Comment re new gTLDs

[go2ao@xxxxxxx]

It seems to me that ICANN will do well to pay attention to the report titled 
ICANN AT A CROSSROADS: A PROPOSAL FOR BETTER GOVERNANCE AND PERFORMANCE. No 
matter how many reports, consultations and revisions

that obtain, the plain and simple fact of the matter that new gTLDs are
not wanted or needed and that the community has already spoken to this
matter. No amount of bureaucratic and procedural fiddling with the facts
of the matter will change those facts: (1) The public has already
spoken loud and clear. New gTLDs are not wanted or needed; (2) As
the ICANN At A Crossroads report has plainly stated: ICANN should
constrain itself and do only what it was asked to do and intended to do
since inception which is to make sure that the Internet's technical
infrastructure works properly; (3) Trademark issues as the present gTLD
and country code lineup shows, can never be resolved to the
satisfaction of all the parties unless ICANN and its registrars and
registries literally police and examine every new domain name
application prior to registration; (4) New gTLDs will benefit nobody except 
cybersquatters
and those who resolve cybersquatting disputes; (5) ICANN at this juncture is 
about
empire building, and power, and money grabbing, and another transparent
attempt to transform itself into a regulatory apparatus, beginning
last year with a ridiculous "anything goes? so long as you have enough
money to grease ICANN's palms" proposal that in the first place was not
thought through as to the probable impacts of anything goes gTLDs; and, for 
that reason, meaning thoughtlessness) a second attempt will inevitably taint 
anything
ICANN does in future with respect to new gTLDs precisely because ICANN
apparently still does not know what it wants to be, or should be. Thus,
a completely new regime absent ICANN altogether is warranted if ICANN
continues to refuse to do what it was originally intended to do which
is to deal with the technical stability through oversight, and only that. 

This isn't ICANN-bashing: far from it. Time and again it has been the case that 
smaller institutions that attempt to regulate larger ones (in this instance 
ICANN trying to regulate a world-wide Internet) will sooner or later, fail. I 
have nearly always had the feeling that the people who manage day-to-day ICANN 
are not terribly competent. The (soon to be retiring) president ought to have 
known before hand that an anything goes gTLDs (really, brand name TLDs) would 
generate precisely what subsequently happened in terms of public opinion 
because (unlike, say, the ITU) no institution can act as a disinterested 
international secretariat (which of course would have its own political 
contradictions and agendas) when it gets into the realm of content regulation, 
which is precisely what will happen if brand name TLD start to proliferate, 
with or without uniform standards and pricing for new TLDs, which is what the 
"Crossroads" appears to have recommended.

The crux of the matter is that unlike say in-country telephone networks or 
television networks which are regulated from within their respective regulatory 
environments, the Web really is a world wide web; and, for that reason, a brand 
new institutional model would be required if transformation into a global 
policy-making apparatus is what ICANN really wants to become. If so, one can 
not in this instance pour the content of the old model into the new model.? 
ICANN can not become an equivalent ITU (to use the obvious example), precisely 
because the model precludes an in-country regulatory apparatus, such as the FCC 
in the U.S., CRTC in Canada, and other agencies that have ultimate oversight 
from the standpoint of sovereignty when it comes to their telecom regulation. 
No country can survive politically if it loses control of its own 
telecommunication.? And, thus, the FCC is irrelevant when it comes to the Web 
precisely because it can be bypassed by simply changing an in-country!
  Web address,? but only so long as the FCC does not also controlled the pipes, 
which happily it is unable to do when it comes to content per se. If it were 
otherwise we would be looking a a China-type model or any other country that 
attempts content regulation and technical supervision, which has shown time and 
again from the standpoint of telecommunications is a model that doesn't work.

One can not control content and carriage as if? the U.S. telcos could tell 
people what they could or could not say on their telephone or look at on 
television, within reason. Therefore, it might well be the case that ICANN by 
preserving and managing the technical infrastructure of the Internet is 
precisely where its real strength will continue to be from a global perspective 
and it ought to be satisfied with that. Imagine, say, if? ITU had the power to 
regulate telephone tariffs by deciding whether this or that entity or person 
could start a telephone service in the U.S. Australia, Japan, or anywhere else.

If people around the world hand to ICANN what really amounts to the technical 
and content regulation of the Internet (remember .XXX TLD) what will occur is a 
model that takes the form of an .XXX equivalent with, perhaps, dozens or even 
hundreds? of walled gardens where the owners of the levels can decide (as they 
surely will do in the name of their brands) what ought to be seen and heard in 
that particular TLD. In that eventuality and because content, commerce and 
telecommunication in one way or another always converge,? the Web will become 
what really amounts to a choke hold on content that soon or later transforms 
into a hegemonic apparatus that ultimately depends upon who has the most cash 
to generate the LCD mentality of the commercial television networks, but 
without the safeguards of an equivalent model, say, the BBC in Britain, CBC in 
Canada, ABC in Australia and PBS in the United States.

If, however, and in the alternative, the dots this or
that which are presently controlled by their in-country agencies, (200 plus 
ccTLDs is a lot of TLDs), somehow manage to generate
content that audiences around the world take a shine to, then so much
the better for that in-country ccTLD.? Individual ccTLDs where the managers 
have not foolishly allowed third parties to take control of their ISO 3166 
country codes have done reasonably well to date in connection with managing 
their own top level domains (and, conversely,? no where better seen from the 
standpoint of mis-management than in the Pacific Island Nations) . Thus, if 
ICANN will tend to its own garden, and do that job competently, which is 
demonstrably what it has already shown that it can do, and forget about empire 
building, the Internet (as has always been the case) will take care of itself.

Derick Harris