RE: [gnso-consumercci-dt] Final Version - CTCCC Advice Leter

["Neuman, Jeff" <Jeff.Neuman@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Evan, 

Consumer reports reviews how products and services actually work...not whether 
or not the companies have certain things on their labels....which is akin to 
what you are asking.

If there is a problem with spam, malware, there should be an abuse point of 
contact.  Totally agree and that is in the Guidebook already.  It is a 
requirement, easily measurable, applicants know they have to do it...great!  
But you leap to the conclusion that a consumer is going to want to know the 
registration policies and the benefits of the TLD.  How did you arrive there?  
What are you basing that on?  Is that something you "want" to know or something 
you need to know?  As a consumer, you want to stop the spam.  How Neustar 
delegated the name in the first place is not relevant to the average consumer.  
When law enforcement comes to me as operator of the .biz TLD, they don't ask me 
how was the name delegated.  They don't read our registry site.  They ask me 
how can I find the person responsible and how can we stop it.  That can be 
measured objectively by looking at the Whois service, the accuracy of the Whois 
information, etc. That is appropriate and should be measured.

Going back to consumer reports, if you want to measure how well something 
works, the types of services you get, how helpful customer support is, what you 
can do with space...then have at it.  That makes total sense.  But I have yet 
to see a consumer reports article (and yes I am a subscriber)' that ranks a 
camera for example on what its terms and conditions are for buying the camera 
in the first place. 

I think we are going around in circles on this criteria.  I appreciate your 
insight into this, but cannot support your point of view on this one.  If it 
causes you and the ALAC not to support the letter, I would find that a little 
disappointing, but understand your decision.

Thanks.



Best regards,

Jeffrey J. Neuman

Sent from iPad.  Please excuse any typos.


 -----Original Message-----
From:   Evan Leibovitch [mailto:evan@xxxxxxxxx]
Sent:   Monday, December 03, 2012 06:18 PM Eastern Standard Time
To:     Neuman, Jeff
Cc:     Steve DelBianco; gnso-consumercci-dt@xxxxxxxxx
Subject:        Re: [gnso-consumercci-dt] Final Version - CTCCC Advice Leter

On 3 December 2012 16:24, Neuman, Jeff <Jeff.Neuman@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

 

                When you boil it down, you are measuring whether someone did or 
did not do something you never asked or required them to do in the first place.


If that's how you see it, then there's no shame as being measured not to do it.

Look at Consumer Reports, or any reasonably impartial public-interest 
measurement site of this kind. They have a list of minimum requirements in what 
they measure; anything not meeting those minimums is deemed unacceptable. But 
CR doesn't stop there; it measures many, many things that are not legally 
required of suppliers but seen as beneficial to users.

IE, measurements of public services are not just to see who meets the minimum 
requirements. Usually they are used to demonstrate when those minimums are 
exceeded.

 

         You also talk about the real world outside our bubble and I think that 
is helpful to discuss.  But do you honestly thing that the real world cares 
whether a .neustar has a page up on its main site its policies and 
restrictions.  Not at all.


Then I guess that is the core of our disagreement. Whether that's demanded or 
not of all TLDs, I think it ought to be measured whether it exists.

Remember, I'm not coming at this from the PoV of potential registrants. I don't 
care at all whether there are instructions on "why this TLD" or "how you can 
get a domain in this TLD". What I do care about is what a member of the public 
does if they get spam, or malware, or a DDoS attack, etc traceable to a 
*.neustar domain. Anyone in this situation, anyone in the world DOES (IMO) need 
to know, at a basic level how the second level is allocated (is it all 
corporate only? franchisees? Resellers? Licensees?). It's about measuring 
disclosure of disclosing policies about who (generally) uses domains in the 
TLD, regardless of whether the viewer of this information themselves can get 
one.

As a member of the public I don't really care whether the RAA or AG demand this 
or not. To my view, it's in your interest as well as the public's to be able to 
openly facilitate tracing such bad activity, and eventually law enforcement 
will extract it from you anyway regardless of what ICANN does. So I see this as 
not just a legitimate thing to measure but a necessary one.

If anyone here has at all interpreted my issues as a demand for "how do I get a 
domain here" or "what are the benefits of this TLD" information from closed 
TLDs, please understand that it was never my interest or intent. My insistence 
of auditing disclosure of domain allocation policies is tied to accountability 
and security -- the "confidence" side of the metrics as opposed to choice or 
competition.

If a TLD is accessible by the public its subdomains have the potential for 
abuse of the public. Metrics ought to give trust that publicly accessible TLDs 
-- including (indeed, ESPECIALLY including) closed ones -- provide useful 
information in case a domain in their TLD is a source of problems. The 
expansion should not be seen to cause greater insecurity, and these metrics are 
a necessary part of that. Taking it out -- or replacing it with 
functionally-useless "understanding measurement" -- is a bad mistake.

- Evan