[governance] new TLDs?

[Carlos Afonso]

Wrong interpretation. I am **indifferent** to new gTLD/sTLD proposals. 
All delegations/redelegations are just business, what is the point? What 
**real** difference for the Internet as a whole is the establishment of 
a new business gTLD registry (or domain in the hands of an existing 
registry) going to make (except for the ones who profit from it)? What 
real difference was noticed on the Internet when .org was redelegated if 
anyone can "rent" vixens.org or allsex.org by just producing a valid 
credit card, just like in .com, .net etc? (Sorry, those two domains are 
already taken...)

Also, we could do a good bottom-up intervention instead of worrying all 
the time about top-down interventions from governments in the name of 
"free competition" (where or how exactly??), if we managed to organize a 
significant civil society caucus within ICANN trying to tackle the whole 
strategy of the organization. And, frankly, it is funny to be upset 
about this specific "government intervention", when the whole thing is 
**legally** under a single government's intervention from the beginning 
(ICANN is just an incumbent and the regulator is the US government) -- 
what can civil society do about it, this is a key issue.

I think the current civil society organizations within ICANN (ALAC + 
NCUC) fail in this when they are mostly guided by the issues which are 
determined from above by ICANN's own agenda, and not derived from a 
discussion within our constituencies on what are the key governance 
issues we should deal with, and what role ICANN should really play in  a 
global governance system. I think civil society managed to go beyond the 
"agenda from above" with its input to the WGIG process -- let us try to 
deepen this within ICANN as well. Will we need to create a separate 
caucus for this?

--c.a.

Milton Mueller wrote:

>It's good to get a frank admission from Carlos that he's basically against any new TLD proposal. 
>
>This is a position that has some supporters, but only a very small minority of those who have considered it. Both civil society organs within ICANN (ALAC and NCUC) have adopted resolutions taking the opposite position. Most believe that competition, diversity and multilingualism will require some new TLDs. 
>
>One can only wonder, then, about the priorities and logic of someone who supports top-down intervention by governments to bring about an outcome that he wants but most people in the process don't want. 
>  
>

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