[Random-bits] Richard Sexton on ICANN decision on TLDs

[James Love]

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Sun, 16 Jul 2000 01:23:33 -0400 (EDT)
From: Richard J. Sexton <richard@dnso.com>
To: love@cptech.org
Subject: Some questions

I just sent this to every icann board member individually. In case you
hadn't heard, they just voted to approve tld apps that cost $50K USD each,
due oct 1, non refundable, no criteria, and they don't know hw many
they'll approve as a "proof of concept", but it's between 2 and 8.

I doubt doing this will have any effect whatsoever, but I felt
bettrr for having done it.






Hi;

I watched with interest the board meeting about new tlds. Here is
my response, and if you have time to answer that would be great.

1) What do you mean "proof of concept" ?

What is so unknown about adding a TLD that we arbitrarily call a "gTLD"
as opposed to a TLD we arbitrarily call a "ccTLD" ? Especially in the 
light of things like .nu, .tv, and so on. There was no proof of concept
or application fee at all for cctlds - no gatekeeper, no checks to
see how robust or fiscally responsible the idea, no proposal, yet
despite all this, not ONE cctld has failed.

What are you guys so scared of?


2) All the world is not .com

It's a common fallacy that any new tls is competion for .com, almost
as common is "dns is not a directory service". No, it isn't, it's
a distributed database that can be used for many things. One thing
it could be used for *is* a directory service. 

For example, for 3 years I've run the .NIC zone, which is nothing 
more than a way to find how to register a tld in any given zone.
If you point your DNS nameserver at 199.166.24.1 then you can
type in http://<tld>.nic into the location line of Netscape and
find the registration authority for <tld>.

There is no "cost to registr" into the .NIC zone, and the work to
keep it up to date is roughly an hour a month.

Talk of "data escrow", "internet stability", "IP issues" and "TLD
application fees" for something like this is absurd.

Not all TLDS are cut in the same cloth as .com; get out of that
mindset!

3) We're paying you to catch up ?

You have no idea what you want in a TLD application, you have no
experience in this area and the only thing you're sure of is it'll
cost $50K USD. Back 5 years ago Jon Postel suggested $100K. Everybody
freaked out and tumbped their nose. In his second draft he suggested
$10K and 2%. People had the same reaction.

There are people who have been coordinating root zones for years
and I suggest if staff thinks it will cost $50K to scrutinize
a tld applicaiton then you should get new staff! This number seems
to me to have been dragged out of thin air to make up for ICANN's
lack of funding. How many businesses could get away with saying
"send us your applicaton, and $50K non-refundable and your proposal.
We don't know what we want, you have a slim chance of being
accepted, we've never done this before, everybody before you
got in free but we'll "take money from anybody" to quote
Ken Stubbs.

Nobody wants new tlds more than I do, but I'd be willing to
wait a bit longer till you guys got more of a handle on this.




--
rich@rd.sexton                               http://ph-1.613.473.1719  
It's about travel on expense accounts to places with good beer. - BKR