[Gnso-newgtld-wg] A few additions to yesterday's post re a different approach to public interest closed generic strings.

Wed Jul 15 21:06:44 UTC 2020

Dear Anne,

Yes, We do not need to “agree” on a solution. If we can’t agree to ONE solution – we can provide both rationales to the public – and see whether they come up with something new (a 1 in a Trillion chance) or rally behind one of the both options offered by us.

Preferably each camp provides their own suggestion.

The both options seem to be:

*        The new gTLD program doesn’t require a public interest goal. Hence any applicant should be able to operate a generic term based gTLD as private TLD – excluding the public from registrations.

*        The new gTLD program is bound to a public interest goal. Hence applicants for generic term based gTLDs will have to sufficiently demonstrate that excluding the public will serve the public interest.

It all boils down to whether or not the program is bound to a public interest goal. 

Thanks,

Alexander

From: Gnso-newgtld-wg [mailto:gnso-newgtld-wg-bounces at icann.org] On Behalf Of Aikman-Scalese, Anne
Sent: Mittwoch, 15. Juli 2020 20:14
To: McGrady, Paul D. <PMcGrady at taftlaw.com>; Jeff Neuman <jeff at jjnsolutions.com>; George Sadowsky <george.sadowsky at gmail.com>; gnso-newgtld-wg at icann.org
Subject: Re: [Gnso-newgtld-wg] A few additions to yesterday's post re a different approach to public interest closed generic strings.

As indicated by the draft questions I proposed for consideration of whether a Closed Generic string serves the public interest, I support the development of criteria toward that end and the publication of the criteria for public comment.

Others in the WG who believe that a Closed Generic need not serve the public interest (i.e. that the Board should vote to overrule the GAC Consensus Advice) should have that view summarized in the report and public comment on that point should be solicited. 

Anne

From: Gnso-newgtld-wg <gnso-newgtld-wg-bounces at icann.org <mailto:gnso-newgtld-wg-bounces at icann.org> > On Behalf Of McGrady, Paul D.
Sent: Wednesday, July 15, 2020 10:06 AM
To: Jeff Neuman <jeff at jjnsolutions.com <mailto:jeff at jjnsolutions.com> >; George Sadowsky <george.sadowsky at gmail.com <mailto:george.sadowsky at gmail.com> >; gnso-newgtld-wg at icann.org <mailto:gnso-newgtld-wg at icann.org> 
Subject: Re: [Gnso-newgtld-wg] A few additions to yesterday's post re a different approach to public interest closed generic strings.

[EXTERNAL]

  _____  

Thanks Jeff.  I tend to agree that we keep the “no agreement” section in – we spent a lot of time perfecting that.  Let’s see if the public can come up with a solution to this problem that the WG couldn’t.  I’m not optimistic since, as in the proposed .heart model, if keeping cardiac patients alive and well is not in enough in the public interest for the no budge/no solution fragment of the WG, I really don’t see a way forward – at least not for this WG.  Ultimately, if the remains AGB silent on the issue of closed generics, applicants can review the actual policy and choose whether or not to roll the dice and apply if they wish. They can then wait and see if anyone in the domain name industry or in the applicant’s own industry that doesn’t want them to innovate will be able to marshal sufficient political pressure within the ICANN Board to get their way.  

For giggles, I refer us back to the actual policy already in place (although it didn’t seem at all to matter in the 2012 round).  The policy is in bold and my commentary is in (    ).  

Question:  What strings can be rejected based on the nature of the string itself?

Actual Policy:  Strings must not be contrary to generally accepted legal norms relating to morality and public order that are recognized under international principles of law.

(does anyone really believe that a .heart TLD connecting pacemakers with cardiologist is going result in immorality and public disorder?)

Question: What changes can be made to the application process after applications go in?

Actual Policy:  There must be a clear and pre-published application process using objective and measurable criteria.

(unless a (1) competitor is unhappy that you innovated and they didn’t; (2) the anti-free speech crowd wants to control speech in the top level; or (3) a registrar figures out that they can’t make any money on your TLD…ugh).

Best,

Paul

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From: Gnso-newgtld-wg <gnso-newgtld-wg-bounces at icann.org <mailto:gnso-newgtld-wg-bounces at icann.org> > On Behalf Of Jeff Neuman
Sent: Monday, July 13, 2020 1:13 PM
To: George Sadowsky <george.sadowsky at gmail.com <mailto:george.sadowsky at gmail.com> >; gnso-newgtld-wg at icann.org <mailto:gnso-newgtld-wg at icann.org> 
Subject: Re: [Gnso-newgtld-wg] A few additions to yesterday's post re a different approach to public interest closed generic strings.

Wow, lots of comments in the last 24 hours and glad I took a little break

George,

Thanks for the proposal, but I just want to address a couple of assumptions that are being made in your model.

1.	By definition, a closed TLD is one in which only one eligible to “register” second level names, is the Registry Operator itself.  So there would never be third party registrants.  Thus, Criteria 2 (the second part), 4, 5 and 7 would not necessarily apply.

