtails competition is a key debate. The basic point of
> disagreement seems to be as follows:
> 
> Is the strongest competitor to dot com a replica of dot com or something
> that is different to dot com?
> 
> The replica argument is that dot com has a privileged position today and
> needs a competitor with a similar position. But this answers just one aspect
> of competition. Competition is dynamic and time is another aspect. Dot com
> has first mover advantage. A replica will be always be weaker. The market
> will consider it second best unless the competitor offers something more.
> 
> The differentiation argument recognises that strong competition comes from
> the new entrant offering something better - "value added". Consider, any
> off-line example. Do car manufacturers produce copies or do they try to make
> better cars in the same category?
> Do brands of soap powder claim to be the same or better than each other by
> way of formulation?
> 
> The differentiation principle seeks to ensure competition to dot com will
> add value to the name space not imitation. Dot com's key advantage is that
> it is first mover. Its key weakness is that it lacks differentiation, it
> leads to confusion, it is known as the home of the international bank but
> also the pornographer. Different can be wide or narrow. That is the choice
> of the registry. There is nothing in the latest Weinberg draft of the
> principles to stop .web, .biz  or .naa so long as their proponents have an
> idea about what they want to achieve with these names. We have the
> opportunity to move away from the anarchy of dot com. Lets take it.

An alternative phrasing is that WG-B, Sheppard, Kleiman, Meuller, and any
one else placidly putting their chop on S/K simply got their priorities
wrong -- being friendly to cute names is not equivalent to attempting to
create a market in which NSI evolves over time from monopoly to something
else.

The issue isn't whether any draft "stops" some sectorially suggestive or
well-known gTLD proposal, but whether this working group adopts a position
that ICANN ought not authorize any possible registry/registrar model to
undertake to establish one or more brands and to market these brands,
distinguished from NSI brands only by a differentiation in label and by
differentiation in non-sectorially-specific characteristics.

	A brand of "moc" with a _lower_price_ product is out under S/K
	A brand of "ocm" with a _PKI_bundled product is out under S/K
	A brand of "mco" with a _higher_price_ product is out under S/K
	A brand of "omc" with a _ISP/web/OS/hardware_ product is out under S/K
	A brand of "cmo" with a _profits_to_charity_ product is out under S/K
	...

If there were a "Position Paper Z", calling for a cease-fire between all
the scratching, bitting, squabling, sordid collection of rabid skunks and
half-wits which have taken up arms in the DNS Wars to open a registry this
year and get simple parity with NSI's annual turn-over by the simplist and
most expeditious means possible, S/K would stop that.

Of course, the "THE_MARKET_WILL_PROVIDE" voice-from-a-bush has the same
effect, as does the "ANY_ROOT_BUT_ICANN" chorus-of-hermitic-clams, and
the "CAPITALIZATION_OPTIONAL_ME_FIRST" cacophany-of-sparrows.

Philip wants to lead WG-C away from anarchy. This is a different leadership
proposition than one which leads away from monopoly. Offering different
leadership propositions from those addressing monopoly appears to be WG-C's 
best and brightest product.

Philip does have my admiration, his proposal that ICANN carry on in the
large the charming activity that has passed for "work" in WG-C for the
past two months has been more effectively marketed than any other proposal,
including mine, that we simply start without principles or blinders and
get accustomed to creating new registries.

------- Message 2


> Jon,
> Thanks for your work on this. I support your re-draft of the principles and
> the further clarification to principle 1.
> 
> So the principles as revised by WG C now read:
> 
> Proposed rough consensus item #1:
> 
> The initial rollout should include a range of top level domains, from open
> TLDs to restricted TLDs with more limited scope.

Philip and all the rest of the IP chorus have voted against this every time
it has been on the table. Why is it on the table again?

> Proposed rough consensus item #2:
> 
> Criteria for assessing a gTLD application, subject to current technical
> constraints and evolving technical opportunities, should be based on all of
> the following principles :
> 
> 
> 1. Meaning: An application for a TLD should explain the significance of
> the proposed TLD string, and how the applicant contemplates that the new
> TLD will be perceived by the relevant population of net users.  The
> application may contemplate that the proposed TLD string will have its
> primary semantic meaning in a language other than English.

Fairly innocuous though string-centric, as the interesting questions are
operational. A harmless parlor game for non-actors on the remote periphery
of the DNS Wars who think creating a registry or a brand is as simple as
having a "good idea". Vanity labels in the root instead of in SLDs, where
they are now.

Oblig NAA check -- "na'a" means "mom" in Siksika, and is also an acronym
for "North American Aboriginal" -- a label Indians/Aleuts/Inuits/Metis/...
can live with. The contemplated perception of net users is that the TLD is
a pan-tribal public-service institution, the root of on-line Indian Country,
and offering a higher level of trust than competing service and product
bundles marketed by non-Indians, and a broader level of service than tribal
specific or for-profit service and product bundles.

> 2. Enforcement: An application for a TLD should explain the mechanism for
> charter enforcement where relevant and desired.

Ignoring Milt's creative claim that policy transforms the policed into
property, this is better than simply harmless pretense. What is missing
is a link from the policy and/or jurisdictional enforcement mechanism
specific to the delegated registry, and the mechanism specific to the
delgation registry. There is little point pretending that here we are not
simply dealing with some variation on first-come-first-served, where the
temporal scope of policy is restricted to "time of SLD application", but
grappling with the larger problem of ongoing law enforcement, hence of a
creation of registry-specific private law, derived from a delegating
private law. 

Oblig NAA check -- self-selection, registrar scrutiny, 3rd-party challenge,
recourse to the UDRP, and final recourse to the registry operator or the
designates of the operator, a Contract Tribal Court.

> 3. Differentiation: The selection of a TLD string should not confuse net
> users, and so TLDs should be clearly differentiated by the string and/or by
> the marketing and functionality associated with the string.

A blunder. A stupid way of saying that WG-C works for NSI, but isn't smart
enough to manage to get paid to do so. Marketing is not just a catchy label,
it is the product, services and process of P&S creation and support. I guess
it is natural for clods in the trademarks professions to think that marks
alone are marketing.

Oblig NAA check -- the word "Belgian" does not appear in the label "NAA", but
net users looking for the Union of Norway, Andorra and Austria may experience
some discomfort.

> 4. Diversity: New TLDs are important to meet the needs of an expanding
> Internet community.  They should serve both commercial and non-commercial
> goals.

Why is this here? This has already been established by WG-C and the US DoC's
colored papers.

Oblig NAA check -- Indians are poorly served by NSI, the IANA, or the .CA
registry operator.

> 5. Honesty: A TLD should not unnecessarily increase opportunities for
> malicious or criminal elements who wish to defraud net users.

Does anyone have a fraction of a clue as to what this means? Is it honest to
pretend to know what this means?

Oblig NAA check -- dishonest non-Indians will be encouraged to use the .BE
ccTLD, not the .NAA gTLD. Dishonest Indians will be offered their choice of
being shot or made Belgian. It's traditional.

> 6. Competition: The authorization process for new TLDs should not be used
> as a means of protecting existing service providers from competition.

More wasted space. As if denial were a substitute for difference.

Oblig NAA check -- we're wasting time playing three card monty.

> Proposed rough consensus item #3:
> 
> WG-C recommends that the Names Council charter a working group to develop
> policy regarding internationalized domain names using non-ASCII characters.

I'll wait on the IETF work, thanks. If the NC wants to waste resources it is
always free to do so.

------- End of Forwarded Messages

Cheers,
Eric