USDOC to ICANN: not so fast on those new TLDs

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: John L <johnl () iecc com>
Date: December 21, 2008 4:05:28 AM EST
To: David Farber <dave () farber net>
Subject: USDOC to ICANN: not so fast on those new TLDs

[ for IP if you think of general interest ]

The US DOC sent a scathing letter to ICANN about the proposed plan to
sell large numbers of new top-level domains.  There's a long list of
issues which I won't try to summarize.  They range from insufficient
attention to monopoly and consumer protection, to lack of capacity to
enforce compliance, to overreach into non-technical areas such as
adjudication of morality, to what they'll do with all the extra money  
since they are a non-profit.

Their first concern is that in 2006 the ICANN board said they would  
commission a study on economic issues in TLD registrations such as  
whether different TLDs are different markets, substitutability between  
TLDs, and registry market power, issues which are fairly important in  
any new TLD process.  Here it is two years later, they're rushing to  
set up the new TLD process, but there's no study.  "ICANN needs to  
complete this economic study and the results should be considered by  
the community before new gTLDs are introduced."  I'd love to ask Paul  
Twomey why they didn't do the study, but I'd be unlikely to get a  
straight answer.

The letter is an 11 page PDF linked here:

 http://forum.icann.org/lists/gtld-guide/msg00175.html

Regards,
John Levine, johnl () iecc com, Primary Perpetrator of "The Internet for  
Dummies",
Information Superhighwayman wanna-be, http://www.johnlevine.com, ex- 
Mayor
"More Wiener schnitzel, please", said Tom, revealingly.




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