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[atlarge-discuss] Comment on "A Plan of Action" - Jan Siren
I offer these views as a private citizen and regular user of Internet e-mail
and the World Wide Web. The following is a commentary on Stuart Lynn's "A
Plan of Action Regarding New gTLDs," (referred to below as "the Lynn Plan")
dated 18 October 2002. That document drew principally on the
ICANN-promulgated document "Final Report of the New TLD Evaluation Process
Planning Task Force," (referred to below as "the NTEPPTF Report") dated 31
July 2002. The views expressed are my own and not those of any organization
to which I belong.
The Lynn Plan acknowledges the debt it owes to the NTEPPTF Report in
discussing the Proof of Concept (for extending the namespace) but departs
from it particularly in recommending that the DNSO, or its successor
organization, also consider whether at the same time to "rationalize" the
namespace according to a different taxonomy. The Lynn Plan does not regard
extending the namespace by up to three gTLDs as incompatible with
simultaneous, concrete steps toward revising the namespace taxonomy (the
rationale behind the particular number three is not, however, provided).
Since a radically revised namespace taxonomy may be incompatible with the
existing gTLD structure, including as it will the newest gTLDs, it is
difficult for me to see how the two processes can go forward at once without
profound, mutual interference.
The Lynn Plan correctly states that the NTEPPTF Report was overly optimistic
in its proposed schedule for establishing the gTLD evaluation end monitoring
processes. In my view, the delay is symptomatic of ICANN's chronic lack of
sufficient staff and financial resources to properly carry out its assigned
responsibilities, let alone initiatives such as those proposed in the NTEPPTF
Report.
The most important flaw in the Lynn Plan is systemic: like the NTEPPTF
Report, it fails to adequately allow for user-public input into the processes
of proposing, evaluating, implementing and monitoring the introduction of new
gTLDs. The NTEPPTF Report mentions user-public input only cursorily. The
Lynn Plan does not mention it at all. Providing more and better user-public
oversight regarding Internet namespace governance in general, and ICANN
internal activities particularly, is a very large subject of long standing.
Suffice it to say that the user-public are the reason the Internet exists at
all, and the shaping of the namespace has profound implications for their
daily lives, whether or not they are aware of the technicalities lying below
the surface that make it possible.
A trivial hypothetical example: Suppose a new gTLD ".dogs" were to be
created. A disgruntled owner of a pet puppy might encounter significantly
more "intellectual property" obstacles to his establishing an
"Alpo-harms-puppies.dogs" website had the ".dogs" gTLD been sponsored by an
industry group of dog food manufacturers, than if the ".dogs" gTLD had been
sponsored instead by a consortium of dog breeders. The profit motive driving
the gTLD痴 sponsor in such a case could overweigh an individual's desire to
express a legitimate grievance, in the most appropriate way, via the World
Wide Web.
My point here is that any process for establishing new gTLDs - whether
sponsored or unsponsored, a distinction the Lynn Report regards as important
- if undemocratic in the largest sense, in other words not inclusive of the
full population of Internet users, can be subverted by an unrepresentative
group preferring its own goals to those of fairness and inclusiveness. The
Lynn Plan should be revised to provide for an appropriate level of
user-public input to the evaluation and monitoring process proposed in the
NTEPPTF Report.
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