I went so you don't have to -- ICANN Bruxelles pour les nuls
There are a few people who have some passing interest in ICANN so I will inflict upon the list my few paragraph summary of things that matter. All the past large dragons appear to have been killed or reduced to largish lizards. The Four Over Arching Issues, of which only one was real, protection of trademark holders, are sufficiently solved. On the other hand, biting off fingers as usual, are two new shiny objects for the jays and daws to chase: vertical integration of registries and registrars (VI, like, you know, the visual mode of ex, not the evil EMACS cult) and morality and decency (MoDo). How big a thrill MoDo is going to be is still TBD. Content regulation via names. Whoopie! VI is going to be put to bed one way or another by Labor Day. About VI, which has consumed my every waking hour since ... the Nairobi meeting. Prior to Nairobi the rules reflected the NetSol/VGRS breakup, and allowed registries to own approximately 15% of a registrar, and registrars to own registries. Afilias (.info) and NeuLevel (.biz) were formed under these equity restrictions. At Nairobi the Board voted that there be no cross ownership in new gTLD registries, and just prior to the Brussels meeting last week, ICANN released the 4th version of the Draft Applicant Guide, which put the cross-ownership limit at 2%. The VI activity is an attempt to articulate an alternate to the 0%, now 2%, and still fluid rule the Board may adopt prior to starting the next application round. The broad choices (and venomous camps) are: 1. things pretty much stay the same, the 15% rule with some change continues, for .com-like and .coop-like registries, insiders rule, 2. things pretty much change, with 100% cross-ownership allowed, with various proposals for the prevention of abuse by the integrated entity, for .com-like and .coop-like registries, hurray for the revolution, and 3. who cares about 1 and 2? corporations and TLD consultants want lots (like hundreds) of brands in the root, now. The VI Working Group is about as fun as USENET, though the face-to-face meetings in Brussels were surprisingly civil. Of interest to some here is covert wiggling of a subscriber-type TLD through the semi-mythical loophole for "brand" TLDs. There are walled garden serpents working the issue towards ".my-walled-garden". The ISPSG (that's the ISP -- Internet.Service.Providers Stakeholders Group) continued to drift into senility and decay with ISPs still staffing ICANN issue advocacy out of their IP (Intellectual Property) in-house counsels rather than their IP (4&6&BGP&tone&stuff) operational sides, so wakeful behavior remains confined to the ASO input to ICANN, and limited to the last v4 /8s known to LGBT and other persons. Those are the big ticket items. The Board approved adding the Han Script labels requested by .cn (China), .tw (Taiwan) and .hk (Hong Kong), which made a lot of people, me included, feel good. This is the continuation of the approvals (and awkward delegations) of Arabic Script labels and Cyrillic Script labels made earlier. The security weenies continue to whine that all the new registries should be armored up to prevent abuses that overwhelmingly occur in .com, and surprise steer well clear of treading on Verisign's toes, so in vast areas of policy life in the playpen is quite surreal. The next meeting is in December, so I finally get a Halloween at home, in Cartagena, Columbia. The usual self-and-corporate-promotion-as-news is going on over CircleID, which everyone is free to read or avoid, and if you read today's CIDR and BGP reports with more than a passing interest, and this "pour les nuls", remember the first is reality based and the second is not. And no, there still is no firm date for ICANN to start the public announcement and four months later, start accepting applications and $185,000 checks. This sentence appears to age well, I've used it without sending it out for cleaning since the Paris meeting, six meetings in a row. This exchange:
On 2 Jul 2010, at 13:34, Bret Clark wrote:
28.8k Modem users...
AT&T iPhone users... the new 14.4 modem of the internet.
Had me laughing! Have a nice weekend everyone! Eric
On 7/2/10 10:00 AM, Eric Brunner-Williams wrote:
There are a few people who have some passing interest in ICANN so I will inflict upon the list my few paragraph summary of things that matter.
