Kent,
You wrote:
> Far more important is to send comments on the Green Paper.
>
If my contribution may help, please find below my comments to the Green
Paper, that I submitted to CORE few hours ago.
Shared Registry versus multiple independent Registries
Competition at the Registry level may look nice on paper (best if
green), but doesn't work in practice.
Competition at the Registrar level is useful, because it allows end
users to choose a different supplier for the same goods he wants, but
what benefit can the presence of multiple Registries bring to the end
user?
If somebody wants to register <myname.apple>, (s)he can do this with
different Registrars (real competition), but only with one Registry (see
Appendix 1 - "Each top-level domain (TLD) database will be maintained by
only one registry"). Other Registries will allow him/her to register
"similar" names, like <myname.orange>, but not the one (s)he wants. In
formal economical terms, different Registries offer only "substitute
goods", and nowhere in the economic bibles this is considered as "real
competition" (I can browse my books for appropriate authoritative
reference on the subject, but I'm sure that we have good professional
economists onboard that could do this faster and better than myself).
On the other hand, multiple registries have several drawbacks, like:
1 - a commercial (not non-profit) Registry can raise the price for
renewal, blackmailing the customers that would prefer to pay rather than
change domain name;
2 - different Registries may well have different policies, different
data format, different protocols and different interfaces to their
Databases, which will cost more to Registrars to implement, i.e. which
will cost more to the end user, and that will make the global operations
on Trademark management (like search, verification of infringement,
clearing) more complicated, if not impossible;
3 - from the practical point of view, who will oversee the "fairness" of
the Registries to all Registrars? In other words, who will guarantee
that NSI-Registry will not favour WorldNIC versus some CORE Registrar
(or vice-versa, of course).
So, no real benefit, but a lot of trouble.
Trademark and Intellectual Property
One of the main criticism to the current situation, and reason for
urgent improvement, is the protection against cybersquatters and timely
resolution of Trademark litigation.
We have an authoritative model for this, coming from WIPO, the UN
Organization in charge of international Intellectual Property protection
and management. They are spending a lot of their time in defining the
framework and the process for litigation resolution, have convened
international meetings just to evaluate the correlation between Internet
Domain Names and Trademark litigation, and are producing what is, so
far, the only model that is acceptable to the international community.
Moreover, we signed a MoU that is engaging us to use this model for
disputes, and are accepting WIPO's authority. WIPO has access to our
database for the operations aimed at detect and resolve disputes. We are
therefore ready to go, now, with a process that, incidentally, not only
fulfils the few requirements spelled out in Appendix 2 of the Green
Paper, but goes well beyond that in the refinement of the process.
On the other hand, another to-be Registry would have a lot of
difficulties today to define a different model that could also be
GP-compliant: the section of the Green Paper addressing this issue is
more dedicated to asking questions than to provide answers. Its title
is, very appropriately, the "Trademark Dilemma".
The possibility of applying different rules to different Registries,
that will be the consequence of refusing the application of
international laws, favouring the local laws applicable in the elected
jurisdiction (for instance, as suggested in the Green Paper,
jurisdiction where the Registry or its Database resides) will add
confusion. On a dispute between two companies involving several gTLDs,
we can have opposite ruling for different gTLDs. The only possibility is
to use international Trademark and Intellectual Property laws: the
industry, the business world, the Internet, need to be allowed to use
the viable solution today, i.e. WIPO ACP, they don't need to do some
more headscratching to solve what is otherwise an unresolvable dilemma.
Ethic
We signed a MoU that is engaging ourselves to a specific ethical
behaviour. We gave ourselves rules and sanctions.
No mention to the need for basic ethic rules can be found in the Green
Paper. On the contrary, one has the general feeling that the approach is
"no rules, the market will sort it out".
This attitude is approaching the border of irresponsibility: on one
hand, the Green Paper claims to be willing to phase out monopoly in an
orderly fashion, on the other hand it proposes a wild west solution,
ignoring the progress made so far by the Internet community.
Timeframe
The Green Paper sets September 30, 1998 as the deadline by which
competence have to be passed to the new IANA. The process will "commence
as soon as possible", but is very likely to be kept on hold until
consensus is reached on the Green Paper. Even if the possibility of a
transition phase is envisaged, it is very likely that the current
unsatisfactory situation will continue for the good part of the current
year.
In the meantime, as our reservation queues show, there is a real need
and pressure from the market for a solution to be put in place within
the shortest delays.
CORE is ready to start on March 2, 1998, and satisfies the greater part
of the requirements listed in Appendix 1 of the Green Paper: there
should be no reason why the process of renewing the Internet cannot
start with limited operations by CORE on at least one of the new gTLDs.
On the contrary, this decision will be very beneficial to the whole
process, because it will allow to beta-test the new system, and provide
the USG with very useful indication on how the transition may work. All
this at virtually no risk.
It should be stressed that, even if the final draft of the Green Paper
will remain as is, and will be accepted as the governing rule of the
Internet, the inclusion later on this year of more competing Registries
and more gTLDs will still be possible.
Bottom-Up Process
One of the "Principles for a new System" stated under this header in the
Green Paper is the need for reflecting "the bottom-up governance that
has characterized development of the Internet to date". The best way to
follow this approach, on which there is already a large consensus, is to
let the self-government process to continue. A consultation has taken
place, the results are known, the industry has invested resources in the
implementation of the chosen solution, and at this point in time further
pressure from the USG will be perceived as an intrusion in the already
ongoing bottom-up process. This intrusion will furthermore be
incompatible with the claims of phasing out USG involvement in the
Internet.
International Scope
Great lip service (no reference to other facts recently involving the
White House) is paid to the International scope of the Internet, and to
the "larger voice in Internet coordination" claimed by entities outside
the US.
In practice, reference to US laws is made, the new IANA is required to
be incorporated in the US, and so on.
No mention is made to any requirement of presence at the international
level for Registrars or Registries is made, nor to the possible
geographical distribution.
No consultation has been launched at the international level for the
preparation of the draft Green Paper that just came out.
CORE, on the other hand, is really international in scope. CORE seat is
in Europe, the Chairman comes from the US, the Vice-Chairman from
Australia. Its members reside in all five continents, bringing the
Registrars closer to the end users, but granting at the same time global
coordination and common business practice and ethic worldwide.
The .us Domain
There is one point on which general consensus on the Green Paper can be
achieved: the need for better management of the .us domain, and the
possible migration of .gov and .mil under this TLD.
This is a real all-US subject, where USG is sole and full responsible,
and where action is wholeheartedly supported by the Internet community.
Too bad that this is also the only point of the Green Paper where
further action is delayed to other RFCs yet to come.
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