Re: [gnso-vi-feb10] Tacit assumptions?

[Eric Brunner-Williams <ebw@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On 4/17/10 11:33 AM, Roberto Gaetano wrote:
> I am wondering whether we are not tacitly assuming things that are not
> necessarily true.

One of the apparently held not necessarily true assumptions is that
there will be only one, or two, or maybe three community-based
applications which will be in need some creative means to allow
registrations.

To date, not a single advocate of time-or-volume exceptions to the
competitive registrar regime has questioned their assumption that each
of these marvelously few applications exist in utter isolation and
therefore that the only tool available is some form of exception.

It may happen that some advocate of exception who's not really pushing
for exception for some other purpose than community-based registry
start-up, will realize that under the 15% cap it just takes seven
applicants who are not stupid or crazy to solve the "no registrar"
problem, and there will be a lot more than seven community-based
applications. It may happen that someone will write or say "that
solves that problem" and then address any lingering edge conditions,
but it hasn't yet.

So one fairly common not necessarily true assumption is that there
will be as many community-based and registrar-lacking applications in
2011 as there were sTLDs in 2000.

> I keep hearing that the new gTLDs, as small startups, will be in a very
> weak commercial position and not be ableto influence the market.
> 
> This might well be true, as the examples given show for the past, but I
> wonder whether we are not constraining our framework to the current
> situation and making assumptions on the fance that the future will look
> like the past.

Obviously .asia is toast when a Han script competitor enters the
market, and the concerns of many ccTLD managers are their rational
expectations of new gTLDs altering existing markets and their
respective shares.

> Let me give you an example.
> The majority of the traffic in the list talks about the case of
> .MyTinyCommunity, or .MyBigBrand. It might be well true that this will
> be the vast majority of the proposed new gTLDs, but are we taking into
> account the fact that the rules and policy have to be applied for *all*
> new gTLDs equally? Aren't we forgetting something?
> 
> It might be because we have chosen conference call times that are
> prohibitive, for instance, for members residing in East Asia, or also
> because East Asian cultures are less assertive than Americans and
> Europeans, that dominate this list, but do not people think that we have
> elephants in the room like a possible .com in chinese characters?

I think you have at last stumbled on why I think proposals are best
presented in written form, to the list, rather than in oral form, and
I hope your concern for inclusive participation is not limited to call
time scheduling, but includes using the list and other on-line tools.

A ".com in chinese characters" is a given, as are at least three other
registries which exist, with hundreds of thousands of registrations
each, in another, equal, namespace.

> Wouldn't that TLD have potentially huge registrations in fairly short
> time? Wouldn't that TLD be operated in a completely different way than a
> niche TLD? Wouldn't the amount of money on the table in that case be an
> incentive for "creative" behaviours that might bend completely the rules
> and policies we want to establish, if these rules are not strong enough
> and with enough safeguards?

Aren't we still struggling with the short strings, the generics, and
the "premium names" (various forms of legal, or difficult to correct,
acquisition of pre-existing third-party rights), aka the first 100,000
domains? Isn't that why we have exceptions offered in the tens to
hundred(s) of thousands range?

> I am under the impression that we tacitly think that IDNs will remain
> limited to the "fast track", country-related IDN TLDs. This is not true.
> Or, at least, not necessarily true.

Agree. There will be IDN gTLDs. I don't know when, as the gnso-idn
drafting team has foundered on the twin rocks of abandonment,
mid-December to the present, and an apparently fatal (to forward
progress) difference over an example. But eventually there will be IDN
gTLDs.

> Or am I missing something?
> Cheers,
> Roberto

I'm glad to see an effort made to promote a better discussion.

Eric