From: owner-wg-c-digest@dnso.org (WG-C-DIGEST) To: wg-c-digest@dnso.org Subject: WG-C-DIGEST V1 #7 Reply-To: Sender: owner-wg-c-digest@dnso.org Errors-To: owner-wg-c-digest@dnso.org Precedence: bulk WG-C-DIGEST Friday, February 11 2000 Volume 01 : Number 007 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 07 Feb 2000 14:26:38 -0500 From: Harold Feld Subject: [wg-c] The moment of history Kent Crispin wrote: > The prime reason that the MoU was not implemented was the intervention > of Magaziner. In my opinion the definitive intervention of Magaziner > was at a meeting at the IETF in Washington DC where the insertion of the > 7 new TLDs was proposed as a testbed, and Magaziner said "no". Up to > that time the MoU was the game in town. > Actually, I believe the prime reason the gTLD was not implemented was as a result of Rep. Pickerings "Swiss Cartel" speech at the Sept. 30, 1997 hearing before the House Basic Science subcommittee. Just as Pickering's reversal in March opened the way for Commerce to backtrack from the Green Paper into the White Paper. Congress acts not merely by legislating, but through its "Bully Pulpit" function- telling the executive branch (and anyone else who willlisten) what will and won't fly. Congress is not the final say, and doesn't give the details, but DOC listens with respect to the organization that pulls the purse strings. Harold Feld ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 07 Feb 2000 16:43:37 -0500 From: "A.M. Rutkowski" Subject: Re: [wg-c] The moment of history At 02:26 PM 2/7/00 , you wrote: > > The prime reason that the MoU was not implemented was the intervention > > of Magaziner. In my opinion the definitive intervention of Magaziner > > was at a meeting at the IETF in Washington DC where the insertion of the > > 7 new TLDs was proposed as a testbed, and Magaziner said "no". Up to > > that time the MoU was the game in town. > > > >Actually, I believe the prime reason the gTLD was not implemented was as a >result Harold et al., The IETF meeting occurred in December 1997. This was six months after the instantiation of the DNS Notice of Inquiry proceeding and a host of other developments, including the Pickering hearing in September. The MoU ceased to be relevant on 1 Jul 97 when the NOI was released. The premises, law, and institutional arrangements of the MoU were fundamentally flawed from the outset. Recommended readings include: Milton's mini-treatise in the current issue of Info Magazine, the timeline at http://www.wia.org/pub/dns_governance_timeline.gif and my 2 April 97 pleading and brief to the responsible USGOV agencies outlining the flaws. Relief was granted both in the form of the Secretary of State's demarch‚ and the NOI. See http://www.wia.org/pub/dns-brief.html - --tony ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 08 Feb 2000 00:13:39 +0100 From: Dave Crocker Subject: [wg-c] The moment of distraction At 10:43 PM 2/7/2000 , A.M. Rutkowski wrote: >The premises, law, and institutional arrangements of the >MoU were fundamentally flawed from the outset. Recommended As facinating as it might be to continue to explore these sorts of fundamentally flawed assessments, a more interesting question is whether this is the only sort of contribution folk have to make to the work of this group. There are, after all, real work items, or at least items that have a hint of relevance to the group's scope. Might be nice to focus on them rather than pursue distractions. d/ =-=-=-=-= Dave Crocker Brandenburg Consulting Tel: +1.408.246.8253, Fax: +1.408.273.6464 675 Spruce Drive, Sunnyvale, CA 94086 USA Gong Xi Fa Cai / Selamat Tahun Baru Cina ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 08 Feb 2000 11:23:07 +0100 From: Dave Crocker Subject: [wg-c] The moment of distraction At 10:43 PM 2/7/2000 , A.M. Rutkowski wrote: >The premises, law, and institutional arrangements of the >MoU were fundamentally flawed from the outset. Recommended As facinating as it might be to continue to explore these sorts of fundamentally flawed assessments, a more interesting question is whether this is the only sort of contribution folk have to make to the work of this group. There are, after all, real work items, or at least items that have a hint of relevance to the group's scope. Might be nice