PAB, CORE, POC
By now, many of you have probably read the USG green paper on
DNS administration. Needless to say, it contains many things that
are at odds to the gTLD-MoU vision of the future.
There is a strong sense of deja-vu here. Using subtle shifts of
language, we are almost back to where we were with the original
ideas to create more NSI-like monopolies and the risk of various
gTLDs permanently disappearing into corporate assets (registries).
Although, the registry function for management of a gTLD and servicing
registrars is necessarily a "monopoly" because of the structure of DNS, we
believed that it should be along the lines of the Nominet model (a benevolent
monopoly). The approach we took was to game the system so that gTLDs were
in the public trust and did not "belong" to anyone. This allowed a competitive
registrar market to develop and removed the issue of who "owns" a gTLD. It
also allowed domain name portability which benefits the consumer. The registrar
market will be widespread and subject to intense competition. The battlefield
the USG green paper introduces is to gain control over profit-making registry
rights to a gTLD. I fail to see how a first-come, first-served model rights
to generic terms will serve the Internet community long term. Without registrars
collectively contracting for the service of registries, there are no market
forces to drive down the cost of services that registries are providing. This
means that extra-gTLD competition is the only thing left to put pressure on
registries. We rejected this argument since obviously most gTLDs have quasi-unique
market value.
We need to envision an Internet of hundreds of millions of domain name
registrations. Nobody is trying to gain control over gTLDs like .x7y or .pt9.
They wish to gain control over generic terms like .sex, .law, .inc, .whatever
which are already "branded". It is reaping the built-in market value of generic
names and terms.
While there are points of agreement, much of what is in the USG green paper is
at odds of our vision of how the generic name space should be managed. We need
some time to carefully prepare our arguments against this vision and explain the
pitfalls. I urge you all to think carefully about the long-term implications for
the Internet in the USG paper and also prepare your arguments.
Robert
-- Robert Shaw <robert.shaw@itu.int> Advisor, Global Information Infrastructure International Telecommunication Union <http://www.itu.int> Place des Nations, 1211 Geneva, Switzerland
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