Grande Milton,

Your conclusions do not corresponding to my proposal (no surprise
here!). I have not used the adjective "indefinite". I trust a WG can be
assembled in a relatively short term and can reach conclusions in 2-4
months. Also, it is wrong to interpret my proposal as coming from
someone who is afraid of more TLDs. To the contrary, I am sure technical
arguments used today to justify keeping TLDs scarce are just paying lip
service to the TLD business.

And the effect will be the contrary -- one of the results will be to
create conditions for a much larger g/sTLD space, in practice turning
these commodities far less scarce and much cheaper (or free) in $$$
terms. And ICANN will better look for other sources of income :) but by
then I trust the USG will be wise enough to have signed a host country
agreement and allowed the transformation of this TLD brokerage house
into a real governance organization.

And about veto power, do you prefer the ridiculously clumsy approach of
today, in which after approval ICANN gets bashed and gets firm demands
for not activating approved TLDs for not considering the many sides of
the question in its decisions?

Despite claims to the contrary, the issue has *not* been discussed
"extensively". A bit so only within the realm of the ICANN system, but
by no means in the broader context (which is from where most of the
questioning is coming, because is where these decisions impact in real
life).

Finally, if we do not achieve all of my proposal, we might for example
not get a moratorium (although I bet even Dr Cerf is thinking about it)
achieve something which would already be far better than the
"petit-comité" instance in which these things are always discussed and
decided -- a working group to open up all issues, questions, and
criteria to broad discussion.

What are you really afraid of??

frt rgds

--c.a.

-----Original Message-----
From: Milton Mueller <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask]
Date: Tue, 27 Sep 2005 09:36:47 -0400
Subject: [NCUC-DISCUSS] [Fwd: Re: [NCUC-DISCUSS] Brainstorming on an
answer to the  gTLDs imbroglio...]

> >>> Norbert Klein <[log in to unmask]> 09/27/05 6:08 AM >>>
> >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; 
> 
> The solution to that is NOT to call for an indefinite moratorium that
> prolongs artificial scarcity. I see no connection at all between your
> diagnosis and Carlos's proposal. 
> 
> Defensive registrations and sunrise issues would only be worsened by
> Carlos's approach - it would prolong the idea that TLDs are some rare
> and dangerous thing that have to be micromanaged in their
> introduction,
> and that every interest group in the world gets to claim some kind of
> veto power or special privilege in their introduction. No. 
> 
> Delete protection is important for EVERYONE in this market,
> commercial
> or noncommercial. If you change your registrar (which is an important
> right, to foster price and service competition). But be clear about
> this: delete protection has absolutely nothing to do with new TLDs.