I thank you! And I'm sure others here do too....
The ISPSG (that's the ISP -- Internet.Service.Providers Stakeholders Group) continued to drift into senility and decay with ISPs still staffing ICANN issue advocacy out of their IP (Intellectual Property) in-house counsels rather than their IP (4&6&BGP&tone&stuff) operational sides, so wakeful behavior remains confined to the ASO input to ICANN, and limited to the last v4 /8s known to LGBT and other persons.
Yeah, well -- I'd burned out after just 3 meetings forming ICANN, was truly unhappy about the treatment of Auerbach, and there's really not anything in the budget. I don't know how you do it.
This exchange:
On 2 Jul 2010, at 13:34, Bret Clark wrote:
28.8k Modem users...
AT&T iPhone users... the new 14.4 modem of the internet.
Had me laughing!
Me, too.
Plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose. -- -Barry Shein The World | bzs@TheWorld.com | http://www.TheWorld.com Purveyors to the Trade | Voice: 800-THE-WRLD | Dial-Up: US, PR, Canada Software Tool & Die | Public Access Internet | SINCE 1989 *oo*
There are a few people who have some passing interest in ICANN so I will inflict upon the list my few paragraph summary of things that matter, see also my July 2nd post: I went so you don't have to -- ICANN Bruxelles pour les nuls. The initial report of the 65 person VI WG is published. Registry contracts executed in the 2001 and 2004 new gTLD rounds limited Registry ownership of Registrars at 15%, an artifact of the VGRS/NSI split up, with no limit on registrar ownership of registries, allowing the formation of NeuLevel (.biz through Melbourne IT and NeuStar), and the formation of Afilias (.info by several registries). At the Nairobi ICANN meeting the ICANN Board established the cross-ownership in either directions at 0%, and called for the GNSO to originate some alternative to strict structural separation, if it could arrive at such a policy be consensus. In DAGv4, publish just before the Brussels meeting, ICANN Staff proposed a cross-ownership cap of 2%. That sets the stage. The Initial Report is the first step towards policy concerning the possibility of allowing vertical integration in the DNS registry-registrar market. There are three basic positions on the issues, and a fourth position. The three basic positions are: (a) stay at 15%, that makes compliance easy, and no one has really gamed this restriction, (b) allow full integration conditionally, with serious compliance, and allow several exceptions (see also the fourth position) (c) no restriction on integration, no harms will result so compliance is not important, and exceptions are unnecessary (see also the fourth position). These policy positions are advocated by: (a) Afilias, PIR, GoDaddy, several NomCom appointees and others, including myself (for CORE), subject to some functional exceptions relating to registry services provisioning and market share, (b) NeuStar, Network Solutions, Verisign, Enom, and several others, (c) Several smaller (than the top 4) registrars and some people from the Business Constituency and some Free Market ideologues. In terms of balance of forces, it is pretty much a three-way tie. The fourth position is the Intellectual Property Constituency, which seeks an exception for brand owners, and no others, from whatever limits are proposed on cross-ownership. It has no support outside of the IPC, but when all the inchoate "exceptions for X" are summed, there is the appearance of strong support for what is called "single registrant" type applications. I recommend to those employed in the ISP industry the statement of the ISPCP, at pages 90 and 91. There are a lot of nuances, or tinfoil hat dress up opportunities. If Verisign, Afilias, NeuStar, CORE and Midcounties Co-operative Domains run almost all of the gTLDs, and are ineligible to provide registry services to the new gTLD applicants, what existing operators will be favored? What capitalization will start-up operators have to secure to meet the SLA, DNSSEC, continuity instrument and other costs in excess of the application fee and subsequent fees the new applicants must capitalize? Are the Free Trade Guys and ICANN's economists right, the market will correct any abuses and competition authorities will be there when the market doesn't correct an abuse? Is "continuity" or "change" the better policy w.r.t. the registry function and the registrar function? I trust this will be at least as useful as the jrandom luser plaint concerning what singular Animal, Mineral or Vegetable controls the singular capital-I Internet and the IANA function sniping. Oblig disclosure. The VI WG has been more than a quarter of my paid time since it began. I'm in the "continuity" camp and my Statement of Interests is linked to from the Initial Report. An outcome I'd like to see avoided is registrars preferentially selling their own-or-partner inventories, resulting in a by-registrar-affiliation partition of the non-state DNS as a market not dependent upon state actors, resulting in reduced competition with the legacy gTLD registry operators and their properties. Yeah. I know. Nothing other than redelegation of .org has created competition for Verisign. Eric
You forgot the fifth option. Invade a country (invasion is not strictly required) and take over control of their ccTLD which probably does not have an agreement with ICANN so you can charge and do as you please. Many of the greedy registrars will be more than happy to sell the name ... Get your dotCO before they are all gone !!! Cheers Jorge
On 7/26/10 12:45 PM, Jorge Amodio wrote:
You forgot the fifth option.
