Telefonica Caves under Mobi JV Pressure

[James Gardner <james_gardner@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

On April 30th Telefonica Moviles posted comment on the .Mobi proposal in this forum 
that raised several serious concerns including:

1. Lack of Sufficient Information:  'Mobi JV does not contain sufficient information to 
identify the services that would be offered via this new range of names'

2. Replacing of Public Authority:  '...the numbering would be replaced by the domain 
names, which means that assignment and management of the numbering, by the Public 
Authorities, would be replaced by the registration and management of names realised by 
a private entity.'

3. Threat to the Operators:  'a third entity would come to control both voice traffic 
and value-added services and invoicing, thereby relegating the operator to being a mere 
data carrier.'

4. Unspecified Issues:  'the following points are not specified: - The criteria for the 
appointment of members; - The voting value of each member; - Existence, or not, of the 
Right to Veto, on the part of the founding partners; - Decision-making.' Furthermore, 
'There is no information in the proposal to allow for evaluating compliance on the part 
of such management with standards governing data protection; nor is consideration given 
to the threat of spamming, which is of greater relevance in the mobile environment, 
both because of the nuisance that the said activity implies, and the cost that incoming 
traffic implies for the customer.'

5. No Power of Veto over Mobi JV's decisions:  'The committee, including against the 
recommendations of the aforementioned consultancy groups, reserves the right to adopt 
the final decision without implementing any procedure for challenging the decisions 
approved by the Committee.'

6. Undefined Need:  'The proposal does not lay claim to the actual need for 
establishing specific domain names for mobile devices.'

Telefonica's position was made clear:  

1. 'TEM believes that any decisions that might be adopted could lack the essential 
legal transparency and safety, bearing in mind their possible impact on the provision 
of mobile telecommunications services.'

2. 'We [TEM] believe it should not be the access technology, or the type of terminal, 
or the communications protocol, that should be the aim of differentiation by means of 
top-level names, but the type of contents or the source of the information,'

3. 'In the light of the arguments put forward, TEM believes that there are too many 
aspects, with regards to the existing terms in the proposal submitted by the entity 
Mobi JV, that are clearly unrefined and which generate uncertainty regarding 
application of the sTLD .mobi, in the business of mobile communications, as well as the 
possible repercussions this would generate.'

Yesterday, May 13th, Ignacio Camarero, COO of Telefonica Moviles, posted a raving 
letter of support in which he indicates Telefonica's desire to become a founding member 
of Mobi JV. 

How does one explain this radical shift in thinking on the part of Telefonica? The 
issues Telefonica originally raised are so substantial that only a major modification 
in Mobi JV proposal could justify such a change in position.

Since this is not the case, one can legitimately assume that pressure was applied on 
Telefonica by Mobi JV or by one of its founding members. 

Exertion of such pressure raises important issues:

1. Relevance of Letters of Support:  How meaningful are letters of support that are 
clearly written by Mobi JV and emailed to 'beheld companies' instructed to forward 
these letters the .mobi forum? In many cases these 'supporters' do not even complete 
the template itself. In other cases, the letter is simply forwarded to the forum, as 
evidences by the '>' symbols. More importantly, how meaningful are any letters of 
support that are the result of this kind of pressure?

2. Questionable Credibility of Impartial Governance:  Mobi JV has stated that the 
founding members will not have de facto control over the board and that it would act in 
a manner consistent with best business practices. However, given Mobi JV's pressure on 
its 'supporters', can ICANN and the community reasonably assume that the other 14 
members of the Mobi JV board will escape such pressure and 'friendly influence'? This 
first hand experience with Telefonica seems to indicate otherwise.

3. Threat to Independent Evaluators:  If Mobi JV is able to pressure and unduly 
influence its 'supporters', will the independent evaluators not be subject to the same 
pressure? How will ICANN protect these individuals from being 'influenced' by these 
powerful companies?

As I previously mentioned, one possible solution to ensuring a conflict-free and 
unbiased procedure is to have Mario Monti of the EU be an independent evaluator, or at 
least a participating expert in the ICANN decision making process. 

Given (i) the potential long term impact of Mobi JV's control over the mobile internet, 
(ii) the ability of these companies to influence and pressure the industry, and (iii) 
the track record of these companies, ICANN should feel compelled to seek outside and 
truly 'unpressurable' evaluators.

Yours Respectfully,

Jim Gardner















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