2.	Anyone can apply for an open-restricted domain (even with a generic word) and restrict the second level registrants to being not-for-profit or whatever reasonable criteria they wanted to.  That would not be considered a closed domain.  For example, .bank restricts its membership to legitimate financial organizations that meet a pre-defined set of criteria.  It is considered “open” because it allowed for second level registrations by third parties, but it is restricted in which third parties can apply and what they can apply for.  Therefore, unless we were to truly allow the TLDs to be “closed” to only the registry operator, there would be no reason that we would need to create a separate category of TLDs.

3.	As far as being a not-for-profit organization, that makes sense since not-for-profits must act for the public good.  That is in their charters and if they fail to act for the public good, their not-for-profit status (at least in the US) could be taken away.

4.	  With respect to #7, again there are no third party registrants and so most certainly there would be no fees to the sole registrant (the Registry Operator itself).

And as has been shown on the list, people do not like the .disaster example.  Some have argued that they do not believe the Red Cross is the “right entity” to hold that string.  And that is the crux of the problem we have.  As a community, there is a belief that we should only allow a closed generic to go to the hypothetical organization that is most deserving of it.  And on that, No one will ever agree.  We should never be asking who is the best organization to run a TLD (as we never do that with other strings), but whether the party that actually applied for the TLD will use it to serve a public interest goal.

On the list, Kristine Dorrain brough up a hypothetical example of an artificial heart manufacturer that wanted a .heart TLD where it would use second level registrations to associate with devices so that doctors and patients could monitor certain functions of the heart.  A sort of Internet of Things approach but rather than using random IP Addresses, patients can get assigned specific domains that they can easily remember.  The registrant of each of the names is the manufacturer, so it controls what type of content (or the use) of the domains.  There was much more in the hypothetical, but the Working Group questioned “why does the manufacturer need this name”? Why cant it use its .brand?  This again is the wrong question (in my mind) to ask.  The question should be whether the intended use of the string is for a public interest goal?  It should not be is this the best string?  Or why can’t it use a different string?

And finally, we need to decide who end users are of these TLDs.  We seem to be stuck in one way of thinking where the end users of TLDs are second level registrants.  But isn’t the real end users the actual end users that consume the content contained on a given second level registration?  So long as we are stuck on the one non-innovative model where all the focus is on registrants as opposed to the consuming public, then we will not make any progress on this issue (in my very humble opinion).

If we can’t think of ANY examples that would pass our criteria after thinking about the issues for 4+ years, then I am not sure how productive the exercise will be.

All of that said, here is my proposal:  We keep the No Agreement section in the report as we have now and put it out for public comment.  We explain in the section that we are going to take into consideration comments received and try once more to see if there is way to figure out a mechanism to measure whether a generic closed TLD can serve a public interest goal during the (and after) the draft final report public comment period.  

Jeffrey J. Neuman

Founder & CEO

JJN Solutions, LLC

p: +1.202.549.5079

E:  <mailto:jeff at jjnsolutions.com> jeff at jjnsolutions.com

http://jjnsolutions.com

From: Gnso-newgtld-wg <gnso-newgtld-wg-bounces at icann.org <mailto:gnso-newgtld-wg-bounces at icann.org> > On Behalf Of George Sadowsky
Sent: Monday, July 13, 2020 12:32 PM
To: gnso-newgtld-wg at icann.org <mailto:gnso-newgtld-wg at icann.org> 
Subject: [Gnso-newgtld-wg] A few additions to yesterday's post re a different approach to public interest closed generic strings.

All,

I'd like to add one more criterion for comfort in chartering public interest closed generic string domains:

"7. Registration fees and revenue in general should be set at a level to cover costs and provide a reasonable rate of return for the administration of the domain.  Should assets build up over time for an unrelated reason, it should be required that they be periodically withdrawn and dedicated to an external effort in a manner related to the public interest objective for which the collective management of the domain enjoys rough consensus."  

More important, reflecting on my post of yesterday, it occurred to me that there were some general principles behind the detail that might be worth abstracting as guidelines for how we might think about setting ground rules for structuring closed generic domains to obtain the conduct of participants and effectiveness of behavior in the public interest that we might want to see.  I suggest the following (again a rough approximation of what could be possible):

A. The initial applicants for such a domain should all come from a base of organizations already involved in action with regard to the public interest issue to be addressed by the domain's name and purpose, and should constitute a large enough representative subset of that gro p to skeak with some authority about the substance, importance, and legitimacy of the issue.

B. The financial arrangements governing the operation of the domain should provide a reasonable operational return to t he activities of the domain and should preclude any windfall gains to the organization.  Rationale: This should serve to cater to the public service aspects of the activity rather than any significant financial gain.

C. The rules governing the development of the domain should encourage competition among registrants to provide the best, most relevant and most useful information and services for beneficiaries who access information from the site.  Competition should be directed to the area of substantive content and not to competitive structure or direct financial profit.  Rationale: The primary purpose of the domain will be the substantive content that it provides.  Competition among organizations is inevitable, so let's create a structure that focuses that competition on what's most important for the user: helpful and useful content.

Is this too draconian?  If the resulting domain is truly to be a public interest web site, then the incentive for organizations in creating one should be more in the centralization and enlargement of a more useful and more visible collection of helpful information, not hopes for large financial gain.

George  

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