[governance] RE: Human rights and new gTLDs

[Thomas Narten]

Karl Auerbach <karl at cavebear.com> writes:

> You are assuming that competing roots necessarily cause a "fractured 
> namespace".  That is not the case.

Yes, I am assuming this, and I don't agree with your arguments that
this is not the case.

> And I sense that you consider "fractured" to be a negative 
> characteristic when, in fact, it may actually be the key to solving one 
> aspect of internet governance.

Yes, I very much believe a fractured namespace to be a negative. As
I've said before, users don't want to have to choose. You (and I) may
be perfectly capable of choosing (that said -- I'd personally choose a
single, global consistent name space). But we are not representative
of typical users by a long shot. The vast majority have no
understanding of the Internet, or how it works, but do just want it to
work. And work consistently.

> The issue is not singularity of roots but is instead consistency of 
> namespaces.

yes.

> Competing roots can perfectly well have consistent name spaces;  Indeed 
> in practice virtually all are consistent with the NTIA/ICANN/Verisign 
> root zone.

They can in theory, but I have serious doubts that they can in
practice.

> Competing roots do not necessarily lead to name dissonance.

"not necessarily" may be technically true. But IMO, the odds are high
that they will be problems, especially when the key idea behind
"competition" is to let the system (or market?) weed out
conflicts/collisions between competing owners of a name. That by
definition means there will be conflicts and inconsistenicies during
the sorting out period.

> And in practice they rarely do.

Oh, we have significant practice to look towards for guidance? Sorry,
I don't think so.

> The definition of consistency that I use is one in which a TLD, if 
> offered at all by a root zone provider, is identical with that same TLD 
> name as offered by other root zone providers.  But in this definition of 
> consistency, each root zone provider might offer a somewhat different 
> suite of TLDs.

Um, and what if two different root zone providers offer different
content from the same TLD? This is bound to happen in practice and is
precisely the problem that I think we need to avoid.

There is a fundamental fallacy behind the multiple root arguments that
we somehow don't need ICANN or some other other definitive body
deciding who gets a TLD if there are multiple parties who want to use
it. If there is a conflict for names (as there surely will be),
someone/somebody/something has to arbitrate.

You seem to be arguing that the problem is minor and/or the market
will sort it out. IMO, the downsides of this approach outweigh the
potential benefits.

> Sure, this will mean that on occasion an email address or web URL will 
> leak out to someone who can not use it.

Or, will map to the "wrong" content. Bad guys must be salivating at
the potential opportunities for phishing, DOS, etc!

>   The vast majority of users will not
> > want to have to select/configure which name space they are using.

> That is a statement which I find intriguing.

> Users today already do that kind of name space selection when the pick a 
> mobile phone provider or chose a TV provider.  AOL users get their 
> filtered landscape.

Oh, so you think it is a good thing if we have the big operators
define and limit end user choices, and that it would be fine if they
provided a selective view of the DNS name space? I understand that a
lot of people are seriously concerned about concetrating that sort of
power in the hands of a few large providers...

> > Here's a more apt analogy:
> > 
> >        Who needs to have one system of telephone numbers? Why not let
> >        users decide which of (competing) phone number systems they
> >        will use?

> Do we really have a single system of phone numbers?

You have only one phone number (per phone), right? You don't have
multiple numbers that you give out, due to the problem that some
numbers don't work from some locations because the _number_ itself is
invalid?

(And don't count call forwarding and stuff like that, as it doesn't
relate to the key point of _validity_ and _universality_ of the phone
number itself.)

> My sense is that we 
> do not.  And we most certainly do have competing phone systems that 
> users do select among.

I'm talking about the phone numbers, not systems or operators.

> Moreover, in today's telephone system we have exactly the situation that 
> I described for competing DNS roots - core consistency with localized 
> boutique namespaces.

> In addition, there are user created and managed directory services.  The 
> most basic being speed dial.  From my point of view my home phone is the 
> single digit '2', my wife's mobile is the single digit '3', and her 
> office is '4'.

You are talking about local aliases for global numbers, and everyone
knows that. I don't tell my aunt in Switzerland that she can call me
via the single digit "2".

> When I call an airline to change some tickets the number I dial does not 
> lead to one phone, but to an equivalence class of phones.

And your point is? The number itself, however, refers to the same
endpoint/service, regardless of from where in the world you dial it.

Thomas
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