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A report on the City-TLD Governance and Best Practices workshop in
Vilnius.<br>
<br>
Let me first offer my thanks to the IGC for its role in assisting me
with organizing the City-TLD Governance and Best Practices workshop
in Vilnius. And in particular, I'd like to thank the workshop
participants: Izumi Aizu, Sébastien Bachollet, Bertrand de La
Chapelle, Wolfgang<strong> </strong>Kleinwächter, Dirk
Krischenowski, Ana Neves , Thomas Schneider, Jonathan Shea, Werner
Staub, and Hong Xue. As well, a big thanks to Olivier MJ
Crepin-Leblond, our Remote Moderator who, among other feats, enabled
Jonathan Shea to participate from Hong Kong. <em></em>Each
thoughtfully addressed the issue at hand and made significant
contributions. Thank you all.<br>
<br>
After consulting with the above I've posted a detailed report on the
workshop <a
href="http://www.coactivate.org/projects/campaign-for.nyc/vilnius-workshop-report">on
our wiki</a>. The further comments of all are welcomed. (After
overcoming a technical glitch I'll also post it to the IGF site.)<br>
<br>
Of the needs identified at the workshop the following stand out:<br>
<ul>
<li>Issues relating to the proposed city-TLD pricing and
technology /registrar requirements must be addressed for smaller
cities - and especially for the global south.</li>
<li>The need for global outreach to inform cities about the
utility and requirements for their TLDs.<br>
</li>
<li>The efficiency of assigning dedicated ICANN staff for
processing city TLD applications.<br>
</li>
<li>The desirability of a cities list to facilitate ICANN with
identifying legitimate city TLD applications, as ISO-3166 helped
at an earlier time. <br>
</li>
</ul>
Today I'd like to begin to addressing this last issue, a cities
list, by soliciting this mighty list's assistance with a preliminary
step - defining a public interest city-TLD. To have meaning withing
the scope of ICANN's responsibilities, such a list must indicate
cities that will use their names in the public interest. A first
task in that regard requires a definition of a public interest
city-TLD.<br>
<br>
In support of that effort I've created a wiki page where I've posted
some defining characteristics that might enable the identification
of a city-TLD operated in the public interest, see <a
href="http://www.coactivate.org/projects/campaign-for.nyc/public-interest-city-tld-definition">http://www.coactivate.org/projects/campaign-for.nyc/public-interest-city-tld-definition</a>.
For your convenience I've copied that page below. <br>
<br>
I look forward to your considered thoughts on this and other matters
relating to city-TLDs.<br>
<br>
Best,<br>
<br>
Tom Lowenhaupt<br>
<br>
<hr size="2" width="100%">
<div align="center">Draft Definition of Public Interest City-TLD </div>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;" align="CENTER">(from wiki, as of
November 4, 2010)<br>
</p>
<p><font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman">Cities are
frequently ancient and always complex institutions that
provide basic food, housing, health, safety, and cultural
needs for more than half of humankind. They can best serve
their residents and organizations if they have access to the
most advanced technology. Until now cities have been
prohibited from effectively using good Internet Domain Names,
requiring residents and organizations to use national or
global TLDs for local communication. The ICANN's 2008 new TLD
policy opened the door for the issuance of city-TLDs.</font></font>
</p>
<p><font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman">The
development of city-TLDs as public interest resources will be
transformational, providing cities with a Critical Internet
Resource, and empowering them to develop their digital
infrastructure to the direct benefit of residents and
organizations.</font></font> </p>
<p style="margin-left: 0.01in;"><font color="#000000"><font
face="Times New Roman">The utility of a list of cities seeking
the development of public interest TLDs was expressed at the
recent IGF Vilnius workshop on City-TLD Governance and Best
Practices, where the ICANN's chair suggested that a cities
list would facilitate ICANN's operation. The creation of a
definition of a Public Interest City-TLD is a first step in
developing such a list, with outreach to identify interested
cities a next step.</font></font> </p>
<p style="margin-left: 0.01in;"><font color="#000000"><font
face="Times New Roman">Definition: Public Interest city-TLDs
are those which serve the long term interests of city
residents and organizations. They serve those interests when:</font></font>
</p>
<ul>
<li>
<p><font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman">they use
the name-space to facilitate geographic awareness enabling
residents and organizations to readily locate one another
to optimize the exchange of services, products, and ideas
and revivify the traditional networking role of cities;</font></font>
</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman">they
facilitate the availability of civic collaboration tools –
calendars, maps, mail lists, polling, and other organizing
tools – making them available for civic benefit on a
public access basis;</font></font> </p>
</li>
<li>
<p><font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman">they
reserve and advocate for the use of domain names for
unbiased portals for government, civic, and development
use;</font></font> </p>
</li>
<li>
<p><font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman">they
commit a significant portion of their resources to
eradicating digital divides by facilitating civic
collaboration, education, and training;</font></font> </p>
</li>
<li>
<p><font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman">they
allocate names for the civic benefit of geographic sub
areas (neighborhoods), civic activities, and public issue
resolution; </font></font> </p>
</li>
<li>
<p><font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman">they
provide names in support of all ethnic populations;</font></font>
</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman">they
strive for name allocation practices that will maintain a
flow of good domain names for the life of the TLD;</font></font>
</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman">they
establish allocation policies that avoid pitfalls such as
hoarding and typo-squatting using pricing and nexus
requirements.</font></font> </p>
</li>
</ul>
<p><font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman">Additionally,
</font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman">public
interest </font></font><font color="#000000"><font
face="Times New Roman">city-TLDs are those that:</font></font>
</p>
<ul>
<li>
<p><font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman">are
operated in close cooperation with the extant local
institutions, to provide a secure experience suitable for
residents, civic, cultural and business organizations, and
visitors;</font></font> </p>
</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>
<p><font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman">exchange
experiences and best practices with other cities operating
TLDs in the public interest;</font></font> </p>
</li>
<li>
<p><font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman">operate
within a broad "urbanismo" framework that considers </font></font><font
face="Times New Roman">their geographic, economic,
political, social, and cultural impact on their environment;</font><font
color="#000000"> </font> </p>
</li>
<li>
<p><font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman">commit to
develop appropriate channels for inter-city sharing of
vital Internet enabled city resources in areas such as
education, health, safety, and sanitation; </font></font>
</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><font face="Times New Roman">commit to working in
collaboration with relevant local and national public
authorities;</font><font color="#000000"> </font> </p>
</li>
<li>
<p><font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman">commit to
engaging all segments of the population in the management
of their TLDs;</font></font> </p>
</li>
<li>
<p><font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman">commit to
the allocation of name spaces that promote sustainable
cities;</font></font> </p>
</li>
<li>
<p><font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman">commit to
the use of graphic design practices that facilitate cross
cultural understanding; </font></font> </p>
</li>
<li>
<p><font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman">commit to
support their city’s branding and external promotion
activities;</font></font> </p>
</li>
<li>
<p><font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman">commit to
engage all segments of the population and the technical
operators of the TLD in a collaborative governance
structure.</font></font></p>
</li>
</ul>
<br>
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