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<font size="3">Since a New York City
community board passed an Internet Empowerment Resolution calling
for
the development of the .nyc TLD as a public interest resource in
April 2001, I've spent a good deal of my time advocating for its
implementation. This past April the city of New York signed a
contract with NeuStar to market and operate .nyc as a “geo” TLD.
The city is expecting to negotiate a complementary contract with
ICANN
soon.</font>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in"><font size="3">To date, public input
in New York's TLD policy development has been negligible, and
thus the
ways it will serve public interest, hard to discern. </font><font
face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3">A
ray of hope for public engagement recently showed itself in
the
city's updated <a
href="http://www.nyc.gov/html/digital/downloads/pdf/digitalroadmap2012.pdf">Digital
Roadmap</a>, where it states:</font></font></p>
<p style="margin-left: 0.49in; margin-bottom: 0in">“<font
face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3">...the
City of New York will establish a community advisory board and
convene public listening sessions to encourage meaningful
input into
the development of the .nyc strategy.”</font></font></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font
size="3">The
Community Advisory Board (CAB) is in its nascent days with
planning
for membership, duties, process, and outcomes just beginning.
While
the <a
href="http://www.coactivate.org/projects/campaign-for.nyc/governance-ecology-documents">NeuStar's
contract</a> significantly limits options, I'm gathering
recommendations for public engagement in planning and
oversight of New
York City's TLD through the CAB and listening sessions. These
will
be shared with the administration, the city council (which has
indicated an intention to hold public hearings), and others.
Here are
my initial thoughts:</font></font></p>
<ul>
<li>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in"><font face="Times New Roman,
serif"><font size="3">Membership – Meeting the political and
cultural traditions of the city, CAB membership should
come from government technology and planning agencies,
community boards, civic organizations, local businesses,
and schools. Expertise should be represented by
anthropologists, economists, information architects,
media, technologists, and sociologists. CAB members should
be appointed by the office of the mayor and city council.
A salaried executive director, with a </font></font><font
face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3">tie-breaker
only vote, </font></font><font face="Times New Roman,
serif"><font size="3">should be a</font></font><font
face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3"> member. </font></font><font
face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3">For
informational purposes, multistakeholderism as practiced
in Internet fora will be described. </font></font> </p>
</li>
<li>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in"><font face="Times New Roman,
serif"><font size="3">Duties – The Internet is not mentioned
in the 1987 city charter, but developments of similar
scope must go through a Uniform Land Use Review Process.
ULURP requires that plans having a significant impact be
reviewed by Community Boards in affected communities. The
CAB should be required to hear from all sections of the
city - each of the 59 community boards or blocks of them
as determined by the boards in consultation with the
elected Borough Presidents. Outreach efforts should “seed”
policy questions to facilitate public engagement into the
issues. Online participation should be enabled through
wikis and forums. </font></font> </p>
</li>
<li>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in"><font face="Times New Roman,
serif"><font size="3">Process – An executive director should
be appointed by the CAB with responsibilities to organize
the public listening sessions and create digital access
capacity, e.g., wiki, discussion lists. The director
should consolidate the face to face community and digital
input and present it for review to the city's lawmakers. </font></font>
</p>
</li>
<li>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in"><font face="Times New Roman,
serif"><font size="3">Outcomes – When not strictly in
opposition to the NeuStar contract, recommendations of the
CAB are to be amended to the agreement, and monitored on
an ongoing basis by CAB. Recommendations outside the scope
of the extant contact should be brought to the contractor
for consideration and possible inclusion at renewal of the
5 year contract. <br>
</font></font></p>
</li>
</ul>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font
size="3">Thoughts from fellow IGC list members will be greatly
appreciated.</font></font></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font
size="3">Best,</font></font></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font
size="3">Tom
Lowenhaupt<br>
</font></font></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font
size="3">P.S. A recent post entitled <a
href="http://www.coactivate.org/projects/campaign-for.nyc/blog/2012/09/17/the-2013-city-election-nyc/">The
2013 City Elections and .nyc</a> relates tot his and might
be of interest.<br>
</font></font></p>
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