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

[Volker Greimann <vgreimann@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Eric,

is this really new, or a harm only posed by registrars acting as RSPs?

I have seen multiple proposed applications brought in spite of prior 
long-running applications for those string brought not by registrars, 
but by non-registrars.
I will name just a few examples: .berlin, .bayern, .nyc, .sport(s)

While I agree that "taking inspiration" from existing initiatives may be 
undesirable, this is nothing that has _anything_ to do with CO or VI.
While in your case the copycat was a registrar, this has nothing to do 
with his being solicited as RSP, but rather with his gaining knowledge 
of the applications and liking the idea.  It could have been any 
interested party. It is a matter that should have been dealt with an NDA 
between you and your list of potential RSPs. Frankly, you are proposing 
a harm in this WG that is not even remotely related to our purpose.
Volker

> 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
>
>