[bc-gnso] Interesting Perpsective on DNS Industry Reputation

[Phil Corwin <psc@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

https://www.centr.org/article/reputation<http://www.facebook.com/l/FAQFQRXz_/https%3A%2F%2Fwww.centr.org%2Farticle%2Freputation>

Reputation is an idle and most false imposition oft got without merit, and lost 
without deserving. (*)
Created:
Monday, March 25, 2013 - 10:45
Author:
Peter Van Roste
Since a few weeks, ICANN's CEO Fadi Chehadé has been travelling the world even 
more intensely than he did before. Participation in APNIC, APTLD, IG meetings 
in Paris, CEO roundtables across the world...
At every single one of those occasions he underlines that he is serious about 
his commitment to implement much needed changes at ICANN. And he walks the talk.
To turn ICANN into a truly international organisation he plans operational hubs 
across the regions and relocation of his exec team. To improve end-user 
experience the registrants will benefit from a charter outlining their rights 
and obligations. To understand better the perception issues his organisation 
faces, the ICANN community will be asked for its opinion.
The trigger for more than a few of these changes is a reputational study that 
ICANN commissioned with Echo Research. The study isn't publicly available yet 
and therefore this might seem like taking a blindfolded swing at a piñata.
But it isn't really.
Comments from Fadi and ICANN staff and information that was circulated by 
participants of the roundtables give a pretty good idea of what to expect in 
Beijing.
The study looked into the media reporting about 'DNS industry as a whole' and 
evaluated how favorable those reports were. The study looked into the 
industry's reputation across the different regions, the volume of the coverage 
and how that reputation changes - i.e. declines over time. And it also looked 
into the factors that drive that trend.
So far for what is in the study. But what isn't in it is equally important.
What it doesn't do - at least from the reports I received - is make a 
distinction between gTLDs and ccTLDs, between registrars and registries, 
between policy and implementation, between ICANN and its thousand community 
members.
The image that results from it ("The Domain Name Industry has a bad 
reputation") has been painted with a very thick brush. And that doesn't allow 
for much needed detail.
The comments made by Fadi and the reporting that followed 
(http://domainincite.com/11717-its-official-people-hate-the-domain-name-industry)
 trigger questions and raise eyebrows in government (and other) offices around 
Europe.
In particular as this doesn't match with what studies on country code TLDs have 
been showing for the last few years: registrants have in general a very 
positive opinion of their ccTLD and local registrars.
Actually, studies on the Dutch, Swedish and Italian 
(http://www.nic.it/everything-on.it/domini-.it-e-imprese) domains have shown 
exactly the opposite from the Echo Research findings.
It is undoubtedly a positive thing that ICANN is serious about understanding 
the industry's reputation, fixing what is wrong and share the positive stories 
with the world.
But messages should be delivered with caution and nuance otherwise they are 
bound to be counterproductive.
(UPDATE: Last week it emerged that ICANN commissioned an additional study which 
does look into the reputation of ccTLDs. The results seem to be much better 
than the overall numbers. Where the overall study shows that 12% of the 
coverage of the industry qualifies as negative, this number would be as low as 
3% in the ccTLD specific study. I am looking forward to a full update on both 
studies at the ICANN meeting in Beijing.)
(*) Quote attributed to William Shakespeare, but the 'oft' probably gave that 
away already.


Philip S. Corwin, Founding Principal
Virtualaw LLC
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