RE: [gnso-vi-feb10] a starter-list of Harms

[Milton L Mueller <mueller@xxxxxxx>]

Eric
Even if, to be charitable, we characterize this as a "harm" it is something 
that has nothing whatsoever to do with cross ownership or vertical integration.
--MM

________________________________________
From: owner-gnso-vi-feb10@xxxxxxxxx [owner-gnso-vi-feb10@xxxxxxxxx] On Behalf 
Of Eric Brunner-Williams [ebw@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]
Sent: Friday, June 18, 2010 10:09 AM
To: Gnso-vi-feb10@xxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: [gnso-vi-feb10] a starter-list of Harms

Alan,

A novel harm came to my attention two days ago.

I have sent pointers to an RFI recently published by a potential
applicant, one with a public and governmental record that goes back to
at least 2002, and is seeking to submit two community-based
applications, one for a Latin Script string, one for a non-Latin
Script string.

My mailing list is quite ad hoc and simply is the RSPs I thought
likely to be interested in competing for the eventual RFP and includes
one or more ICANN accredited registrars I believe seek to enter the
gTLD RSP market.

A registrar first responded to my mail with a statement that it had
submitted a response to the RFI -- as a candidate RSP. Fine and dandy.

The next day the registrar responded again -- that it was going to
submit applications for one or both of the same Latin and non-Latin
Scripts strings. Not so fine and dandy.

This is illustrative of the point I tried to make a few days earlier
in a note addressed to someone else on this list -- are registrars
necessary sources of inspiration for new gTLDs?

The act of soliciting bids for an RSP -- of disclosing a community
likely to be the base of a sustainable or better pool of registrants
-- has created a string contention contest, a comparative evaluation
contest, and assuming each looks to alternate basis for a dispositive
claim of right, accumulations of governmental and community
institutional expressions of support and expressions of division, and
auction risk capital.

Abstractly, registrars seeking to maximize the ROI in RO acquisition
are very distinct from communities overlooked by the use of iso3166 as
the scaling mechanism selected by Jon Postel the second time he
reduced the workload of the root's zones editor.

The problem is trivially solved by ICANN alone by extending the sense
of iso3166, or by constructive engagement with the iso3166MA
(Maintenance Agency) to the same or a similar end. Of course, this
hasn't happened in a decade.

Absent that, we have the example of registrar targeting of community
based applications, for ROI maximization motives, with the outcome of
converting stand-alone, or RSP served community-based gTLDs and their
registrants into a rental property of a, other than profits,
disinterested party.

I suggest that not only is there the problem Tim has pointed out, of
ensuring that exception claims are not empty formalisms intended to
allow the combined RO-RR entity to capture high-value names, but also
of ensuring that the comparative evaluation threshold for the
dispositive protection community-based applications are intended to
provide are not so high as to make large communities impossible to
prevent from award by auction to the highest bidder.

Incidently, in this specific instance, the party which published the
RFI did not indicate that it anticipated seeking an exception to
Recommendation 19, though there is a relative paucity of ICANN
accredited registrars currently serving the legacy gTLD interests of
this community.

Eric