[governance] It's Time to Stop ICANN's Top-Level Domain (TLD)

[Roland Perry]

In message 
<93F4C2F3D19A03439EAC16D47C591DDE0330006DC9 at suex07-mbx-08.ad.syr.edu>, 
at 17:01:33 on Fri, 5 Nov 2010, Lee W McKnight <lmcknigh at syr.edu> writes
>Ian, while you may not care for the decision to permit more gTLDs, but 
>compared to the arbitrariness of prior processes which prevented that 
>or made it almost impossible, it is a big big step forward toward more 
>transparent admin procedures within ICANN, and hence indeed a step 
>forward for internet governance. In my view. Whether or not we feel 
>specific new gTLDs are good or bad or succeed or fail, it shouldn't be 
>to you or me - or ICANN - to prevent suitably qualified folks from 
>giving it a go.

We should not forget the history - new gTLDs have been introduced 
steadily over the last ten years; starting with .biz .info and .museum, 
and finishing (I would say) with .post this year; and has always been a 
prime objective of the ICANN process.

An early list of applications is at the bottom of this page:

http://www.icann.org/en/tlds/app-index.htm

But later on, a problem arose with the application for .xxx, in so far 
as the decision-making process (to use Vint Cerf's words) "failed to 
converge". Every time it came to a vote, the board seemed to be more 
polarised than before. Whereas he was felt that good governance should 
result in a debate steadily converging towards either a "yes" or a "no".

He therefore resolved to create (and I simplify) a new "one size fits 
all" approval process which would streamline the situation and remove as 
much as possible of the subjective decision-making. Which is the DAG etc 
that we see coming ever closer to delivery.

The debates within the DAG process are essentially about the merits (or 
otherwise) of quarantining definable parts of the potential namespace 
which overlap with trademarks, geographical names, and most recently 
MOPO issues. My favourite example is .lincoln which is a trademark of 
the Ford Motor Company, the Capital of Nebraska, and a Cathedral City 
and County Town in the UK.
-- 
Roland Perry
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