Re: [faoc] Re: xTLD BoF and mailing list

[Don Heath <heath@isoc.org>]

At 11:50 AM 2/11/98 -0500, Milton Mueller wrote:
>You made some reasonable points, but please note the following:
>
>Patrik Faltstrom wrote:
>
>> [gTLD-MoU] was formed by the IAHC committee, and signed by IANA and ISOC,
>> not ITU and WIPO.
>
>The IAHC committee was a political coalition of ISOC, IANA,ITU, and WIPO.
>Please don't be disingenuous about this.

I am sorry to weigh in on this  -  I'm not apologizing, I'm just sorry
to get involved in this by and large unfruitful thread.  However, I
was there.  I put the IAHC together and I know how it was done and
with what motivation.  This is said without ego, it's just the way 
it was.

Postel wrote a proposal. In it, he described an ad hoc committee to
select the registrars, define the TLDs, assign them, set up procedures
for doing this process, and disband.

He gave it to ISOC to implement.  In June 1996, the ISOC BoT voted to
accept the proposal, with a proviso that it be fleshed out with a
business plan.

At that point, I was involved in email discussions on the topic, and 
in forums around the world as well.  It was clear to me that the
proposal could never work as defined.  There was significant 
international resistance to what looked like a very US-centric plan,
controlled by US-thinking.

So, I sought to pull together a group of people, geographically dispersed,
with knowledge on the subject, who could also offer some clout (thus,
the ITU - with their telco and worldwide reach, WIPO - for similar
reasons, but with the IP and legal reach, INTA - again, worldwide
reach representing many many business, corporations, and the trademark
issues), plus the US government in the form of the Federal Networking
Council.  I then took the opportunity to use the idea from the Postel
plan to get members appointed from the international "Internet
Community" from the IAB, IANA, and of course, ISOC.  As an aside, the
IAB and IANA appointees came into the group thinking they were doing
the Postel plan.  It was a little awkward, but quickly resolved.  I 
originally wanted to include members from CIX, NSI, APNIC, and RIPE.  
Ultimately I gave in to the argument that the group would get too big; 
some interested groups would have to be excluded from direct IAHC 
"membership"; a smaller group could react better and more efficiently; 
it could look like conflict of interest if NSI et al were in it; etc.

The idea was, is, and always has been, to develop a wide spread view
of what should be done  -  but not to implement the Postel plan, unless,
if by coincidence, that happened to be the result of the process.  It
was not.  It should be noted that at the very beginning, Jon Postel
agreed with what I wanted to do.  Jon has always refrained from any
attempt to dictate what should be done; rather, deferring to the
will of the Internet stakeholders.  As a result, IANA fully got
behind the new approach to be worked by the IAHC.  I have copied
Jon and a few others on this note.

No one else interfered with what I put together.  I personally went
to Pekka Tarjanne (ITU), Arpad Bogsch (WIPO), and INTA.  INTA, because
David Maher was there at the time, and I wanted him on the IAHC.  It
turned out that he resigned his spot at INTA, and INTA appointed another.
As a result, David became an ISOC appointee.

There just wasn't any political stuff going on; there were no meetings
thinking about composition (other that when I wanted to expand the
IAHC within the 1st week of it's inception  -  and those discussions
were a few emails, and phone conversations as I report above).  In
fact, both Tarjanne and Bogsch, independently, wrote me notes saying 
they would provide an individual, but in no way were ITU, or WIPO
endorsing what we were doing and that they would not and could not
officially participate.  Later, of course, ITU agreed to handle
some minor administrative duties, and we brought WIPO in, also in
an administrative role only, regarding the dispute policy processes.

All the speculation about conspiracy, sinister motives, attempting
to take control, etc., are just plain hogwash.  The IAHC was formed
only to work in the way the Internet was developed and is flourishing.
That is by grass roots, bottom up consensus building and self-
determination.  That's what we tried to do.

The incredible effort to derail, stall, mischaracterize the motivation
and the work of the IAHC, to discredit it, etc., has been personally
frustrating and disappointing; but, it did a good job.  No one nor
any group has remotely come up with anything that comes close to what
the IAHC/POC/CORE/PAB has done.

The changes that have been made and continue to be made in this thing
are proof that it is open to all and that anyone can influence its
outcome, providing there is wide enough acceptance.  The group does
not sit in private and decide what to do; it gets its direction from
you.  Still, as the saying goes, "you can't please everybody."

We had no massive PR machine and lobbying effort to drum up support;
we simply did it the way it has been done  -  the way that has produced
one of the most profound entities ever - the Internet.  The forces who
had a self interest to protect, on the other hand, were and are, very
effective in conjuring up misinformation and obfuscating the real
issues.  There has been an incredible amount of work, thought, and
brilliant synthesis to get where we are.  This has involved thousands
of people from all over the world  -  the single most publicly scrutinized
effort ever introduced into the Internet.  It should not be discarded
lightly.

>
>> So, if one want to start a discussion on how/if/when gTLDs have to be
>> created, one have to discuss things like IF we should have gTLDs, and more
>> important (as we can say that removing .com is not possible) how the
>> registries are to exist.
>
>This discussion is taking place. That is what the Notice of Inquiryand the
>Green Paper are about. It is more than obvious that the gTLD
>did NOT establish a consensus about this. Otherwise the gTLD-MoU
>would have been implemented with no objection.
>
>> The only way of solving these things, IAHC and POC found after discussing
>> this for some 1.5 years, that one have to limit the number of registries,
>> to probably one or two, and also that things work best if the registries
>> together form the registry, like in the UK and Sweden -- especially the UK
>> which have a system that works!
>
>Bureaucratic agencies always seem to believe that limiting marketplacesto one
>or two easily regulated players is the answer to any problems
>and conflicts. Certainly this makes life easier for the established, vested
>interests, such as the trademark holders. And it m,akes life easier
>for the regulators. But it is not the path toward an open, thriving, diverse
>and innovative market.
>The Internet reached its current glorious state of development precisely
>because it was structured to allow private organizations and players the
>freedom to jump on it and minimized administrative overhead. We need
>to keep thinking along those lines.
>
>> gTLD -- which in turn says that we should have many registries, which the
>> trade mark community says definitely no to because disputes will be so
>> difficult to handle.
>
>The trademark community is just wrong. Domain names are not trademarksand
>infringement that takes place on the Web can be rememdied without
>giving trademark holders prior review of every domain name handed out
>in the world. The trademark/copyright interests have a long history of
>making outrageous and unreasonable claims. They wanted to ban videotape
>recorders in the United States. They were wrong about that, and they
>are wrong about domain names. Privately, many trademark lawyers
>agree with me. But they recognize that it is in the economic self-interest
>of large multinational trademark holders to extend their property rights
>as far as possible. If we let "big trademark" run rampant over the
>Internet, they will do it. Therefore, we must stand up to them.
>Learn how to say "NO!"
>
>> There are hundreds of nasty dragons hidden in the GP paper which you will
>> encounter not until you start writing down the details.
>
>Bring on the dragons!
>Milton Mueller
>
>
>



See you at INET'98, Geneva 21-24, July 98 
<http://www.isoc.org/inet98/>