Re: [alac] New gTLDs analysis -- Draft
Thanks Vittorio, a few comments below: At 10:35 AM 04/26/2003 +0200, Vittorio Bertola wrote: On Tue, 22 Apr 2003 12:24:09 -0700, you wrote: Yes, I agree, the addition of new TLDs should soon become a routine business decision, not an exceptional occurrence. I would like to say somewhere that there should be much easier access to making applications, as more applications mean more TLDs and more competition - and this is basically the ultimate target for individuals. The fee for applications should be much lower than in the past round of new TLDs, and should just cover the cost of the initial examination, perhaps even not fully; the rest of the costs should be paid only by approved applicants. Also, reduced fees should be applied to non-profit applicants. Good point. I would add this to the discussion of applicant qualification. Financial qualifications and entry fees can be barriers to entry of new and smaller participants, as well as to non-profits. While fees may be necessary to discourage spurious applications, if ICANN adopts minimal criteria, it will not be costly to evaluate applications against them, so fees can be low and still cover costs. ICANN should consider a second, lower fee scale for non-profit applicants. >I. Criteria to Be Used in the Selection of New Sponsored Top-Level Domains > ... > >Instead, the Board should look, in both the sponsored additions and >in the general question of "structure," to ensuring that all who want >to establish online presences can obtain domain names without >interfering with names already assigned. Imprecise language. On second thought, I'd just cut the "without interfering with names already assigned." (I was thinking more of cases like foo.com and fo0.com.) >II. Whether the Generic Top-Level Namespace Should Be Structured ... It is not clear to me which kind of differentiation we are talking about. Is it just about not making confusion between similar strings, or is it about differentiation in target and characteristics of the TLD? If it is the latter, does it mean that we should not have had .biz since we already had .com for commercial enterprises? I am a little scared that some may think at "differentiation" as "each existing TLD is allowed a monopoly in its own market segment", something I'd not like at all. Perhaps we should add some words about this. The language I was quoting suggested to me that no differentiation or structure was actually being recommended. So long as someone is willing to supply a TLD, that indicates the supplier's belief that there was demand for the TLD, and the proposer should be allowed to test that demand in the market. Every TLD has a natural monopoly in the SLDs registered under it, but ICANN policy should not extend that monopoly any further. The ALAC supports the Draft's recommendations >that zone file escrow and transfer arrangements be investigated as >ways to mitigate registry failure. The ALAC also recommends further >examination of separation of the policy and technical roles of >new-TLD-registries, such as Ross Rader's proposal for distinct >Delegants (policy) and Operators (technical), see ><http://r.tucows.com/archives/2003/03/13/new_gtlds_part_ii.html>. No, I think the proposal was specifically aimed to eliminate that problem. Applicants could describe a proposed gTLD, whose registry would be handled by $Operator, where $Operator could later be filled from among the set of entities who had met a set of minimal technical qualifications (and further, that $Operator could be changed without ICANN involvement). --Wendy
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