Invade a country (invasion is not strictly required) and take over control of their ccTLD which probably does not have an agreement with ICANN so you can charge and do as you please. Many of the greedy registrars will be more than happy to sell the name ...
Umm, I wish there had been more people who paid attention when the .iq registry was subject to ... a voluntary change of control resulting in ... things being done as one pleased. But I do take your point about .co/.com, and in all fairness, it is a decade delayed favor returned by NeuStar to Verisign for the .bz/.biz "collaborative marketing" ploy of 2001. When Hewlett-Packard wrote to ICANN earlier this year that it should get .hp, the obvious rejoinder was "Buy a country like everyone else, submit a change request to the iso3166/MA, and do business under .hp, your new country code property." Apparently HP didn't want to actually buy a country first. Cheapskates. Now seriously, just how many pages of the IV Initial Report did you read before coming up with "the fifth option"? Eric
Now seriously, just how many pages of the IV Initial Report did you read before coming up with "the fifth option"?
I read the entire thing. Of the 138 pages, take out the Summary, the ToC and several of the Annexes where many of them are sort of cut & past of discussions/text circulated through email lists/blogs/tweets, and positions that were clearly stated in meetings and conference calls, you are left with few pages with some novelty stuff. Hard to believe there will be any consensus before the Cartagena meeting (even after), the BoD will end directing staff to use the magic wand and negotiate something with VeriDaddy and NeuSign. Regards Jorge
On 7/26/10 3:28 PM, Jorge Amodio wrote:
Now seriously, just how many pages of the IV Initial Report did you read before coming up with "the fifth option"?
I read the entire thing. Of the 138 pages, take out the Summary, the ToC and several of the Annexes where many of them are sort of cut& past of discussions/text circulated through email lists/blogs/tweets, and positions that were clearly stated in meetings and conference calls, you are left with few pages with some novelty stuff.
Being one of the rare known external readers, is there any bit of it you have a view on not already reflected in the para above and below?
Hard to believe there will be any consensus before the Cartagena meeting (even after), the BoD will end directing staff to use the
That was my initial view, that there would be consensus around three proposed policy -- a 15% cap with minor variation, no cap with minor variation, and happy brand owners, with no consensus between any two of these three positions. Now I think the no-cap advocates and the brand advocates will tactically compromise.
magic wand and negotiate something with VeriDaddy and NeuSign.
Actually the alliances visible at present are: JN2 proposal: Verisign, NeuStar, NetSol and eNom and others, RACK proposal: Afilas, PIR, GoDaddy, and others, including CORE. I look forward to your public comments, here or at the ICANN comment site. Eric
I found Milton Mueller's summary - noted at http://www.isoc-ny.org/p2/?p=1006- useful. Is there anything there that you would disagree with? j On Mon, Jul 26, 2010 at 4:09 PM, Eric Brunner-Williams <brunner@nic-naa.net> wrote:
Actually the alliances visible at present are:
JN2 proposal: Verisign, NeuStar, NetSol and eNom and others,
RACK proposal: Afilas, PIR, GoDaddy, and others, including CORE.
