[council] Forgotten issue in the new gTLD policy discussion

Mawaki Chango ki_chango at yahoo.com
Thu Feb 22 05:13:05 UTC 2007


Dear colleagues,
Bruce,

At the Amsterdam meeting, end of August 2006, while we were
discussing the selection criteria of the new gTLD policy, our
colleague Ken Stubb threw the idea of paying particular attention to
the situation of developing countries. It followed a short exchange
(notably with Marilyn Cade) and it sounded like a rough consensus
that there was something to say or do about this question one way or
the other. I tried to keep the ball rolling but the comittee didn't
seem to have much time to pay further attention to this, so I posted
a few proposals on the council list, calling for further
consideration. After Amsterdam, apart from a few questions asked by
Chuck Gomez to which I responded, there hasn't been, to my knowledge,
further discussion of this issue. However, I note that all traces
have disappeared altogether from the draft final report.

If there was a discussion and a decision taken by the Council during
a call that I missed, please be so kind to indicate to me the date of
such call and/or direct me to the records and minutes of that
meeting.

Assuming such discussion by the Council has never taken place, I wish
to submit to your attention the attached draft (hardly two pages, in
plain text below) that I have prepared in order to enable us carry
out that necessary discussion. 

Bruce, this is the last opportunity that I have to request you, as
the Chair, to accommodate this discussion in the agenda of the
upcoming meeting in Marina del Rey. Whatever the reality is, I think
we can all face it through honnest and articulated arguments; it
would be hard not to agree that shunning cannot be established as a
way of forming policy. 

I am traveling tomorrow Thursday and will arrive at Marina del Rey
only at the end of the day. I will attend the meeting from Friday,
and I look forward to seeing you all again.

Best regards,

Mawaki
*****

A. Background and Motivation

The time has come for ICANN to take an aggressive turn toward a truly
global governance of the Internet, ensuring  further openness,
diversity, and competition through its processes as well as by their
outcomes. There clearly is a benefit as well as a cost, either
symbolic, material or both, to be the authority that everybody in the
industry looks at, and often relies on, at one level or the other.
Just as it accepts the privilege (and benefit) to play such role,
ICANN needs to accept to bear the related responsibility (or cost)
toward the whole community, and this may have different flavors
depending on the specific conditions of the different participant
groups or regions, in connection with ICANN's business.

For example, we need to realize that there is a huge cost to bear for
a developing Non-English speaking country (and there are many such
examples,) with regard to the conditions in which ICANN has conducted
its business over the past decade. ICANN may well translate its
public documents in several languages, it does not, however, process
applications, negotiate or sign contracts other than in English and
the related legal environment. ICANN takes decisions that impact the
possibility of entry in the Internet industry and market. Though the
Internet industry and market are global, not every potential player
has had the same access to the information about market opportunities
because of those linguistic and cultural shortcomings. Economists and
Policy Analysts would identify this as a market failure by means of
information asymmetry.

Indeed, the fact that ICANN's tools and processes for policy-making
are in a specific language results in a loss for countries that are
not in any position, at start, to be familiar with those tools and
processes, neither to their cultural environment. For many, this
means, among other things, 8 years or so lagging behind and even
locked out of the industry. Those with poor or very limited
institutional and economic development, in addition, are even worse
off. As a result, it is once again those having less who still get
less, falling farther behind, while paying the same market price as
every one if not more because of their poor organization (cost of
access, international bandwidth and interconnections, etc.) 

Obviously, setting application criteria that are tailored (or based
on) the performance of the most developed economies in the world
equates to excluding the majority of the areas and people. 

Finally, in the global Internet community, there are vibrant groups
of users technically capable of running a registry and willing to
serve their grassroots communities on a voluntary basis. Experience
has shown that a non-profit model of registry can work just as fine
as the commercial model.

For better or worse, the Internet is a global facility, but it
shouldn't only be so from the demand and the user side, but also and
genuinely from the operation and supply side as well. If we chose not
to address the issues raised above, we will be sending a message of
exclusion to the face of people who are concerned and eager to
participate actively and responsibly on both ends and contribute to
the promising expansion of this uniquely global network.

B. Proposals for action

Thus, I would like to call on the GNSO Council to consider and
address the following issues in its PDP, and more generally, ICANN to
initiate a phased process starting with the implementation of the
current new gTLD policy being developed, in order to progressively
achieve the following objectives in the near term:

1. Establish a capacity-building and support mechanism aiming at
facilitating effective communication on important and technical
Internet governance functions in a way which no longer requires all
participants in the conversation to be able to read and write
English.

2. Put in place a fee reduction scheme for gTLD applicants from
developing economies, and make the financial and the operational
threshold for market entry easier for those from less developed
economies.

3. The ICANN gTLD application process should be able to
receive and process applications in major languages other than
English, and the documents needed to apply should be available in the
six working languages of the United Nations.	


Drafted by Mawaki Chango
GNSO Council Member
February 21, 2007
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