I disagree that there will be outside governance processes that will
be brought down upon for the purpose of zoning the namespace in the
public interest. I just don't see the complex regulated
approach/form that that could/would take. And where I glimpse it,
the scenarios of applications are unrealistic.
I am *far* from being a free-market apologist (I don't believe
markets exists *naturally* outside of very many political and social
rules, for instance, and being the good french-Canadian that I am, I
am culturally and philosophically inclined to believe that
regulating economic activities in the public interest is naturally
both unavoidable and efficient [but the devil is in the details]).
But we need to grasp the rather large ― infinite one might even
posit ― range of name-string possibilities that are open to
competing interests (some interested parties of which may be more in
line with the way I see what the public interest should be, while
some of them might be more in line with what others would think the
public interest should be), and from that rather large string of
possibilities I am inclined to believe that the public interest will
take care of its own by simple virtue of its (posited) greater offer
and demand. There is simply more to be done in the public interest
then against, in short.
In essence, this is the same mechanism that works in the USA with
regard speech where it is posited that more speech is better than
less speech, all in the purpose of dealing with public interest
issues. In Canada, I think, we say that this or that speech is
unacceptable, and that we shouldn't say it. This is not my preferred
way of preserving the public interest in the speech sphere, but this
is what we have and since Canada has control over what goes on in
its territory, well it can do it, fine. When people want to say this
or that stuff (or criticize stuff you shouldn't say, which sometimes
get confused with condoning stuff you shouldn't say) then people
will host it on a US server or something like this. Canada has no
way of extending its policy to the rest of the world just because a
foreign newspaper may find its way into Canadian soil or because a
foreign server can be queried to deliver a webpage with unlawful
speech (to Canada). And I don't think it would be wise to try to
deal with the newspaper-spill situation by petitioning the UN or
building treaty organizations with the purpose of coming up with a
policy to regulate global speech in the public interest.
And so, similarly, I do not think it would be wise, feasible or
helpful to try to regulate in the public interest the way that SLD
auctions are conducted around the world, nor to determine what or
who should have precedence over a semantic string. When i said
before that I tend to agree with Sam's suggestion of asking for
similar rules with regard gTLD, it is mainly because it would be a
gain for the non-commercial community (in a zero-sum game, that
would be a loss for the commercial community) and, well, I think
that we *can* sometimes advance our own little narrow interests in
spite of perhaps the best interet of the system as a whole. But if I
am to think of the best way for all to function, I am convinced I
think that not injecting these considerations into SLDs and Geos is
the correct way to go.
That being said, Wolfgang's point is well taken, and we can't stay
aside and we need to actively engage the community in a proactive
manner so that the community can come to rough and running codes and
consensuses.
Nicolas
On 08/10/2014 11:00 AM, Sam Lanfranco wrote:
[log in to unmask]" type="cite">
Amr,
Thanks for the comments and
especially your opinion that "…initiating
a multistakeholder discussion aimed at giving priority to
applicants on a "public interest" basis is both difficult and
unnecessary."It is
not clear if you feel that the multistakeholder discussion or
the priority but I assume you mean giving priority to applicants
on a public interest basis is both difficult and unnecessary. My
concerns are two, one at the macro level of the notion of the
"public interest" and the other at the micro level around the
details of the ICANN processes and what they cover or don't
cover. At the
macro level, should there be a public interest component in the
assessment of gTLDs, or the operation of gTLDs, both as to
existence and to ownership? In time both answers will be yes,
but not the way it is done now. ICANN's gTLD governance
processes face the same challenges in cyber space that city
governments face around planning and zoning issues. If ICANN
decides not to recognize that responsibility, someone else will.
That may be good or bad for the Internet and good or bad for
ICANN. To illustrate, I can make living raising and selling
chickens from my back year. The community may want chickens, but
the public interest may say that it is the wrong space for that
activity and the wrong activity for that space. The city
government will make zoning decisions and bad decisions may toss
the incumbent crew out of office (here: marginalize ICANN). Using
the .health gTLD as an example, the ICANN approval process gives
no role to health systems expertise in examining the merits of
the what, why, and how of the .health business plan. Doing so
would be difficult but if ICANN does not confront the challenge,
possibly in collaboration with others, the responsibility for
that part of DNS Internet governance will grow elsewhere. The creation of
gTLD, and the consequent second level TLDs, is a zoning approval
process and the governance around that will have to rise to the
occasion. Where this resides,
ICANN or elsewhere, is less important than that it is done well.
It is not done well within existing ICANN practice. Adding a
public interest field in an assessment check list, and some sort
of priority process leaves too many holes and smells like "Okay,
done that, let's just get on with (our) business here.". ICANN
can elect to be in the game or out of the game, but there will
be governance process, with or without ICANN. In the long run
global health systems expertise will trump whatever business
plan .health starts with. Also, just as city planning is seldom
used to trample human rights, this process will not be a Trojan
Horse for censorship.
At the micro level
I will just re-state what the applicant for the MentalHealth.nyc
.city domain name has said. If ICANN gTLD auctions and its
private gTLD auctions involve transparency, scope for
collaboration among applicants. If this is good at the gTLD
level why is this not also part of the ICANN contract language
in the awarding of .city TLD? Many of the .city TLD second level
applications involve civil society organizations and the above
zoning and planning issues exist at this micro level. With
municipal ownership of the .city TLDs city planning will no
doubt expand into cyber space planning as well. This is an area
where someone will take leadership, and that is unlikely to be
ICANN, although ICANN could help by improving the .city contract
language to provide fairer and more consistent playing fields
for applicants at both top and secondary levels, at least during
the landrush phase.