I look forward to your public comments, here or at the ICANN comment site.
Eric
-- --------------------------------------------------------------- Joly MacFie 218 565 9365 Skype:punkcast WWWhatsup NYC - http://wwwhatsup.com http://pinstand.com - http://punkcast.com Secretary - ISOC-NY - http://isoc-ny.org ---------------------------------------------------------------
The question too, is which model is mitigating the best the presence of rogue registrars (like domain tasting registrars, etc..) ----- Original Message ----- From: "Joly MacFie" <joly@punkcast.com> To: "Eric Brunner-Williams" <brunner@nic-naa.net> Cc: nanog@nanog.org Sent: Tuesday, 27 July, 2010 10:00:03 AM Subject: Re: I slogged through it so you don't have to -- ICANN Vertical Integration WG for dummies I found Milton Mueller's summary - noted at http://www.isoc-ny.org/p2/?p=1006- useful. Is there anything there that you would disagree with? j On Mon, Jul 26, 2010 at 4:09 PM, Eric Brunner-Williams <brunner@nic-naa.net> wrote:
Actually the alliances visible at present are:
JN2 proposal: Verisign, NeuStar, NetSol and eNom and others,
RACK proposal: Afilas, PIR, GoDaddy, and others, including CORE.
I look forward to your public comments, here or at the ICANN comment site.
Eric
-- --------------------------------------------------------------- Joly MacFie 218 565 9365 Skype:punkcast WWWhatsup NYC - http://wwwhatsup.com http://pinstand.com - http://punkcast.com Secretary - ISOC-NY - http://isoc-ny.org ---------------------------------------------------------------
On 7/26/10 7:11 PM, Franck Martin wrote:
The question too, is which model is mitigating the best the presence of rogue registrars (like domain tasting registrars, etc..)
Franck, First, tasting is only a part of the extensions from the registrant serving business model that ICANN explicitly allows, due in part to the advocacy by Professor Mueller and others circa 1999 that ICANN has no business in determining business models. So rather than characterize registrars who used the Add Grace Period for purposes of acquiring domains with "natural traffic" under a PPC business model as "rogue", you might consider whether Google primarily, but not exclusively, and ICANN, created the system whereby "natural traffic" in the .com namespace could be monitized by exploits of the AGP. That particular problem has been resolved, but the rest of the ecology of "upstream" and "backorder" is untouched. But assuming that "rogue registrars" is a useful tool (and I encourage you and anyone else interested in registrars to review the 900 or so ICANN accreditations and observe the marvelous ownerships of Enom, Snapname, Directi and Dotster, and those are simply for the aftermarket (drop pool) for expired names), and "tasting" is a useful referent (both of which I think miss the central issues), then the model question is well posed. In what follows, "ROI" refers to return on investment for bad acts. The 15% cap proponents think that structural separation removes the ROI incentive. The integration proponents think that (jn2) compliance will remove the ROI incentive, and (freetrade) that ROI will not incent, so compliance is unnecessary. The competition authority proponents think that ROI is irrelevant. So yeah, pick your model. Pick with care. Eric
On 7/26/10 6:00 PM, Joly MacFie wrote:
I found Milton Mueller's summary - noted at http://www.isoc-ny.org/p2/?p=1006- useful.
Is there anything there that you would disagree with?
