[governance] RE: GeoTLD

[Karl Auerbach]

Avri Doria wrote:

> With the authority  St Aquinas brought in as a bolstering argument.

I've always found it amusing to cite a Saint,an authority, as an 
authority to make an argument, based on an assertion of authority, why 
arguments that are assertions of authority are weak arguments.

> Note: even the use of 'consistent root' as opposed to' single root'... are logically the same thing.

Not exactly.

The idea is that multiple providers of the same thing is rather 
different than exactly one provider of that thing.

The reason that that difference is important is that it distributes the 
way in which decisions are made - each provider makes its own choices 
regarding which inventory it will carry.

It is indeed the kind of difference between a planned central economy - 
the ICANN method - and a free market.  The difference is choice made in 
one place versus a choice made by each person.  The difference is that 
between "Top down" - the ICANN way - and true "bottom up" choices made 
through the aggregated individual choice of each user of the net.

The reason that I use the word "consistency" is that it reflects the 
core need: that users don't want to be surprised.

Even singular DNS is not perfectly consistent - apart from its built-in 
inconsistency that occurs as a side effect of its built-in asynchronous 
update of information, DNS names are not consistent even over short 
periods of time - we are all familiar with names going away and changing.

But the larger question is the this: Does consistency require a 
Procrustean exact identity so that every root server group offers 
precisely the same suite of TLDs or can there be some variation around 
the edges?

There are some who believe in the former, the "mirror" form of consistency.

Of course, internet technology and the end-to-end principle make it 
impossible to require and enforce that there be exactly and precisely 
one provider of name mapping services.

I have been arguing for the less strict form of consistency - in which 
experimentation and growth can occur in at the edges and, if such 
experimentation proves popular, it can spread to the core.

By this I mean that different root providers would offer new TLDs, in 
conjunction with the core TLDs offered by everybody.  That's why I call 
these new, experimental things "boutique" TLDs - because they are not 
found everywhere and those who use them know (or should know) that they 
are not using mainstream products.

As for the word "propaganda": your word, not mine.  If I am somehow 
guilt of using strongly colored words and analogies I am not alone.

(When I read your note I imagined you grinning when you used that word - 
and knowing you as a person with a constructive intent, I know that it 
was used with an intent to tickle our discussion in a positive, even 
amusing, way.)

Analogies are powerful analytical tools.  Should we avoid them?  If so, 
given that humans tend to think via analogies, how could we do so?

And ICANN has made itself an easy subject for such tools: ICANN has 
taken number of its structural cues from the old Soviet Union - 
everything from the ALAC having a structure that bears a surprising 
resemblance to the faux-democratic system of village soviets (ALSO's), 
regional soviets (RALO's), and a supreme soviet (Nomcom) - to ICANN's 
TLD process looking rather like the central planned economy of the 5 
year plans with both having either non-responsiveness or 
glacial-responsiveness to consumer needs.

ICANN could also be compared to the old Standard Oil Trust, the grand 
daddy of all monopolies - a collection of actors, mainly incumbents that 
stand to gain through the preservation of the status quo and suppression 
of competition, who act together to control prices, define products, set 
the terms of sale, and decide who may and who may not join the club and 
enter the marketplace.

It would be the height of "propaganda" an organization to claim that 
that kind of restraint of trade constitutes "competition", indeed it 
would go beyond "propaganda" and become Orwellian "NewSpeak".

		--karl--
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