Re: [gtld-com] Regarding seeking public comment on the committee'sdraft

["vinton g. cerf" <vinton.g.cerf@mci.com>]

Milton,

a suggestion:

If the basic response is that bottom-up is the right approach,
then I agree you could make a pretty brief report.

The other material, though apparently out of scope, might be
of great interest to, eg. the IDN committee. Is there a useful
way to capture the out of scope material at least so it can
be made available to interested parties, even if on some informal
basis?

vint

At 11:02 PM 4/15/2003 -0400, Milton Mueller wrote:
>Bruce and other Council members:
>
>Based on your reminder of the process, Bruce, it is now 
>evident that the current gTLD committee has gotten 
>out of hand and needs to be reminded of what it was asked 
>to do by the Board.
>
>Here's what the Board requested in its 15 December 2002
>meeting:
>
>"the Board requests the GNSO to provide a recommendation 
>[snip] on whether to structure the evolution of the generic 
>top level namespace and, if so, how to do so."
>
>Now to put this request in context, the question about "structure" 
>emerged directly from the Presidents Action plan and related 
>discussions in Amsterdam, which raised the issue of a TLD name 
>"taxonomy." The President's report posed basically two paths
>for future name space expansion: top-down structure, or 
>bottom-up market driven. They asked for advice on which 
>one GNSO preferred.
>
>It seems to me that the Board's question could be answered
>very simply and directly by item 7 of the proposed report,
>which says:
>
>"7. Expansion of the gTLD namespace should be a bottom-up 
>approach with names proposed by the interested parties to ICANN. 
>There is no support for a pre-determined list of new names that 
>putative registries would bid for. Expansion should be demand-driven. 
>It should be sufficient that a viable demand is perceived by the name 
>applicant and no objective test should be required."
>
>In other words, no structure, and therefore no need for 
>a proposal as to "how to structure" the name space. 
>
>I would, therefore, now move that we adopt paragraph 7
>as the report in its entirely, and consider our work finished. 
>No one has objected to any aspect of that paragraph so far.
>Unless there are objections I don't know about, we have 
>answered the Board's question. We are done.
>
>We were not asked for a comprehensive policy regarding 
>name space expansion. Yet, if you look at the rest of the proposed 
>report, you find that the Council is now discussing translations and 
>transliterations of international domain names, performance bonds, 
>sponsored vs. unsponsored, competition policy, policies for registry 
>failure, and on and on. 
>
>It's out of scope. These issues are far too complex to 
>be settled in a few casual discussions, especially the issues
>regarding IDNs. 
>
>Anyway, if we allow this task force to mutate into a vehicle for 
>creating a comprehensive plan for name space expansion,
>then the current procedural plan is drastically inadequate, because it
>contains no requirement for public comment, not even an
>opportunity for open and public constituency comment. 
>
>That should not happen. 
>
>>>> "Bruce Tonkin" <Bruce.Tonkin@melbourneit.com.au> 04/14/03 07:17PM >>>
>
>>At the council meeting this week under agenda item 9, it may be 
>>appropriate for the council  to consider putting the current draft of 
>>the committee's "advice" out for comment, before the GNSO council 
>>formally ratifies the committee's advice in the 22 May 2003 meeting of the GNSO Council.

Vint Cerf
SVP Architecture & Technology
MCI
22001 Loudoun County Parkway, F2-4115
Ashburn, VA 20147
703 886 1690 (v806 1690)
703 886 0047 fax
vinton.g.cerf@mci.com