He errors in characterizing the position statements as static, rather than evolving over time. His own position is now in its 3rd iteration. 1. He errors in describing DAGv4 as the Nairobi Resolution. The cross ownership limit at Nairobi was 0%. The same cross ownership limit in DAGv4 is 2%. Under a Zero rule, none of Verisign, Afilias, NeuStar, Core and Midlands would be allowed to provide registry services to new gTLD applicants, or to apply for new gTLDs in their own right, as all have non-zero registrar ownership. Under a 2% rule, Verisign's market cap, and CORE's membership model, and perhaps NeuStar's market cap and resolution of the NeuLevel partnership with Melbourne IT, a registrar, would be allowed, and Afilias and Midlands would not be allowed, to provide registry services to new gTLD applicants, or to apply for new gTLDs in their own right, as all have less than 2% registrar ownership. [There is a nuance in the CORE 2% question. CORE has more than 50 members, and the question goes to whether control is properly aggregated by individual independent members.] 2. He errors in particular in characterizing the RACK+ position as without exceptions. He also uses "status quo" rather than accurately characterizing the proposal, which is a different form of error. And it is RACK+, not RACK. 3. He errors in particular in characterizing the Free Trade position as without limitations. There are limitations, one of which is the rejection of "harms" and compliance as a necessity. 4. He errors in particular in characterizing the JN2 position as without limitations other than no self-sales. There is a 15% cap for the first 18 months and exceptions from that require conditional approval, and a significant commitment to compliance as a deterrent to "harms". And it is JN2, not JN2+ (the post-JN2 position developed at Brussels is not described). 5. He errors in omitting to mention that the "special panel" is composed of the competition authorities of some states, e.g., the US DOJ Antitrust Division, is going to review in finite time applications by, let us say, the United Mine Workers of America for .appalachia, in which the UMWA proposes to acquire 16% or more of the largest registrar in West Virginia, or the example of your choice in Lower Elbonia. He also manages not to point out how many supporters there are for his proposal. 6. He errors in assigning percentages to positions in polls. 7. He errors in stating that the VI WG is "tasked with coming up with a solution before the ICANN board next meets in September." That would be convenient for the hypothetical new gTLD round, but the VI WG is tasked with coming up with a policy proposal, if not now, before the heat death of the universe. 8. Make up your own #8, it is a target rich environment. Eric
Being one of the rare known external readers, is there any bit of it you have a view on not already reflected in the para above and below?
There is another dimension to the whole enchilada that makes a compromise a moving shooting target. Some of the entities at the table don't like or want at all new gTLDs, today they may say "we like milkshakes with anchovies and we can live with that" (not really), tomorrow they will say "we only drink our brand of tomato juice". At least a byproduct of the outcome of this WG is that as observers we are getting a more clear picture of who is on each side today before any compromise. GNSO was very explicit that this can not introduce additional delays to the gTLD program so sooner or later a compromise position is needed, what if the GNSO is not able to provide a recommendation on time, what the BoD will do ? Regards Jorge
On 7/26/10 8:46 PM, Jorge Amodio wrote:
Being one of the rare known external readers, is there any bit of it you have a view on not already reflected in the para above and below?
There is another dimension to the whole enchilada that makes a compromise a moving shooting target.
Some of the entities at the table don't like or want at all new gTLDs, today they may say "we like milkshakes with anchovies and we can live with that" (not really), tomorrow they will say "we only drink our brand of tomato juice".
Well, the IPC is kind of excited about getting their own TLDs, and some Board members have opined (why I don't know, the .tm gag was old when WIPO-I was current) that .brands will cure cybersquatting. I discern no effort by alternative technology vendors (search to be specific, as an alternative to lookup) to determine outcomes.
At least a byproduct of the outcome of this WG is that as observers we are getting a more clear picture of who is on each side today before any compromise.
Agree. I'm not going to share the real time data, but some of the alliance choices have been surprising, and some of the business models some advocates may be protecting may not be publicly disclosed. I feel kind of boring in comparison. For those watching the antitrust channel, pay attention to references to external counsel and if you know where the 9th Circuit is, grovel. For those watching the golden tree, pay attention to the pursuit of ENUM post-dotTel. Me==boring++. I used to work where the golden tree was sought, or at least the fleece of the golden tree.
