Report (Part One)
of
Working Group C of the
Domain Name Supporting Organization
Internet Corporation for
Assigned Names and Numbers
This document is Part One of the
Report of Working Group C. It sets out
the rough consensus of the group
regarding whether there should be new generic top-level domains (gTLDs), and if
so, how quickly they should be added to the root as an initial matter. Part Two of the Report, which will follow,
will address other issues relating to the addition of new gTLDs.
Working Group C has reached rough
consensus on two issues. The first is that ICANN should add new gTLDs to the
root. The second is that ICANN should
begin the deployment of new gTLDs with an initial rollout of six to ten new
gTLDs, followed by an evaluation period.
This report will address each of these issues separately. For each of the issues, it will summarize
the discussions within the working group, arguments pro and con, and comments
received from the public. It will then
briefly summarize the ongoing work of the group.
Procedural and outreach history
The Names Council approved the
charter of Working Group C on June 25, 1999, and named Javier Sola as its
chair. On July 29, the working group
members elected Jonathan Weinberg co-chair.
The working group currently has more than 140 members, not all of whom
are active. It includes extensive
representation from each of the constituencies. (There is one partial exception:
For most of the life of the working group, no NSI representative
participated. When WG-C's co-chair
solicited greater
participation
from the Registry constituency, Don Telage explained that NSI had chosen not to
involve itself in the WG-C process.
That representational gap has been filled now that Tony Rutkowski — an
active WG-C member from the start — has joined NSI in a senior policymaking
capacity.)
On October 23, 1999, the Working
Group released its Interim Report. That
report described the issues on which the Working Group had reached rough
consensus to date. It also included
seven "position papers," setting out alternative scenarios for the
introduction of new gTLDs. On November
23, 1999, the Names Council formally requested public comment on the Interim
Report. This call for comments was
publicized on a variety of mailing lists maintained by the DNSO, including
ga-announce, ga, and liaison7c (which includes the constituency
secretariats). In addition, WG-C's
co-chair spoke at the meetings of most of the constituencies at the Los Angeles
ICANN meeting, and urged constituency members to file comments. Nearly 300
comments were filed in response to the interim report. They included responses from leading members
of all of the constituencies but two — the record does not include comments
from the ccTLD or Registry constituencies (although ccTLD members and Mr.
Rutkowski participated in the discussions that led to the Interim Report, and
WG-C's co-chair expressly solicited the comments of both of those groups).
This report was circulated to the
working group one week before its planned presentation to the Names
Council. Two members of the group
suggested small changes in wording.
There was otherwise consensus that the report accurately described the
progress and conclusions of the working group.
No formal vote was taken. One
member of the group suggested that, in the absence of a formal vote, it was not
appropriate to designate the document as a report of the working group. The matter was put to the working group, and
a majority of the group members who
expressed opinions considered a formal vote unnecessary for this purpose.
Issue One — Should There Be New gTLDs?
Discussions within the working group
The working group quickly -- by
mid-August, 1999 -- reached consensus that there should be new global top-level
domains. There was very little dissent
from this position.
Arguments supporting the consensus position
Expanding the number of TLDs will
increase consumer choice, and create opportunities for entities that have been
shut out under the current name structure.
Today, .com stands astride the name space: it has more registrations
than all other top-level domain names combined, and is ten times the size of
the largest ccTLD. Yet it has become
nearly impossible to register a new simple domain name there: Almost a year
ago, in April 1999, a survey found that of 25,500 standard English-language
dictionary words, only 1,760 were free in the .com domain. Millions of additional names have been
registered in .com since then.
This situation is undesirable. It requires companies to register
increasingly unwieldy domain names for themselves, and is inflating the value
of the secondary (speculators') market in .com domain names. Existing
second-level domain names under the dot com TLD routinely change hands for
enormously inflated prices. These are legitimate trades of ordinary,
untrademarked words; their high prices reflect the artificial scarcity of
common names in existing gTLDs, and the premium on .com names
in
particular.
Companies that currently have a domain name in the
form of <www.companyname.com> have an extremely important marketing and
name-recognition tool. They have an
advantage over all other companies that do not have addresses in that form,
because the companyname.com firms are the ones that consumers, surfing the Net,
will be able to find most easily. If
the name space is expanded, companies will be able to get easy-to-remember
domain names more easily, and the entry barriers to successful participation in
electronic commerce will be lowered.
