[Gnso-newgtld-wg] Public interest generic strings - a different approach

Alan Greenberg alan.greenberg at mcgill.ca
Mon Jul 13 04:06:11 UTC 2020


Thanks George,

I've been meaning to join this thread all day, but other things pulled
me away. That turns out to be fortuitous since I now have your
proposal to comment on.

To start, I will recount a proposal I made a few months ago.

I too was trying to find some "middle ground" that could remove an
absolute prohibition and yet satisfy what we suspect will be a GAC
(and others - I count myself among them) reaction.

I disagreed with the .disaster scenario suggested by Jeff (there are
other worthy disaster relief organizations and it was not clear that a
TLD run by the Red Cross would give them "equal space" - perhaps if
run by the UN it could be acceptable..). But I accepted the concept
that there may well be examples of such public interest TLDs. The lack
of viable (in my not-so-humble opinion) examples was troublesome.

The difficult problem is judging whether a particular application
meets that criteria when we have never been able to clearly define
what we mean by public interest, and would not likely be able to do so
in the time-frame of this PDP. My only answer to this was that the
ICANN Board is charged with deciding whether the public interest is
being met, so let the Board decide on whether an application is
acceptable or not.

It quickly became obvious that there would be a hoard of such
applications and the Board was not going to address a large number, so
I suggested that only not-for-profits could apply. That met with a
host of disagreements that for-profits could do good things too.  I
also believed that the decision on whether the public interest was met
in the application had to be non-appealable, particularly if the field
was opened to for-profits. That was felt to not be possible under our
Bylaws. The proposal died an ignominious death soon after.

Your proposal has the same intent and some of the same flavour as
mine, but with more detail and hopefully it will get better support.

Some specific comments:

a) Although I can accept the concept that a for-profit might have
altruistic intents, ultimately they report to their owners and likely
shareholders. A TLD is for the long term, and I am uncomfortable with
a for-profit having custody. Yes, we could add "guard rails" as we
have discussed in other areas, but the comfort level is still not
high, so I agree that not-for-profic is a likely requirement. You
cover the edge case of "some exceptions",

b) a major issue of whether the TLD will really be in the public
interest, and how to define the "exceptions" is not addressed here and
is the proverbial elephant in the room. We were not good at defining
the rules for community or subsidized TLDs last time, and I have
minimal hope we could do better with this new class this time given
our history at not being able to define or even describe "public
interest". Saying wise people "will know it when they see it" is not
sufficient here. I still believe that only the Board is in the
position to ultimately decide on what is in the public interest. Even
if the Board were willing to take on this responsibility (not at all
clear), the appeal process could draw this out indefinitely.

c) I agree with the terms you describe on a transfer of control. And
the fact that it is the ICANN Board that ultimately makes that
decision reinforces my belief that the Board is the right place for
the original go/nogo decision on whether the public interest is being
met - perhaps preceded by a panel recommendation.

d) As we saw with the .org debate, having an advisory council is
probably mandatory, but how it is selected and just what powers it has
can make or break the deal.

e) As with my proposal, if we can agree on the non-profit aspect (even
with some well articulated exception conditions), we may have a chance
of doing this. That may reduce the numbers to a sufficiently low
number to make it implementable.

Alan





At 2020-07-12 10:05 PM, George Sadowsky wrote:

All,

I'd like to outline a different approach to the issue of public
interest generics, in the hope that it might (eventually?) contribute
to a policy solution for this issue.  This is only at the level of a
thought experiment.

Let's hypothesize the following:

1. The status quo is decided in one direction or another, or is even
ignored.  I not sure it matters with this approach.

2. There is an unquenchable demand for the possible creation of public
interest generic string gTLDs, either for strings that have been
identified already or for the emergence of possible such strings in
the future.  Therefore the GNSO policy has to have a provision for
them.  (You can use .disaster as a proxy for thinking about this, or
not.)

3. Other top level generics, covering industries and markets will not
be allowed.  Only public interest generics will be allowed.  (The
arguments against this subset of generics depends upon a different
type of public interest argument having a basis that the
monopolization of the information space of an entire market by a
single organization result in a concentration of power that is not in
the public interest.  Further the GAC is as likely to object to this
in the future as they have in the past, and the new policy must either
bypass GAC concerns or lead to a confrontation between the Board and
the GAC.

