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

["Milton Mueller" <Mueller@syr.edu>]

Vint:
I agree that the IDN stuff is critical and interesting. The 
problem is that we are flying blind on it - we have only 
just begun to delve into the issues and cannot possibly
say much that is useful or well thought out until the issues are 
explored more. 

If we address IDNs, we also need a much
broader consultation process, because the expertise 
on that is not on the Council nor are many of the key
stakeholders represented well on the Council. 

Why not start a separate policy development process (PDP)
on IDNs and new TLDs?

>>> "vinton g. cerf" <vinton.g.cerf@mci.com> 04/16/03 02:07AM >>>
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