K:
Yours is a tough but justifiable position.
In favor of “abandonment,” there are a host of things about the new
gTLD process that are horrific and need to be resisted, including most obviously
the absurdly high costs and the MAPO (morality and public order) regulations,
which apparently even the USG thinks is straying too far out of scope.
On the downside, shutting down the
addition of new TLDs puts a brake on new entry into the industry, which is
especially harmful to those who want to come in with new IDN top level domains.
It caves in to the trademark interests, which I am sure you would not like. And
it also speaks to the failure of the bottom up process. It basically says that GNSO
is incapable of delivering a legitimate policy outcome, because a policy that
came out of GNSO with the requisite votes would be abandoned, and where does
that leave us?
I myself am a bit divided on the issue. On
Tuesdays and Thursdays I think we should join forces with those who want to
junk the thing, even if many of them are less than palatable allies. On the
other days of the week, I wonder what the heck ICANN’s so-called bottom
up policy process can deliver if it can’t deliver this. (Today is Tuesday
;-)).
About 75% of the problem is the staff’s
poor implementation of the general policy that the GNSO gave it. I think I
would prefer a middle ground, in which we concentrate fire on the staff
implementation and send the staff back to the drawing board (not the entire
policy) and in particular we get them to reduce the costs and to moderate the
MAPO stuff. But if the general constituency thinks that we should try to sink
the ship, I’d go along.
--MM
From: Non-Commercial
User Constituency [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of
Sent: Monday, December 22, 2008
5:11 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [NCUC-DISCUSS]
My personal view is that ICANN
should abandon the whole new gTLD process altogether – at least for the
time being – in order to address all the issues that seem to generate
concerns. From my reading of the proposal my understanding has been that ICANN
has voiced, but not quite addressed, the issues that would make the addition of
new gTLDs debatable. The proposal seems draft as in all three categories that
ICANN suggests there are serious legitimate objections that ICANN has not
managed to resolve. I think that this time ICANN’s effort can be seen as
a massive failure. Unlike the UDRP (still a policy making process falling
outside ICANN’s remit) which came straight from the MoU and was curing
the problematics of the former NSI policy as well as the general issue of
domain names vs trademarks, the new policy serves no such purpose. The way I
see it, it is an attempt of ICANN to politically position itself once again
only this time in a more substantial way. It is a very big move which at the
same time signals and offers some insight as to what ICANN is capable of doing
when it comes fully independent (after the expiration of the JPA).
If the new policy raises objections from the US Government and some part of the
trademark constituency then I think we need to put more pressure on ICANN and
we stand a better chance of having our voices heard.
Happy holidays to everyone.
Best
KK
On 20/12/2008 16:31, "
Well the news is partly good and partly
bad. As a whole the letter seems to be an attempt by NTIA to get ICANN to stop
or delay for another 2 years or so any addition of new TLDs. We know that lots
of business/trademark lobbies have been complaining loudly about the new gTLD
process. While the paragraph cited by Robin does indeed agree with our
position, the general upshot is “back to square one.” I would like
to solicit constituency comment: is this new gTLD process so bad that we want
to stop it altogether? In many ways this would have to be seen as a massive
failure – after 10 years, ICANN still cannot define an ongoing process to
add new TLDs?
From:
Non-Commercial User Constituency [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
On Behalf Of
Sent: Saturday, December 20, 2008
1:49 AM
To: [log in to unmask]">[log in to unmask]
Subject: [NCUC-DISCUSS]
The US Govt submitted its comments to ICANN on the introduction of new gTLDs.
http://forum.icann.org/lists/gtld-guide/msg00175.html
And the US Govt agreed with a point NCUC has been making
throughout this entire process. The
Interesting to say the least.
Best,
Robin
--
Dr.
Lecturer in Law,
GigaNet Membership Chair,
The
tel: +44 (0)141 548 4306
email: [log in to unmask]">[log in to unmask]