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