to focus on them rather than pursue distractions. d/ =-=-=-=-= Dave Crocker Brandenburg Consulting Tel: +1.408.246.8253, Fax: +1.408.273.6464 675 Spruce Drive, Sunnyvale, CA 94086 USA Gong Xi Fa Cai / Selamat Tahun Baru Cina ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 08 Feb 2000 02:41:52 -0800 (PST) From: "William X. Walsh" Subject: RE: [wg-c] The moment of distraction - -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 On 08-Feb-2000 Dave Crocker wrote: > At 10:43 PM 2/7/2000 , A.M. Rutkowski wrote: >>The premises, law, and institutional arrangements of the >>MoU were fundamentally flawed from the outset. Recommended > > As facinating as it might be to continue to explore these sorts of > fundamentally flawed assessments, a more interesting question is whether > this is the only sort of contribution folk have to make to the work of this > group. > > There are, after all, real work items, or at least items that have a hint > of relevance to the group's scope. > > Might be nice to focus on them rather than pursue distractions. They are not just distractions. They teach us to avoid the glaring mistakes made by the gTLD-MoU. - - -- William X. Walsh DSo Networks http://dso.net/ Fax: 877-860-5412 or +1-559-851-9192 GPG/PGP Key at http://dso.net/wwalsh.gpg - -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.0.1 (GNU/Linux) Comment: DSo Networks iD8DBQE4n/Lw8zLmV94Pz+IRAmXzAKD9smgz6jUTjrRGSUJGkZgeDWFPCQCg7OQN 5YlWxS5Wls1Vu1bu7dG5RBs= =50OT - -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 10 Feb 2000 15:23:24 -0800 (PST) From: Rick H Wesson Subject: [wg-c] Re: [ga] new WG on chartered/sponsored TLDs Kent, you are proposing almost what wg-c is supposed to do but altering your charter a bit. Why create a new working group, your proposal only shoots holes in wg-c, why not help work on some of the parrellel issues that you have in your charter in wg-c? your charter ass-u-me-s that charters are a good thing, I believe wg-c has the carter to determine if charters should be used at all, why not find out first if there is consensus on charters, a great place to ask about charters if to poll all the current ICANN approved registrars, after all the register constituency whould have to pass muster on any DNSO doument. I have worked with nearly half of the operational ICANN approved registers in consulting on operation issues, I suspect registrars would shoot down any type of chartered TLD. I suspect you are just tired of dealing with the off topic posts in wg-c and would prefer to get some work done on a narrowly focused topic. I believe the wg-c chair posted some fairly focused work items for the group, why not start there? regards, - -rick On Thu, 10 Feb 2000, Kent Crispin wrote: > I am interested in forming a new dnso working group. I have been in > touch with Carolyn Chicoine and others on the NC on the topic, and it > appears that 1) there will be a formal procedure for proposing a new WG > sometime in the not too distant future (but probably after Cairo); and > 2) on the other hand, if several NC members can be persuaded to support > it, a WG could instituted through informal procedures. Either way is > fine by me, and I will pursue both avenues as appropriate. > > In the meantime, I wonder if there might be some interest in the GA in > discussing the matter. Just in case people are interested in such a > discussion, here are some random points and issues that occur to me: > > A. Chartered TLDs > > 0) There are those who disagree with the notion of chartered TLDs on > basically spiritual grounds. That is, they believe that *all* decisions > concerning operation of the TLD, and criteria for use, should determined > by the registry. In this view, ICANN/DNSO should have no involvement > in such decisions. > > I can appreciate that point of view as a philosophical point, but I am > not interested in discussing it in this proposed WG. The purpose of the > WG I propose is not to decide whether ICANN should authorize chartered > TLDs -- the purpose, instead, is a good-faith exploration of the issues > that would be involved if they were authorized > > 1) Why not do this in WG-C? WG-C has as its charter discussion of new > gTLDs, with emphasis on the "g", and I think *that* discussion should > remain in WG-C. There is some