Addition of new gTLDs will allow different companies to have the same
second-level domain name in different TLDs.
Those businesses will have to compete based on price, quality and
service, rather than on the happenstance of which company locked up the most
desirable domain name first.
Similarly, addition of new gTLDs
could enlarge noncommercial name space, and allow the creation of top-level
domains designed to serve noncommercial goals.
One proposal made in WG-C, widely applauded in the public comments,
advocated the creation of a new top-level domain to be operated by North
American indigenous peoples. Other
examples are easy to imagine.
In response to the unsatisfied
demand for new gTLD names, several ccTLD registries, including .nu, .cc, and
.to, have transformed themselves into gTLDs, marketing their names globally as
alternatives to .com, .net and .org.
This is undesirable from the perspective of protecting trademark rights,
since no mechanisms are in place to ensure that these TLDs enact the same
trademark-protective procedures (such as the UDRP) now in place in the
gTLDs. The transformation of ccTLDs
into globally marketed commercial gTLDs deprives the local Internet community
of the benefits of a ccTLD more closely oriented to serving that
community. To the extent that ICANN
wishes to deploy new gTLDs subject to community-determined policy guidelines,
finally, the growth of ccTLDs in response to pent-up demand for TLDs frustrates
that goal.
Creation of new generic top-level
domains can be beneficial in other ways.
One proposal before WG-C, with significant support, urges the creation
of multiple registries, each capable of managing registrations for multiple
TLDs, so as to eliminate the single point of failure for the registration
process. Under this view, multiple new
gTLDs are necessary to support the multiple registries needed for stability.
Adding new gTLDs to the root,
finally, is an important part of ICANN's mandate. ICANN was created because the institutions that preceded it were
unable to resolve the intense political and economic conflicts created by
demand for new top-level domain names. The U.S. Department of Commerce's White
Paper saw the establishment of policy "for determining the circumstances
under which new TLDs are added to the root system" as one of ICANN's
fundamental goals.
Arguments opposing the consensus position
Three arguments were made, or
suggested, in WG-C that cut against the addition of new gTLDs. The first relates to trademark policing
concerns: Expansion of the domain space will create additional opportunities
for the registration of domain names that are confusingly similar to existing
trademarks. The relationship between
domain names and trademark rights presents an important and difficult issue,
and is appropriately addressed by registry data maintenance requirements,
dispute resolution mechanisms such as the UDRP, and any other device that ICANN
may choose to adopt. Trademark owners' concerns in this regard are important
ones, and not to be overlooked. The
argument that ICANN should impose substantial delays on the initial deployment
of new gTLDs in the interest of adopting or perfecting such mechanisms,
however, did not win much support within the working group except among
Intellectual Property constituency members.
Second, some working group members suggested that an
increase in the number of top-level domains could confuse consumers, because it
would be harder for consumers to keep in mind and remember a larger set of
top-level domains. Accordingly, any
increase in the number of new gTLDs should be cautious. Notwithstanding requests, though, no working
group member offered studies or other evidence backing up this view.
Finally, some working group members
suggested that the perceived need for new gTLDs was illusory. For the reasons described above, it is the
sense of the working group that that view is incorrect.
Public comments
The comments received by the working
group fell into several categories. A few commenters questioned whether new
gTLDs were indeed needed: this group included Bell Atlantic, Marilyn Cade and
John Lewis (writing on behalf of some members of the Business & Commercial
constituency).
Some commenters took no position on
whether new gTLDs should be added. Rather, they focused their comments on the
position that deployment should be delayed until after implementation of the
uniform dispute resolution procedure, improved domain name registration
procedures, and protection for so-called famous marks. These commenters included, among others,
Jonathan Cohen, Dr. Victoria Carrington, AOL, British Telecom, Disney, INTA,
Nintendo of America and Time Warner.
Comments noting the need for caution in deploying new gTLDs, but not explicitly
referencing famous-marks protection, were filed by the Software and Information
Industry Association (which supports adding new gTLDs, but only after the
creation of a robust, responsive whois system), John Lewis (writing on behalf
of some members of the Business and Commercial constituency), and Steve
Metalitz.
