<html><body><span style="font-family:Verdana; color:#000000; font-size:10pt;"><font style="font-family: Verdana;" size="2" color="#000000" face="Verdana">Ladies and gentlemen,<br> I have been reading quotes from the Chinese delegate to your India meeting just completed and wonder if all these relatively "decorative" issues are the best to be tackling when there are major players prepared, and seemingly motivated, to pull away and run their own playground. The Chinese are not alone; there is also Brazil and Russia; and who knows how many others are watching these to see how they would fare as separate systems. <br> It seems to me that keeping the governed together is a much more important task than fine-tuning the social aspects of how you would like your corner to be managed. <br> If they do split off, however, the TLDA will work to prevent colliders in the Inclusive Name Space by publishing the complete list of all TLDs functioning in the world and the subset of those that meet our criteria for inclusion in the "ideal" complete namespace. By doing so, even after the splintering of the internet on one level, there will be another level to work for continuity and against duplication of strings. Even now there is a need for this, but as the old network breaks down, this need will greatly expand.<br> For those that want to see the ideals you talk about instituted, however, the first job is to keep the players together to begin with. That may prove much harder than fine-tuning the social inter-relationships of all the committees and superstructure the current ICANN seems to like to play with in the name of openess and accountability. I used to work in the Chinese news system and know they do not see the world as we do, and want to be sure it stays that way. What would appeal to the Netherlands or France will not appeal to them. I am also working closely with some African nations on infrastructure development (not IT, other infrastructure) and they too are tiring of being led by the nose by massive international bureaucracies. Our group goes in and helps them achieve THEIR goals, not insist they achieve our goals. Such an approach would lend to better long-term relations for you there, too.<br> In short, I suggest the topic for ALL your discussions at all levels be more about how to keep your house intact and less on what shades to paint the trim.<br><br>Sincerely,<br>Karl E. Peters, President<br>Top-Level Domain Association, Inc.<br><br>Just my humble oppinion...<br></font> </span></body></html>