To the ICANN Board of Directors.POST is a domain for every individual or business
that relies on the Post and associated industries to deliver their mail and goods.
With the Internet, mail now comes in other forms. To ensure that global communications
and more importantly that global electronic commerce services can be trusted, the
Posts propose to offer a structure to facilitate in parallel physical, electronic
and hybrid communications using the Internet. But more importantly, as we now live
in a globalised world, we must offer global services and solutions. We are in every
country, know every culture, speak every language. We understand the communication
needs of children, their parents, governments, and businesses. They all need to communicate
and conduct business.
The word POST is synonymous all over the world. People immediately
relate to the services offered and the knowledge that the message will be delivered.
The
Posts are there to serve the community – a Universal Service Obligation to provide
services to all citizens all over the world –should the Internet be any different
in relation to offering universal services to facilitate communication amongst people?
Part
of the Universal Postal Union (UPU) mission, and as a UN specialised agency is to
foster cooperation and assist developing countries in becoming active players, not
just spectators in the Information Age. Many Posts are now installing internet kiosks
in Post Offices to expand the use of the Internet by providing access points to communities
who are not privileged to have the Internet in their homes.
Globalisation demands
a framework to facilitate global communications in a trusted environment. That environment
should be easily and automatically recognised by everyone. This does not preclude
other entities from providing trust services, however, only Posts can offer a framework
where individuals, business, governments and organisations can integrate and seamlessly
offer their services.
Currently there is huge demand from business for services
to support e-Business on a global scale. Many companies come to us and say “Please
Help”. They have millions of potential customers in other countries that want to
buy their products. These companies do not want to deal with Customs Duties, Currency
Conversion, Foreign Taxes, and Government Regulations. More importantly, they have
millions of customers who don’t have credit cards or are reluctant to use them on
the Internet. The Posts can collect these payments and transfer the money via a trusted
communication channel. Through the Posts, many of these services can be consolidated
under a trusted global environment to facilitate growth in global e-commerce. The
market is far greater than just the English-speaking world.
The efforts of the
Postal Administrations and the UPU, combined, can introduce a parallel structure
and framework for public, private and consumer communications over the Internet.
Such a communications framework would complement the existing structures of protecting
the public interest, privacy, security & legal validity under a globally recognized
neutral & united domain, like that of today’s postal network, but electronically.
Having TRUST on the Internet is extremely important as the whole world begins
to rely on the Internet as the preferred communication channel. We must ensure that
the messages we send continue to be the messages that get delivered.
From here
stems our commitment to support and endorse the establishment of a new Internet Top
Level Domain Name - .post, which will provide a recognized framework to support the
expansion of public communication by electronic means.
The .post domain is not
a restricted domain just for the Posts. It is restricted only in the sense of the
policies required to protect individuals and businesses in their everyday communications.
In
due course we can provide business plans and strategies for each initiative that
we undertake with our partners and other key market players. However, no single business
plan can reflect accurately and comprehensively the scope of our vision and ambition
to develop a global, social and economical infrastructure that can be trusted and
made available to the most modest citizen.
Sincerely yours,
Thomas E.
Leavey
Director General
Universal Postal Union
This letter is also formally
endorsed by the Management of the Postal Administrations of:
1) United States
of America
2) France
3) Sweden
4) Norway
5) Denmark
6) Switzerland
7) Finland
8) Australia
9) New
Zealand
10) Japan
11) United Kingdom
12) Czech Republic
13) India
14) Tunisia
15) Hong
Kong
16) Portugal