A third set of comments urged the
addition of new gTLDs without further delay.
These commenters included, among
others, Hirofumi Hotta (emphasizing that discussion of famous-mark protection
should not delay the gTLD rollout), Kathryn Kleiman, Michael Schneider,
Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility, Melbourne IT, AXISNET
(Peruvian Association of Users and ISPs), the United States Small Business
Administration's Office of Advocacy, Register.com, InterWorking Labs, Tucows.com, InterAccess Company and PSI-Japan.
Raul Echeberria filed comments urging that the establishment of new
gTLDs was important and positive, but that rules should be devised to avoid
massive speculative purchases of domains in the new TLDs, or trademark holders
simply duplicating their existing domains.
A fourth, and by far the largest,
set of comments supported the creation of a specific proposed new domain: .NAA,
proposed as a new gTLD to be run by North American indigenous peoples.
Issue Two — What Should be the Nature of the Initial
Rollout?
Discussions within the working group
In September 1999, the WG-C
co-chairs made the determination that the working group had reached rough
consensus supporting a compromise proposal that the initial deployment of new
gTLDs should include six to ten new gTLDs, followed by an evaluation
period. Because there had been no
formal consensus call, though, the working group held a vote in December 1999
to reaffirm that consensus. Following
the lead of Working Group B, the working group determined in advance that a
two-thirds margin would constitute adequate evidence of rough consensus. The vote reaffirmed the compromise position
as the rough consensus of the working group, by a margin of 44 to 20. (A substantial number of working group
members did not cast votes. In
addition, some working group members, having been solicited to vote, sent
messages to the list explaining that they were declining to take a position at
that time, and listed themselves as consequently abstaining. Neither the non-voters nor the abstainers
were counted in
figuring
the two-thirds majority.)
Members of the working group had
expressed sharply varying positions on the nature of the initial rollout. Some working group members urged that ICANN
should immediately announce its intention to authorize hundreds of new gTLDs
over the course of the next few years.
While ICANN might interrupt that process if it observed serious problems
with the rollout, the presumption would be in favor of deployment to the limits
of the technically feasible and operationally stable. If ICANN simply deployed a
small
number of new gTLDs with no commitment to add more, they argued, the public
would have to make registration decisions based on the possibility that the
small number of new gTLDs would be the only options. This would give the new registries oligopoly power and the
ability to earn greater-than-competitive profits; it would encourage
pre-emptive and speculative registrations based on the possibility of continued
artificial scarcity. By contrast, they
urged, an ICANN decision to deploy a large number of gTLDs would enable
competition and a level playing field: If ICANN announced an intention to add
hundreds of new gTLDs over a three-year period, no new registry could exercise
market power based on the prospect of a continued artificial scarcity of names.
Other working group members took the
opposite approach. New gTLDs, they
urged, could seriously aggravate the problems facing trademark rightsholders in
the existing domain name space.
Accordingly, they urged, new gTLDs should be introduced only slowly and
in a controlled manner, and only after effective trademark protection
mechanisms had been implemented and shown to be effective.
A third set of working group members
took still another approach. In the
long term, they stated, it would be desirable for ICANN to allow the deployment
of new gTLDs to the limits of the technically feasible and operationally
stable. As a short-term matter, however,
the immediate deployment of hundreds of new TLDs would not be prudent. The operationally safer course, rather,
should be to deploy a smaller number, and to follow that deployment with an
evaluation period during which the Internet community could assess the initial
deployment. ICANN would go on to deploy
additional TLDs if no serious problems arose in the initial rollout.
The proposal that ICANN start by
deploying six to ten new TLDs, followed by an evaluation period, was crafted as
a compromise position to bridge the gap separating the three groups, and to
enable a rough consensus to form in the middle ground.
Arguments supporting the consensus position
The consensus position has the
advantage of being a compromise proposal supported by a wide range of working
group members. In a bottom-up,
consensus-driven organization, broad agreement on a policy path is valuable for
its own sake. The sense of the bulk of
the working group is that this proposal strikes an appropriate balance between
slower, contingent deployment of new gTLDs and faster, more nearly certain,
deployment.
