Hi Fouad, The struggle of ccTLDs in the developing world has been my research interests. Some of their stories are available in the following article. http://ijclp.net/files/ijclp_web-doc_10-13-2009.pdf It willl be great to talk to you more on this offline. Sincerely, YJ On Thu, Jul 9, 2009 at 9:01 AM, Fouad Bajwa <[log in to unmask]> wrote: > Distress with ICANN ccTLD Contracts for developing world regions: > > There is also another important issue that is dividing the > stakeholders in developing world countries. For example, in the case > of the ccTLD Manager in Pakistan for .pk is causing a lot of > discussion and dispute amongst the local industry between stakeholders > with claims regarding the mismanagement of the ccTLD. I have been > recording all the activities of the ccTLD since early this year. > > One root cause of this problem arises from the fact that ICANN does > not have a clear transparency model for the management of ccTLDs, > secondly, it has many agreements with ccTLD managers that it received > under its take over of IANA. If you look at the ccTLD map on the ICANN > website, you will see it only highlights the agreements it did itself > and not those done under contract by IANA. This is leaving the > stakeholders in a country like Pakistan distressed and confused. > > Issues at hand: > These issues have emerged over and over on the Telecom Grid of > Pakistan and Pakistan ICT Policy Network mailing lists sometimes > resulting in heavy flamewars between the debators and defendents. Only > last year in June 2008, PKNIC faced its worse downtime spanned over 7 > days during which its 28000 plus domain names were on a total halt > inflicting heavy financial and intellectual property loss to the > domain owners and client organizations. All three key stakeholders of > Pakistan's E-Governance Infrastructure including the Government of > Pakistan, the Private Sectors including the Business Commerce and > Industry as well as Civil Society were amongst the effectees. Despite > this PKNIC walked away clean. > > What to do: > ICANN must be encouraged to revise its ccTLD management contracts, > review its registrar and registration policies for ccTLDs and create > space for Public Participation or atleast the stakeholders of the > ccTLD manager's region so that these ccTLDs may be scrutinized and > become transparent to stakeholders. > > On Wed, Jul 8, 2009 at 7:59 PM, Milton L Mueller<[log in to unmask]> wrote: > > An important policy issue that is bitterly dividing the industry along > somewhat difficult to predict lines is whether registrars and registries > should become more integrated. ICANN has sponsored two economic studies. > One, by Charles Rivers Associates International (CRAI) proposes a very > moderate relaxation of this requirement. Another, by an economist named > Carleton, proposes getting rid of it altogether, and this is the position > than seems to be favored by ICANN staff. > > > > Afilias and PIR have come out strongly opposed to the proposed policy. > You can bone up on some of the issues by looking at the web site they > prepared: http://www.registryregistrarseparation.org/blog > > > > Ideally we should develop a position statement on this > > > > Milton Mueller > > Professor, Syracuse University School of Information Studies > > XS4All Professor, Delft University of Technology > > ------------------------------ > > Internet Governance Project: > > http://internetgovernance.org > > > > > > -- > > Regards. > -------------------------- > Fouad Bajwa > @skBajwa > Answering all your technology questions > http://www.askbajwa.com > http://twitter.com/fouadbajwa >