Current Problems with the .city TLD process

[Nicolas Adam]

I disagree that there will be outside governance processes that will be 
brought down upon for the purpose of zoning the namespace in the public 
interest. I just don't see the complex regulated approach/form that that 
could/would take. And where I glimpse it, the scenarios of applications 
are unrealistic.

I am *far* from being a free-market apologist (I don't believe markets 
exists *naturally* outside of very many political and social rules, for 
instance, and being the good french-Canadian that I am, I am culturally 
and philosophically inclined to believe that regulating economic 
activities in the public interest is naturally both unavoidable and 
efficient [but the devil is in the details]). But we need to grasp the 
rather large -- infinite one might even posit -- range of name-string 
possibilities that are open to competing interests (some interested 
parties of which may be more in line with the way I see what the public 
interest should be, while some of them might be more in line with what 
others would think the public interest should be), and from that rather 
large string of possibilities I am inclined to believe that the public 
interest will take care of its own by simple virtue of its (posited) 
greater offer and demand. There is simply more to be done in the public 
interest then against, in short.

In essence, this is the same mechanism that works in the USA with regard 
speech where it is posited that more speech is better than less speech, 
all in the purpose of dealing with public interest issues. In Canada, I 
think, we say that this or that speech is unacceptable, and that we 
shouldn't say it. This is not my preferred way of preserving the public 
interest in the speech sphere, but this is what we have and since Canada 
has control over what goes on in its territory, well it can do it, fine. 
When people want to say this or that stuff (or criticize stuff you 
shouldn't say, which sometimes get confused with condoning stuff you 
shouldn't say) then people will host it on a US server or something like 
this. Canada has no way of extending its policy to the rest of the world 
just because a foreign newspaper may find its way into Canadian soil or 
because a foreign server can be queried to deliver a webpage with 
unlawful speech (to Canada). And I don't think it would be wise to try 
to deal with the newspaper-spill situation by petitioning the UN or 
building treaty organizations with the purpose of coming up with a 
policy to regulate global speech in the public interest.


And so, similarly, I do not think it would be wise, feasible or helpful 
to try to regulate in the public interest the way that SLD auctions are 
conducted around the world, nor to determine what or who should have 
precedence over a semantic string. When i said before that I tend to 
agree with Sam's suggestion of asking for similar rules with regard 
gTLD, it is mainly because it would be a gain for the non-commercial 
community (in a zero-sum game, that would be a loss for the commercial 
community) and, well, I think that we *can* sometimes advance our own 
little narrow interests in spite of perhaps the best interet of the 
system as a whole. But if I am to think of the best way for all to 
function, I am convinced I think that not injecting these considerations 
into SLDs and Geos is the correct way to go.

That being said, Wolfgang's point is well taken, and we can't stay aside 
and we need to actively engage the community in a proactive manner so 
that the community can come to rough and running codes and consensuses.

Nicolas

On 08/10/2014 11:00 AM, Sam Lanfranco wrote:
> Amr,
>
> Thanks for the comments and especially your opinion that "…initiating 
> a multistakeholder discussion aimed at giving priority to applicants 
> on a "public interest" basis is both difficult and unnecessary."It is 
> not clear if you feel that the multistakeholder discussion or the 
> priority but I assume you mean giving priority to applicants on a 
> public interest basis is both difficult and unnecessary. My concerns 
> are two, one at the macro level of the notion of the "public interest" 
> and the other at the micro level around the details of the ICANN 
> processes and what they cover or don't cover.
>
> At the macro level, should there be a public interest component in the 
> assessment of gTLDs, or the operation of gTLDs, both as to existence 
> and to ownership? In time both answers will be yes, but not the way it 
> is done now. ICANN's gTLD governance processes face the same 
> challenges in cyber space that city governments face around planning 
> and zoning issues. If ICANN decides not to recognize that 
> responsibility, someone else will. That may be good or bad for the 
> Internet and good or bad for ICANN. To illustrate, I can make living 
> raising and selling chickens from my back year. The community may want 
> chickens, but the public interest may say that it is the wrong space 
> for that activity and the wrong activity for that space. The city 
> government will make zoning decisions and bad decisions may toss the 
> incumbent crew out of office (here: marginalize ICANN).
>
> Using the .health gTLD as an example, the ICANN approval process gives 
> no role to health systems expertise in examining the merits of the 
> what, why, and how of the .health business plan. Doing so would be 
> difficult but if ICANN does not confront the challenge, possibly in 
> collaboration with others, the responsibility for that part of DNS 
> Internet governance will grow elsewhere.
>
> The creation of gTLD, and the consequent second level TLDs, is a 
> zoning approval process and the governance around that will have to 
> rise to the occasion. Where this resides, ICANN or elsewhere, is less 
> important than that it is done well. It is not done well within 
> existing ICANN practice. Adding a public interest field in an 
> assessment check list, and some sort of priority process leaves too 
> many holes and smells like "Okay, done that, let's just get on with 
> (our) business here.". ICANN can elect to be in the game or out of the 
> game, but there will be governance process, with or without ICANN. In 
> the long run global health systems expertise will trump whatever 
> business plan .health starts with. Also, just as city planning is 
> seldom used to trample human rights, this process will not be a Trojan 
> Horse for censorship.
>
> At the micro level I will just re-state what the applicant for the 
> MentalHealth.nyc .city domain name has said. If ICANN gTLD auctions 
> and its private gTLD auctions involve transparency, scope for 
> collaboration among applicants. If this is good at the gTLD level why 
> is this not also part of the ICANN contract language in the awarding 
> of .city TLD? Many of the .city TLD second level applications involve 
> civil society organizations and the above zoning and planning issues 
> exist at this micro level. With municipal ownership of the .city TLDs 
> city planning will no doubt expand into cyber space planning as well. 
> This is an area where someone will take leadership, and that is 
> unlikely to be ICANN, although ICANN could help by improving the .city 
> contract language to provide fairer and more consistent playing fields 
> for applicants at both top and secondary levels, at least during the 
> landrush phase.
>
> I hope that helps tease out the core issues here.
>
> Sam L.

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