[governance] "Oversight"

[Avri Doria]

Inset

avri


parminder <parminder at itforchange.net> wrote:

>Excuse my ignorance, but I am interested in exploring the relationship 
>of the vertical integration - or of removal of cross ownership 
>restrictions - decision of the last year, and the imminent private 
>ownership of entire tld spaces, and along with it, the exclusive use of
>
>some generic words on the right side of the dot, for ones own business 
>interests. Did the requirement to have non-owned registrars also mean 
>that domains names were obligatorily to be sold in the open market on a
>
>non-discriminatory basis? Was any obligations to sell domain names in 
>open market on non discriminatory basis, in any case, a part of
>registry 
>and registrar agreements?

Nope. The only obligation is to offer nondiscriminatory conditions to all interested accredited registrars. The conditions can be onerous, but they must not discriminate between among the accredited registrars.

In fact with community applications the requirement is to only register names to members of the community, however that community is defined.

And yes to my recollection this notion of single point of control for a TLD was an integral part of the VI discussions.

>
>Sorry for asking these simple and basic questions, but I always took it
>
>for granted that any tld would be available for anyone on a non 
>discriminatory basis, of course for a price. Perhaps, allocating 
>exclusive tlds to respective trademark owners can be considered as a 
>special case (though I have arguments against such a practice as well) 
>but to allow generic words and names as exclusive tld spaces is quite 
>un-understandable. What pulbic interest is it supposed to serve? What 
>was behind this decision?

While there were those who argued for a public interest based designation of names, the theory that money, aka the market, was the only reliable measure of public interest prevailed except for a very narrow consideration for community based applications (something the market place heroes continue to decry to this day)


>parminder
>
>On Monday 18 June 2012 05:01 PM, William Drake wrote:
>> Hi Andrea
>>
>> On Jun 18, 2012, at 12:52 PM, Andrea Glorioso wrote:
>>
>>    
>>> Thanks Bill.
>>>
>>> I'm not sure why you are "mixing" the discussion on trademarks with
>>> the one on competition/antitrust, as generally speaking they are two
>>> separate issues. I provided the exchange of letters just as a
>>> (hopefully useful) reference.
>>>      
>> Sure, thanks.  I just thought they both spoke to the same point about
>GAC advice, the relative autonomy of the board, and the benefits of a
>model in which the ultimate 'oversight' decision making authority is
>not necessarily vested in governments, which from time to time actually
>don't make optimal decisions.  Plus, I just really like the EC quotes
>in the trademark exchange ;-)
>>
>> See you tomorrow in parliament,
>>
>> BD
>>    


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