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

["Patrik Fältström" <paf@swip.net>]

Milton Mueller wrote:
> 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.

Well, one can call it a political coalition, and whatever other word one
wants. The history was that there was a discussion forever on the IETF
list, before and after Jon Postel posted his Internet Drafts about how
this "should be done". Because of the struggle in the IETF, the IAHC
group was created like a blue-ribbon panel to be the party which did
discuss things with for example the trademark people and others that
were screaming.

> > 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 problem is that you will _never_ find consensus. The trademark
people do have a say in many large coorporations, which are also players
on the Internet. I was surprised myself what companies did have a voice
of the trademark people when I joined the POC (aug -97). I.e. the
companies which I thought were supporting the IETF approach of consensus
clearly had a different kind of voice when talking about intellectual
property.

Strong forces, really strong, did not want any gTLDs at all. That's one
side of the coin. They could maybe accept ONE. Only one and no more.
This because of the need for doing trademark searches and other things.
Remember that the first proposal was to start with 35 gTLDs and then
increase...

POC ended up with a compromise (consensus was impossible) with 7 gTLDs,
IF also a system was included where one could do trademark searches,
dispute resolution fast (on-line) and get results of dispute resolution
(which includes exclusion) immediate.

At the same time, people looked at the problem with disputes between
registrars, and the registrars and the registry. We looked closely at
the system in the UK, where you have one registry, and that is created
by a membership status (one can say maybe...I am translating in my head
from english, to swedish back to swedish again... :-), i.e. the
registrars together form the registry. So, minimizing the number of
registries and having the registrars together form the registry was a
good idea which solved a number of  problems.

What I am trying to say, is that consensus can be clear, rough or very
rough (when it is a compromize). One can discuss where the current
proposal from POC is on this scale, but I doubt that you will get
something better by doing something else.

Whatever process you restart now, will take a long long time, and we do
not have that time.

> > 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 DNS can not be diverse. You have one root and only one root. It is
also clear when talking to goverments and people all around the world
that things are not today the same as they were before. You should know
how much some governments want to regulate regarding the Internet!

> 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.

I am on your side of the table here, but you should know that what I
have seen the last couple of months that "we" do not any longer define
the people running and ruling how the net is to be built.
 
> > 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!"

Well, that is exactly what POC has been doing the last couple of months,
if not a year. We have been talking to the trademark people, and we have
a picture which they even sanction. The registrars can register whatever
they want (we start with 7 gTLDs, and have further _NO_ policy for how
the names are allocated), and also charge whatever they want. The
registry itself is not supposed to be a fun buissness, as a registry
creates a monopoly for one gTLD.

I.e. I try to tell you that I am on the IETF side of the table, and
clearly not a lawyer, but I have seen how important it is to -- if
possible -- have these people you call people we should stand up to on
our side aswell. We engineers _can_ compromise.

Competition between registries is just stupid. The registrars will be in
the hands of the registrars which have monopoly on certain domains, and
the customers will not know what they should know. Having 100%
competition between the registrars is a good thing, and that should be
encouraged.

I think one see so much complaints against the POC proposal because
people don't understand. They think that CORE is a new NSI which on top
of that is in Geneva in Swizerland. It is not!

POC has very carefully eliminated the monopoly cituation on one gTLD by
creating basically the same scheme as in England, i.e. having the
registrars together forming the registry.
 
> > 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

Sure, they are already popping up...

    Patrik