overlap, but there are many unique > issues in the area of charters and sponsors, and WG-C already has a > rather full plate. (Some might say "too full". In fact, one of my concerns > about DNSO processes in general is that they tend to be very large scale > and unfocussed. More narrowly focussed WGs tend to be more likely to > accomplish things, in my limited experience.) > > 2) One of the frequently mentioned criticisms of "charters" is that they > would be difficult to enforce. Such critics point to .edu as an example > of a failed charter. Others think that enforcement is not anywhere near > as difficult as that, and point to .edu as an example of a successful > chartered TLD. How rigorous does enforcement have to be? If .1% of > the SLDs in a cTLD would fail to meet the criteria in the charter, what > are the potential harms? > > 3) Enforcement of a charter has costs -- what mechanisms can be used to > enforce them? How would the costs be allocated. > > 4) The base enforcement widget in a chartered TLD is a contract a > customer signs with the registrar/registry, which includes their > agreement to the terms of the charter. What are the legal > characteristics of a charter and such a contract that would make them > enforcable in a cost-effective way? > > 5) Presuming that ICANN decides to implement chartered TLDs, an approval > process for charters would be required. Presumably the approval process > would involve a set of well-defined criteria, as well as possibly some > form of required public/dnso review. What are the criteria for good > charters? What would be the appropriate public/dnso review process? What > would be the legal liability of a public review process? > > > B. Sponsored TLDs > > The term "sponsored TLD" (or sTLD) may be unfamiliar, since it is > relatively recent. A "sponsored TLD" is a TLD that has a "sponsor" -- > an organization that is given control over policy for the TLD in > question. A sponsored TLD may or may not have an associated > charter -- the two concepts are somewhat orthogonal. The European > Commission is trying to get .eu approved as a quasi-ccTLD; but if there > was a mechanism in place for approving sponsored TLDs, the EC might try > to get .eu approved with the EC as its sponsor. Note that the > "sponsor" and the "registry" are distinct -- the EC could contract with > any competent registry to provide registry services. > > Another potential example of a sponsored TLD is Eric Brunner's .naa TLD > -- there the sponsor is a "consortium" of tribal > governments/organizations that would assume policy responsibility for > the TLD. > > Yet another example would be a ".movie" TLD, where the sponsoring > organization would be a hypothetical international consortium of movie > production companies that would take policy responsibility for the tld. > This TLD might also have a charter, that it would be restricted to > commercial sites publicizing movies -- the purpose of the TLD most > emphatically does not need to be non-commercial. > > And again, there have been discussions of a TLD reserved for technical > support of IP Telephony. The sponsors would be an international > consortium of telephone companies. > > Two immediate questions come to mind: > > 1) what are the characteristics required for an organization to take > policy control over a TLD? Stability, of course, would be very high on > the list, because sponsorship would be something that would be very > difficult to revoke. I've used the code phrase "international > consortium" fairly freely -- what standards of openness etc would such > consortia require before they could be considered as a sponsor. (Note > that ICANN is effectively delegating some hypothetical policy > authority, and thus it could be argued that the delegatees should share > some of the characteristics of ICANN.) > > 2) what are boundaries of the policy authority of a sponsor? > > Any thoughts? > > -- > Kent Crispin "Do good, and you'll be > kent@songbird.com lonesome." -- Mark Twain > -- > This message was passed to you via the ga@dnso.org list. > Send mail to majordomo@dnso.org to unsubscribe > ("unsubscribe ga" in the body of the message). > Archives at http://www.dnso.org/archives.html > ------------------------------ End of WG-C-DIGEST V1 #7 ************************