Thanks, Milton - of course the list of the arguments you reiterated are
known well.

But I would like to add my understanding of why Carlos might have come up
with his questions.

I must say I was more and more surprised - and definitely so during the last
ICANN meetings in Luxembourg - how many companies in different countries put
up their stalls and distributed their flyers how to sell, re-sell, and
register their domains all over the globe. There was even one company which
was able to produce a full soccer team for the evening exercises.

The time ICANN spends on handling the side effects of a scarcity of TLDs,
and the defensive registrations, sunrise and delete protecting measures, is
tremendous; I have the impression the whole business is going on based on
its own economic dynamics - and our own initial concerns to have domains as
an opportunity to self-expression, freedom of speech etc. has somewhat moved
out of the focus.

So that is why I think the questions of Carlos - with some re-wording -
merit consideration. Especially asking: what is our NCUC concern at the
present point of developments.

Norbert

=

Milton Mueller wrote:

> Carlos:
>
> I'm not convinced there is an "imbroglio" that needs to be "answered"
> through special and de novo institutional arrangements.
> Addition of new gTLDs has since 1995 faced the following questions.
> Each of these questions has been discussed intensively
>
> 1. How many? This one has pretty much been answered to everyone's
satisfaction, as I
> hope you would agree. NRC study, Paul Hoffmann, Vixie, Mockapetris and
> virtually every honest technical person agrees that it is technically
> possible to create anywhere between 90 or so per year to a million.
> Right now the consensus seems to be that the safest path is to create
> tens of new TLDs each year without any appreciable stability risk.
> 2. Impact on trademark holders
> The old argument about defensive registrations by existing name
> holders. We now know a lot about that, based on experience in com, net
> org, and in the new gTLDs info and biz. Basically, you can't really make
> a go of a new TLD business just by selling defensive registrations.
> ICANN itself commissioned a big study of this.
> http://www.icann.nl/tlds/new-gtld-eval-31aug04.pdf There will be some
> defensive registrations, but as the number of gTLDs increases the need
> for that diminishes. Still, a few big multinational TM holders want to
> own words and would prefer that no new name spaces be created. And there
> are all kinds of ways to protect vested interests with "sunrise" or
> challenge procedures, although some of those are illegitimate.
> 3. Process
> How should they be selected? Auctions, lotteries, beauty contests,
> achievement of sainthood, expert committees, etc. No resolution of that
> yet, but ICANN is right now taking that issue up. No doubt it will come
> up with a clumsy compromise. It would be better for you to introduce
> your opinions into that proceeding that to propose a "start from
> scratch" process that will never obtain support from Europe, North
> America, ICANN, private sector and most of ICANN-involved civil society.
> And if by some miracle it did happen, the results would probably just
> reproduce the evolution of opinion within ICANN, leading to a 4 year
> delay for no real purpose.  

-- 
Norbert Klein
Open Forum of Cambodia
Phnom Penh/Cambodia