[council] changing the thread: establishing Council's role in strategy and policy of new gTLDs

[Marilyn Cade]

I'll repeat something I said earlier about hoping that we will focus first
on resolving "our" role in the oversight of the processes before we start
debating how many/what kind. 
Our first task is to regain the appropriate role for the Council, determine
how and who to involve from other SOs, ACs, and of course ensure the
participation of the ALAC.

We will hear more from the Board tomorrow I suspect on this question.
Hopefully, our views have prevailed.


-----Original Message-----
From: owner-council at gnso.icann.org [mailto:owner-council at gnso.icann.org] On
Behalf Of Bruce Tonkin
Sent: Wednesday, July 13, 2005 2:16 PM
To: council at gnso.icann.org
Subject: RE: [council] White paper on new gTLDs

Hello Philip,

> 
> On profit / not for profit

My point was that it is difficult to judge a proposal solely because it
is non-profit or for-profit, just as it is difficult to judge a proposed
TLD on the basis of being sponsored or non-sponsored.

I have heard concern in some parts of the community that whenever a new
TLD is created or a cctld is re-purposed, many registrants in that TLD
feel compelled to protect their "brand" in that new TLD.   Some parts of
the community feel more comfortable if a TLD has some restrictions that
narrow the potential set of registrants (e.g .aero).   This does not
seem to me to be an issue of sponsored versus unsponsored, but whether a
TLD should be restricted to a defined set of registrants or open to
anyone to register.    The former model does remind me a bit of the
system of exclusive clubs (e.g some golf clubs) which had tight
constraints on new members (e.g male only from a particular cultural
background), versus clubs which are open to any new members (e.g public
golf courses).   In the long run, the public golf courses seem to do
better.   Of course clubs can still be created for specific purposes,
without being overly restrictive on accepting new members.

A related issue is that if ICANN decides to allow a new TLD because it
is constrained in someway (e.g .name with third level names), how does
the new TLD evolve to respond to the market (ie how do the constraints
change).   The ICANN model is not scalable if it wants to become
involved in all aspects of the operation of a TLD (e.g what
qualifications are required to register in .pro).  It is preferable for
ICANN to focus on the security and stability aspects of a new TLD, and
check that changes don't impact on the security and stability aspects.

It seems to me that ICANN should not be getting involved in picking a
TLD on the basis of its registrants, but should be more concerned about
ensuring that the new TLD works (ie meets Internet standards), meets a
minimum level of reliability (ie has a service level agreement), and has
a back-up (should either the technical or financial backing of the TLD
change).    

This is not to say that there are not legitimate legal concerns about
mis-use of domains names (which includes "passing off", phishing etc),
and these concerns do need solutions.

Again these are my personal views only, and it would be good to
establish an appropriate forum for debate.

Regards,
Bruce Tonkin