[governance] GeoTLD

Sun Dec 23 12:39:31 EST 2007

Milton,

Thanks for your message from December 11th.

I could easily turn your question around and ask: Where are the titles of those who want to utilize a famous state or city name (and here I'm not talking about placeholder concepts like .cat, .nyc or .baires) with a technology-based monopoly? Different cultures have developed different approaches regarding the balance between individual freedom and collective rights. I fully respect the position of colleagues around the world, but at the same time I strongly believe that decisions with regional impact should be made based on regional norms and values. Again: The Internet is a global network, but that doesnt necessarily mean that all decisions have to be made at a global level. 

Though the German legal system is not as much case based as the US one, its helpful to not only check the wording of the relevant law (especially the German Civil Code), but also look at relevant court decisions. Obviously, we don't have a decision on a Geo-gTLD yet, but a number of interesting high-level decions regarding the use of city names at the second level, e. g. the solingen-info.de and solingen.info cases from September last year. Contrary to some others I do not expect that in a decision on a CityTLD the right of the city and state of Berlin in the name "Berlin" which is protected under German law would be watered down. But the question is, what should ICANN do in the meanwhile? Introduce a CityTLD knowing that there is a serious conflict within the local community? Imagine a situation in which a negative court ruling would come after the market introduction of the new TLD. Who would be held liable?   

Should the relevant authorities be allowed to not only not support but also stop a Geo-gTLD proposal that uses (only) the full string of the relevant political-administrative entity? Of course they should! Public policy includes economic policy, and economic policy includes competition policy. Due to the current structure of the DNS, a full CityTLD necessarily establishes a technology-based monopoly, or at least a superior market position. Even dotBerlin admits that a TLD solution is more attractive than using "Berlin" at the second level, including the fact that in Google searches domain names using the CityTLD would get a higher ranking (see www.openplans.org/projects/campaign-for.nyc/advantages-of-the-nyc-tld). The introduction of a .berlin would primarily not effect the domain name market in Brasilia, Canberra or Washington D.C., but the one in Berlin. So it's a decision to be made in Berlin. As long as hundreds of alternatives are already available or could easily be established (using existing TLD; introducing new TLD like .city or .metropole; introducing placeholder CityTLD like .ber, .bln, combined strings like .berlinfriends etc.), I do not see why any authority should allow somebody to gain a superior market position. The introduction of a CityTLD using only the name string does not strengthen competition, but is the end of fair competition. 

The legal and economic assessment has to be made at the local level, not in Marina del Rey. The core function of ICANN is that of a technical co-ordination body, and wherever possible, it should stick to that role. ICANN should especially not try to become a global regulator, watching local and regional Domain Name markets, finally judging oh, in city X a Geo-gTLD may enrich the market, but in city Y it already looks like cut-throat competition.... Quite similiar to the ccTLD re-delegation process (actually, compared to the use of strange two-letter ISO codes the use of a full geo-string is even more sensitive to the local community), ICANN should follow exernal decisions and restrict itself to a verification of the technical expertise of the future registry.    

If you put into question the competence or legitimacy of elected officials and the public authorities regarding the GeoTLD issue - where do you see the role of citizens? Should they have a say regarding the use of the name of the city they live in? As of today, the number of people from Berlin openly supporting the .berlin proposal via the dotBerlin website is somewhat around 330, which equals roughly 0.01% of the Berlin population. Is this an adequate number of supportes? And how many citizens are needed to veto a CityTLD proposal, e. g. by sending emails to ICANN? Number of supporters plus one? 10%, 25% or 50% of the population? 

The question of "who speaks for Berlin" is especially important if you follow the concept of GeoTLD being a sponsored TLD. sTLD require not only a sponsored community, but also a sponsoring organization. Actually, it is expected to provide evidence of support from the sponsoring organization. So, in the case of a CityTLD, who is the sponsoring organization? dotBerlin claims that it "represents all Berliners in applying for the .berlin TLD ..." (see www.dotberlin.de/en/about; interestingly nobody in my friends and family circle has ever given this mandate to the company), but my understanding of a sTLD is that registry and sponsoring organization should be seperate entities. Business associations etc. only reflect the position of specific parts of the society, not the local community at-large. So, who can represent a city or state, if not those legitimate authorities that do exactly the same in all other areas? (By the way, I don't think that the sTLD concept applies to GeoTLD, because if you allow everybody to register under a certain TLD, there is no precisely defined sponsored community.)   

>From my point of view, your question regarding a possible re-naming of a city in N.J. does not fit into this discussion. Many cities can carry the name Berlin without seriously effeting each other, so why should there be a problem? This is not the monopoly situation of a CityTLD using the Berlin string. Same goes for using the string in book titles etc. 

Regarding your remark on ALAC: If you subscribe to my model in which, regarding full Geo-gTLD, the ICANN board simply follows decisions made at the local or regional level, than there is no need to talk about ALAC. But if you see it as an internal ICANN process, than you have to answer the question how to integrate the relevant ICANN constituencies, and this does not only include the GNSO, but also the GAC and, of course, the ALAC.   

Enjoy the Holiday season,

Michael

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