[CPWG] [GTLD-WG] [registration-issues-wg] New gTLD Applicant Support - improve it, or scrap it?

[Evan Leibovitch]

On Thu, 8 Aug 2019 at 03:16, Justine Chew <justine.chew at gmail.com> wrote:

>
> On *"... imploring ALAC to concentrate its comments on those issues with
> demonstrable effect on end users (abuse, confusion, stability, etc)"*
>
> 1. I try to be mindful of that what applies to me may not, whether in part
> or in full, applies to other end-users and vice versa;
>

We're in agreement here. The difference is that IMO ALAC is not at all
mindful of global end users because it really doesn't know what they want.
It's making up positions based on guesses and faith and wishful thinking.

I want nothing more than for At-Large to survey the landscape of end users
to determine what is important, rather than self-righteously guessing at
it. The self-interested, self-selected, time-available people involved in
ALAC mostly do not at all understand the needs of those who use the
Internet yet will never register a domain and never want to. I fully agree
that we need to be aware of what applies to other end-users; however ALAC
and ICANN are grotesquely out of touch with what is outside the bubble.
Inside we are intimately exposed to all the little politics of
who-owns-what or who-deserves-what, issues that outside the bubble are
completely irrelevant.

For myself, I have gone out of my way to talk to non-tech-savvy Internet
users, including family members, refugees, the generation above me, about
what is important for Internet use.  Everyone in ALAC needs to do this, you
may be surprised by the results.

Yes, ALAC is one of the most geographically diverse parts of ICANN and
least conflicted, which is why I still have hope for it. But populated as
it is with governance wonks and people experienced in the DNS, it is so
massively out of touch with "the billions" as to be incapable of fulfilling
its bylaw mandate.

Many people here have asserted that issues such as Applicant Support and
geo names affect end users, but those assertions are based on faith, nearly
a religion. They have yet to provide a single shred of evidence of end-user
relevance beyond gut instinct. Old arguments that suggest that domains can
protect necssary privacy, or bring together communities, have proven to be
absolute nonsense through the realities of the last decade. Despite a dozen
years passing and hundreds of new domains out there, not a single success
story exists of how a culture was preserved or a whistleblower was
protected because of new TLDs (or because of domains at all).

ALAC needs to be driven by evidence and facts rather than instinctive
dogma. Challenge assumptions, most of them are wrong.

- Evan
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