GNSO was very explicit that this can not introduce additional delays to the gTLD program so sooner or later a compromise position is needed, what if the GNSO is not able to provide a recommendation on time, what the BoD will do ?
Toss a three sided coin. 0. The Board really meant "zero" when the voted "zero". I've mentioned the consequences. Actually they're not so bad, if you're not a current RSP or registrar or have 1 share that can be acquired by a registrar you'd then like to pay more than market price to recover. 1. The Board is convinced by Staff's interpretation of "zero" as 2%. I've mentioned the consequences. See 9th Circuit, above. Quickly. 2. Something else happens. I hope that a "continuity" proposal will be selected. I know that similar hopes are held by other advocates for other policy choices. We (VI WG) prepare an update for August, there is a Board Retreat in September, and we don't actually have a hard schedule to the acceptance of applications, as the current "shinny object" to chase is "morality and public decency", so we don't actually know in fact that Cartagena is a hard hard deadline. We just assume it is. Your opportunity is to submit a public comment, if you think there is a policy issue you have any views on, any views what so ever. Eric
On July 26, 2010 at 14:42 brunner@nic-naa.net (Eric Brunner-Williams) wrote:
When Hewlett-Packard wrote to ICANN earlier this year that it should get .hp, the obvious rejoinder was "Buy a country like everyone else, submit a change request to the iso3166/MA, and do business under .hp, your new country code property." Apparently HP didn't want to actually buy a country first. Cheapskates.
HP doesn't even have HP as a stock symbol, that'd be Helmerich & Payne, a contract oil/gas driller. The computer company can be traded under symbol HPC. "Happy name spaces are all alike; every unhappy name space is unhappy in its own way." -- !Tolstoy -- -Barry Shein The World | bzs@TheWorld.com | http://www.TheWorld.com Purveyors to the Trade | Voice: 800-THE-WRLD | Dial-Up: US, PR, Canada Software Tool & Die | Public Access Internet | SINCE 1989 *oo*
On Mon, 2010-07-26 at 14:42 -0400, Eric Brunner-Williams wrote:
But I do take your point about .co/.com, and in all fairness, it is a decade delayed favor returned by NeuStar to Verisign for the .bz/.biz "collaborative marketing" ploy of 2001.
Or eNom's .cc/.com ploy from 1999-present. Don't you remember the television ad buy they did on all of the networks? Rednecks dancing around playing fiddles singing about ".cc". On the other hand, at least they weren't showing soft porn like GoDaddy does. William
On 7/26/10 7:50 PM, William Pitcock wrote:
On Mon, 2010-07-26 at 14:42 -0400, Eric Brunner-Williams wrote:
But I do take your point about .co/.com, and in all fairness, it is a decade delayed favor returned by NeuStar to Verisign for the .bz/.biz "collaborative marketing" ploy of 2001.
Or eNom's .cc/.com ploy from 1999-present. Don't you remember the television ad buy they did on all of the networks? Rednecks dancing around playing fiddles singing about ".cc". On the other hand, at least they weren't showing soft porn like GoDaddy does.
Sorry, ENOTEEVEE. I'll have to imagine my folks with fiddles singing about a repurposed ccTLD. GoDaddy's advertising use of a NASCAR driver is not quite a "vertical integration" issue. Could y'all please keep up with the geezer play'n washboard or the boy blow'n jug? Dance, sing or holl'r as you like. Thankee. Eric
The window for comments closes tomorrow. Of course, the window for comments that somehow paint ICANN as a bastion of fools never closes, but anyone in the access and above business that opines on the structure, and interests, of registrars and registries, who opines after tomorrow, but not before tomorrow, is pretty much null routed. The public comments mailbox is vi-pdp-initial-report@icann.org Eric
participants (8)
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Barry Shein -
Eric Brunner-Williams -
Eric Brunner-Williams -
Franck Martin -
Joly MacFie -
Jorge Amodio -
William Allen Simpson -
William Pitcock