[governance] new TLDs?

[Hans Klein]

Thanks, Carlos, for this interesting post.  I will comment on some of the 
points.

1.
"All delegations/redelegations are just business, what is the point?"
Not all business situations are identical.  *Industry structure* 
matters.  For example, many critics of the mass media point to the 
*concentration* of the media industries (currently there are nine global 
media conglomerates.)  This concentrated industry structure is itself a 
problem: a concentrated industry affords greater opportunity for control 
than does a decentralized industry.  A more extreme example is Microsoft: 
the remarkable concentration of the PC operating system industry widely 
regarded as a problem.

So it is not correct to say that anything is "just business."  The overall 
structure of the business/industry is extremely important.

A call for more TLDs is also a call for less industry concentration.  Less 
industry concentration is a worthy policy goal.


2.
"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"

This is a good point.  But we need to distinguish between 1) the 
organizations/caucuses and 2) what they do.

The ALAC and the NCUC may be flawed as organizations, or they may simply 
not be doing what we think is important.  Personally, I have confidence in 
NCUC as an organization;  As for ALAC, I am not yet convinced that it is 
legitimate.

Concerns about Civil Society's role in ICANN could be addressed by 
investing more energy in NCUC.  If anyone feels that NCUC is not raising 
the appropriate issues, then let's put better issues on the NCUC 
agenda.  The organization would benefit from that energy.

ALAC seems to have contributed to the non-involvement of CS in ICANN -- at 
least in the North American region.  (Strangely, the respected Electronic 
Frontier Foundation has played a major role in ALAC.)  Civil Society might 
try to reform ALAC or it might just ignore it and work in a different caucus.

But if anyone feels that the wrong issues are being raised, then raise the 
right issues.


3. Conclusion: New TLDs
I continue to believe that it would be a good thing to add many new 
TLDs.  They would cease being scarce and would cease being expensive.  The 
registry industry would grown and become less concentrated. That does serve 
the public interest.

Hans Klein





At 11:58 AM 8/29/2005, Carlos Afonso wrote:
>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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