[ICANN-EU] comments on the TLD list

[Jefsey Morfin <jefsey@wanadoo.fr>]

To all.

This log is interesting:

1) the ".sys" and ".wiz" TLD have not been taken whihc means that the
     information the .SYS adn the .WIZ consortia disseminate was well
     received and protected our projects (there is a request for ".systems"
     and ".find" may be near from ".wiz" charter).

2) obviously some requests are just for marketing purposes (the money
     will not be paid or the submission is incomplete). The target is to mark
     interest and "territories". We did consider doing it.

3) some are obviouisly targeting ".com" duplication and should be denied.

     Others as ".air", ".fin", ".geo" brings real innovations. Others like 
".nom"
     or ".law" may bring clarifications, but chosing one of them is opening to
     all of them ... ".nyc" conforms to our "Webs of America" project.

At 00:09 04/10/00, you wrote:
>Anupam Chander wrote:
> > Let's see... 44 x $50,000...  A nice tidy $2.2 million.  But it's likely to
> > be a lot more.  As Jamie points out, many applicants sought multiple new
> > TLDs, for which (as I read the rules) they would have been required to pay
> > $50k for each new TLD sought.
>   Well just today it was reported that ICANN's June legal bill from Jones
>and Day is over $110k.  And ICANN also has some other outstanding
>past due bills as well...  That $2.2m will not likely last long at ICANN's
>spending rate...

Most probably a large number is just here for the annoucement.

> > Can someone give a precise figure as to what ICANN collected?
> > As Milton's pointed out before, there are definite economies of scale in
> > assessing applications.  It seems hard to justify multi-millions to review
> > these applications, when there are earlier intimations that they will only
> > approve less than a dozen.
>   We [INEGRoup] agree that the $50k fee for application is far to high.
>Something around $1k to $2k would be more reasonable.  Reviewing
>these application's cannot cost $50k to review EACH!  And no refund
>if your application is rejected or otherwise not approved....

We will know once all the cleaning has been made. ICANN had first
discussed a budget and divided it by the number of expected applications.
The low figure was K$7 if I record well. GNU documented the real cost
at $10.

> > Given the high entry barrier, it's not surprising that the vast majority of
> > applications are from the rich United States, a number more from 
> Europe, and
> > only a handful from Asia--and not one from Africa or Latin America.  That
> > is, the entry barrier effectively serves to prevent access not only for the
> > consumer oriented interests in the richer nations, but also for almost all
> > interests, commercial or not, in the poorer parts of the world.
>   As I indicated above, we[INEGRoup] feel that the entry barrier or
>application fee is far to high, and there is no refund of ANY kind.
>This may be why Asia, Africa, and Latin America interests have not
>filed an application.  It may be that they are much smarter than US
>and EU business interests...

It is to be expected this list is the end of the a-root story. Let be clear,
that list is going to be discussed. Most of the proposed TLDs have good
reasons for them: chosing only 5 will make people wander why them only
and expect for more. New/better ideas will come up. Thousands of free
TLDs and alt.root integreated in the a-root and ms-root and in aol-root
and in the (hopefully) eu-root and in the kdd-root will be for 2002. In 2001
test TLDs will blossom.

> > ICANN can still serve the interests of humankind by not privileging the
> > entities that proposed the TLDs when it decides who will administer the 
> TLDs
> > it awards.  (I.e., thanks very much for caring enough about the Net to 
> enter
> > a proposal and give us $50k, but that doesn't mean that you will 
> necessarily
> > administer that domain, and certainly does not mean that you will have any,
> > even fleeting, monopoly on such registrations--which might have been
> > expressed, for example, through practices that honor prior registrations.)
> > Otherwise, we risk proving yet again the old adage that the rich get 
> richer.

The reason why we decided not to submit ".sys" and ".wiz" without a check
(just to get published and get some press) is that we would have signed the
right to anyone to pick our ideas. The only advantage of this TLD list is that
now anyone can pick any of them: they are public domain.

It is to be expected that several other consortia have the same policy as
ours. In particular I note the lack of international domain name (ie. in non
english/non ascii). They will probably be implemented soon for free "on a
test" basis out of the ICANN effort

Jefsey

*
* ICANN,
* The "50.000 bucks + 101 bugs = error 50101" Corporation.
*