[Gnso-newgtld-wg-wt5] Conference call: city names

Mon Apr 30 11:22:13 UTC 2018

Dear Liz,

you concluded (and forgive me if I got you wrong):
         “As a starting point, my recommendation would be that we don’t have any special treatment for place names as TLDs 

            and that applicants for those names would be evaluated against other business and technical criteria just like another application.”

I am voicing objection (which is hard to do – as you are so likeable)! STRONG OBJECTION. First: All city applications WERE obviously “evaluated against business and technical criteria just like another application” – they were not handed out like candy!

I am professionally dealing with city gTLDs since 2004 – about 13.5 years long. You do not have to be a genius – or being forced by ICANN policy – to map the underlying problems out, and solve them:

*         Constituents of the said city should be involved – for example via ownership and policy board (hence .berlin was a multi-stakeholder owned applicant – owned by hundreds of entities)

*         The applicant should not only be supported by the city – but also by its constituents (.berlin had several hundred supporting organizations each representing a constituency in  the city)

*         If there is any mentionable city with an identical name: Go and get their support! (.berlin approached already in 2006 five other Berlins, even if they had all less than 20k inhabitants)

*         The sovereign of the target city should be closely involved and support the project actively (.berlin approached the city government already in 2005!)

With .berlin we did all of the above BEFORE ICANN even STARTED the PDP back in 2006; in other words: voluntary and without being forced by policy. 

So to hear that we should have ZERO threshold for cities in the next round – just to make it “more fair”: 
Sorry, but no. If anything than the opposite. In my mind city applicants should be (like btw .berlin was set up in 2005 and then applied as) community applicants. It’s easy to waltz into a majors office and promise 85% of the (artificially diluted) profits to the city (shit happened in 2011 and 2012) and completely IGNORE the city’s constituents. Some applicants had ZERO roots or contact with the constituents of  city – just got the major’s  letter and applied. Not really cool.

The idea that a river “New” would grant rights for a “.new” is preposterous. Obviously NOT. So if we are concerned (and the concern is very valid) that generic place names might be exploited to snag away generic gTLDs: why not simply limit both the objection rights AND the requirement for a letter of non-objection for strings that are IDENTICAL to a generic dictionary term?

Last time I checked (and I checked a lot in the past 13 years) there is really just a very tiny amount of cities which bear a name that is identical to a generic term. In these few cases we might have to let some panel decide – but unlikely that we even GET such application. 

However I am very much in agreement with you that we have a clear problem regarding:

*         What size (or importance) of a geo location leads to “objection rights”; or the requirement for a letter of approval? If I apply for .frankfurt (a city that is somehow well known among other things because it has a quite frequented Airport) – could a tiny 8,000 people nest “Frankfurt” in Australia demand ransom to not object (or grant a letter of non-objection)? In other words: We need some objective for limitation on proof of “impact”. And we might need to utilize a panel here – to avoid IRP’s and other monstrous, time-consuming mechanisms.

*         The same is true if somebody applies for a generic term (.new, .save) or brand (.tata): What is the threshold for the requirement for a letter of non-objection? .bar and .tata were examples in 2012 …… these needed to provide letters of non-objection because they were listed in ISO 3166 – and the Tata region denied the letter. But outside of 3166: When is a region, river, area, city or mountain important enough so that the affiliated people (or rather their representatives) need to approve? Just because there is a “New River” in the U.S. – I do not think the people living at this tiny stream should be able to stop a .new! 

So instead saying that we are SCRAPPING all protections for the people living in a city – let’s better keep all protections; and figure out how to avoid that an applicant needs approval of a body that isn’t actually really “impacted” by the applied for gTLD. So what is “impact”? Well: If the condom brand “LONDON” applied for “.london” – and got the TLD: the citizens of London are deprived of their chance to use .london as identifier. If Donuts makes a .new for “new stuff” – are the people living along the New River in any way deprived of anything?

The big question is: Are we able to find a “one size fits it all” rule to map this out – or do we say: “Well, we wanted to avoid beauty contests – but in these few rare cases only a panel will be able to decide: let’s both parties bring forward their arguments – then decide”. In my mind MUCH better than no protection at all – or some monstrous rule that attempts to regulate what is actually not easy to regulate at all.

Example: Perth applies for .perth as singular applicant with the city’s approval. Two other Perth’s call the panel. A solution could be that the contestants agree to have a joined policy board – and every citizen in all Perth cities can apply for domains. The end goal is to PROTECT THE RIGHTS OF ALL PEOPLE AFFILIATED WITH A CERTAIN STRING! In the case of “Perth” that would be all people living in sizeable cities named Perth! It’s not about who is bigger, older or a capital. This isn’t a competition with ONE “winner” – we do not want “winners” but equal protections for people who might need a string to identify themselves.

Maybe I am just not competitive enough; bit I still strongly believe we evolve the DNS to create benefits for the Internet users – not to “win” or “line our pockets with cash”. This is not about winners – but how to make sure that affected Internet users are served best.

Thanks,

Alexander.berlin

From: Gnso-newgtld-wg-wt5 [mailto:gnso-newgtld-wg-wt5-bounces at icann.org] On Behalf Of Liz Williams
Sent: Monday, April 30, 2018 8:19 AM
To: leonard obonyo via Gnso-newgtld-wg-wt5 <gnso-newgtld-wg-wt5 at icann.org>
Subject: [Gnso-newgtld-wg-wt5] Conference call: city names

Hello everyone  

I wanted to start a new thread of conversation about city names ahead of our upcoming conference call.   We are being encouraged by our co-chairs to think about city names as TLDs. The first point is, perhaps, to recognise the “success” of some previous city TLDs including Berlin, Paris, NYC and so on.  Those applications went through very specific requirements for evaluation and, now, hopefully serve the requirements of local communities.  We should hope that, in any new round, the experiences of those cities will ease the way for future applications because we have learnt something about how and why applicants apply for place names (and I use the word place deliberately) as top level domain labels.

For our next round of policy recommendations I wanted to use an example which I think highlights the difficulties we face if we are prescriptive and limited in our analysis.

Most of us know that Perth is the capital city of Western Australia.  It is not the capital city of Australia as Canberra has that honour.  Relying on a “is the word a capital city” question is fraught with difficulty.   It is difficult because Perth, Scotland, has at a bare minimum had city status since the 12th century, far longer than Perth, Australia which also has an indigenous place name, its colonial name and a migrant demographic where the largest majority of Perth residents come from England.  Things are complicated by the existence of Perth in Canada which, in its own right, has some features of a capital and, at the very least, some important historic linkages.

And then we turn to the generic words which Jon Nevett highlighted in a previous post (Bath, Save, New) which are also place names.

That leads us to what can we usefully and objectively recommend as treatment of other names which are also linked to places and how those could be treated as top level domains.  As a starting point, my recommendation would be that we don’t have any special treatment for place names as TLDs and that applicants for those names would be evaluated against other business and technical criteria just like another application.  However, we might want to think about better ways of handling an objection.  Those objections, from whatever quarter, need to be treated in exactly the same way.  I don’t recommend “letters of support or non-objection”.  They are too subjective, fraught with movable political nuance and, in some cases, deeply sensitive geo-political facts (using Jerusalem as the example).

I look forward to hearing the views of others.

Liz

….
Dr Liz Williams | International Affairs
.au Domain Administration Ltd
M: +61 436 020 595 | +44 7824 877757
E: liz.williams at auda.org.au <mailto:liz.williams at auda.org.au>  www.auda.org.au <http://www.auda.org.au> 

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