[bc-gnso] ICANN hearings

[icann at rodenbaugh.com]

I disagree with your assessment of community support for the program.  There
was a supermajority vote which approved the new TLD principles, including
support of the BC and IPC, because we believe that business users of the DNS
would be better off with more domain name choices, more registration service
providers, and IDN TLDs, .  The ICANN Board was nearly unanimous in
approving the current implementation plan.  The BC is still in favor of new
TLDs, even if we have some reservations about some of the implementation
details.  There is broad community support for them, even if there also
remains some broad opposition from some business/IP groups who are noisily
repeating some of the arguments that have been made by the BC and others
repeatedly for years.  

So, I am not clear about what you would like the BC to say publicly at this
point, perhaps you could circulate a draft?

Thanks,
Mike

Mike Rodenbaugh
RODENBAUGH LAW
tel/fax: +1.415.738.8087
http://rodenbaugh.com 


-----Original Message-----
From: owner-bc-gnso at icann.org [mailto:owner-bc-gnso at icann.org] On Behalf Of
Mike Roberts
Sent: Wednesday, December 07, 2011 2:38 PM
To: bc - GNSO list
Subject: [bc-gnso] ICANN hearings


Reading over today's testimony, one can't help but have the feeling that
ICANN is digging itself deeper and deeper into a bunker position from which
it may not recover.

I'm reminded of the gigantic underground cistern located near the Blue
Mosque in Istanbul.   Worth a trip if you haven't seen it.

After the collapse of the Roman Empire, the Goths and so on came down the
peninsula and ravaged the city.  So walls were built.   Then sieges were put
in place and folks ran out of water.  So at great expense the cistern was
dug and covered over.   Then longer sieges, etc.  The invaders prevailed.

The moral being that some ideas are so flawed that no amount of building
walls thicker and cisterns deeper will carry the day.

The Kurt Pritz testimony goes on for more than 15 pages trying to cover
every possible contingency of bad behavior connected to new TLDs.   And
doesn't succeed.

Even though the BC membership includes members with multiple relationships
to ICANN, some of which are linked to proposed new TLDs, the core rationale
for our constituency is to represent business users of the Domain Name
System.   Setting aside IDNs, which have their own rationale, I haven't seen
any enthusiasm for new TLDs among users, and most of us have been opposed
but willing to work on the details with ICANN because that seemed better
than letting it happen without any input from us.   What we have gotten for
our trouble is Kurt claiming in his testimony that there is broad community
support for new TLDs.  That has never been the case.

The ever greater accretion of protective bureaucracy to the program has
produced a balance of costs and benefits - in the broad sense, including
more than dollars and cents - that is seriously out of whack.   It's time
for us to acknowledge this, and say so publicly.

- Mike