Given this scenario, what concerns would we have about delegating such
domains to organizations.  Each of us has some concerns including, but
not limited to, competition among which organization should receive
the delegation, control of inappropriate registrations (and who
decides), profiteering (under some definition) by virtue of being
chosen, and similar concerns.

Now, rather than give up on the idea of adopting the public interest
string in a gTLD, let's ask under what additional conditions would our
concerns be largely or totally alleviated?  After all, if there are
organizations that think the concept is sufficiently important to
invest in, and it appears that the GAC will accept the string as a
legitimate public interest issue, shouldn't we work toward finding a
good way to make it happen rather than saying, "There are too many
difficulties with the concept, let's give it up."

So here are some suggestions for the creation of a policy environment,
approved by the GNSO and very likely to be acceptable to the ICANN
Board and the GAC, that could allow such strings to exist with
appropriate controls that we would feel comfortable with.

[Bear in mind that this is written on the fly and is a rough sketch of
what might happen, to indicate possibility of concept, not proof.  The
big question is whether this could be a worthwhile approach rather
than if these details are the exactly correct ones.]

1. A new category of TLD is created for such strings, a little like
the community status of the previous round.  Let's name the category
"Generic Public Interest Strings."  Rationale: Attempts to fit closed
pubic interest generics into structures from the previous round don't
seem to work; a new category with new rules is needed for this
category of string to work.

2. The applicant must be a not-for-profit organization.  With some
classes of exceptions permitted, second level registrants should also
be not-for-profit organizations or governmental organizations.

3. The application should contain statements of support from initial
second level registrants. The group should include a robust selection
of organizations that have a material interest in the subject and can
contribute through the domain to the public good.  Challenges should
be possible during the evaluation period.

4. The domain will have a management structure that recognizes the
applicant as its leader but has in addition a council of leaders
consisting of a representation of second level registrants.  Additions
and deletions to the registrant list, as well as any decisions
regarding structural, behavioral and content issues are the
responsibility of such a council that will develop its management
charter.

5. The domain must have in it two prominent up to date entries.  The
first should be a detailed statement of purpose, and the second should
be an updated annotated index of all second level registrants and the
manner in which their domain can be used to contribute to the public
interest related to the string.  The first entry should be a part of
the application and cannot be changed in any significant manner for
the life of the gTLD except by rough consensus of the domain
management group.  (I strongly recommend a sensitive and insightful
exposition of the meaning and implications of "rough consensus" is
provided in RFC 7282 by Pete Resnick.)

6. If the domain is to change hands to another manager, the transfer
must be judged on the basis of continuity and importance of purpose.
The price of the domain will be limited to the original investment in
the acquisition and operation of the domain, appropriately discounted,
and capped by the increase in some measure such as the rate of
inflation or the cost of capital increase during the period of current
management, possibly with a multiplier and/or floor of some sort.
Rationale: This will insure that public service rather than gain is
the motivating factor for applying for the domain.

I think that I would feel comfortable that a structure like this would
ensure that the domain would adhere to its original public benefit
purpose.  Other structural approaches are possible also.

This approach does require a new set of considerations for a new
category.  This may not be an easy task, and will take time, but it is
not an impossible job.   The result -- accommodation for including
public interest generic  gTLDs  --should make such a development
worthwhile and, assuming that one agrees with the list of hypotheses
at the beginning of the list, directly addresses the possible
resolution of existing generic string disputes.

Comments?

George

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
George Sadowsky                            Residence tel: +1.301.968.4325
8300 Burdette Road, Apt B-472                    Mobile: +1.202.415.1933
Bethesda MD  20817-2831  USA                            Skype: sadowsky
george.sadowsky at gmail.com             http://www.georgesadowsky.org/



_______________________________________________
Gnso-newgtld-wg mailing list
Gnso-newgtld-wg at icann.org
https://mm.icann.org/mailman/listinfo/gnso-newgtld-wg
_______________________________________________
By submitting your personal data, you consent to the processing of
your personal data for purposes of subscribing to this mailing list
accordance with the ICANN Privacy Policy
(https://www.icann.org/privacy/policy) and the website Terms of
Service (https://www.icann.org/privacy/tos). You can visit the Mailman
link above to change your membership status or configuration,
including unsubscribing, setting digest-style delivery or disabling
delivery altogether (e.g., for a vacation), and so on.


More information about the Gnso-newgtld-wg mailing list