Arguments opposing the consensus position
Three arguments were made in the
working group against the proposal. The
first was that the contemplated initial deployment was too large; rather, some
WG members urged, it would be appropriate, following the implementation of
effective intellectual property protections, for ICANN to roll out no more than
two or three new gTLDs. Most WG members
felt, however, that this figure was smaller than caution dictated, and that
such a modest deployment would not give ICANN the information that it would
need to make sensible later decisions.
The second argument was that the
contemplated initial deployment was too small: that, as detailed above, a
deployment of only six to ten, without an upfront commitment to roll out many
more, will be a half-measure that would
grant oligopoly power to the lucky registries selected for the initial rollout. This argument has considerable force. Most of the working group members felt,
however, that an initial commitment to
many more than six to ten would not be operationally sound. Until we see the consequences for the domain
name space of adding new gTLDs, there are advantages to a more
circumspect
path.
The final objection raised was that
the consensus agreement answered the wrong question: The working group, said
some, should not be addressing the number of new gTLDs at all before resolving
such issues as whether the new top-level domains should be general-purpose
(like .com), special-purpose, or some combination of the two. The working group is currently addressing
these issues (they will be discussed in Part Two of the WG's Report), and
certainly it would not have been inappropriate for it to have sought to reach
conclusions on those matters before discussing Issue Two. But most members of the working group
concluded that the size of the initial rollout could and should be addressed
first, before resolving less tractable issues.
Public comments
As with Issue One, public comment on
this issue was divided. Bell Atlantic
and Marilyn Cade supported the introduction of just a single new gTLD at the
outset. John Lewis, on behalf of some
members of the Business & Commercial constituency, suggested the introduction
of a very small number; British Telecom and Time Warner urged the initial
rollout of only a few. Other
commenters, including Jonathan Cohen, Dr. Victoria Carrington, AOL, Disney and
Nintendo of America, generally endorsed the statement that the introduction of
new gTLDs should be slow and controlled, and should incorporate an evaluation
period.
By contrast, Hiro Hotta, Kathryn
Kleiman, Michael Schneider, Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility,
AXISNET, InterWorking Labs, Tucows.com and InterAccess Company supported
the position that ICANN should, at the
outset, announce a schedule for introducing hundreds of new TLDs. The Office of Advocacy, U.S. Small Business
Administration concluded that ICANN should start with a limited introduction of
new TLDs followed by an evaluation period, but that ICANN should announce in
advance that it would continue with a steady introduction of additional TLDs so
long as pre-announced technical criteria were met. Raul Echeberria, by contrast, emphasized that ICANN should
evaluate the operation and market acceptance of the TLDs added in the initial
rollout before creating or announcing more.
Melbourne IT, PSI-Japan and Register.com all supported the compromise
position of an initial rollout of six to ten new gTLDs followed by an
evaluation period.
Ongoing work
The section that follows has not
been distributed to and approved by the working group, and should be read
solely as a report of the co-chair.
Issues that must be resolved before
ICANN can deploy new gTLDs include the following: What process should ICANN use to select new gTLD registries? By what process should new gTLD strings be
selected? Must a new gTLD be
“chartered”? What minimum
qualifications must a gTLD registry have?
Must all gTLD registries operate an open SRS? What rules should be in place regarding access to registrant
data?
There is a consensus call
outstanding on the issue of ICANN’s selection of new gTLDs and registries for
the initial rollout. Working group
members have been asked to convey, by March 19, their approval or rejection of
the following compromise position:
“Registries would apply describing their proposed TLD, and an ICANN body
or process would make selections taking into account the characteristics of
both the registry and its proposed TLD.”
There has been extensive discussion within the working group of a set of eight “principles,” drafted by Philip Sheppard and Kathryn Kleiman, against which applications for new TLDs might be judged. The proposed principles, in their current iteration, incorporate the keywords Certainty, Honesty, Differentiation, Competition, Diversity, Semantics, Multiplicity and Simplicity. It is too early to say whether the working group will reach a consensus favoring the use of a version of these principles in evaluating gTLD applications.
--------------
A detailed summary of the
public comments on Issues One and Two is available at
<http://www.dnso.org/wgroups/wg-c/Arc01/msg00490.html>.
OBJECTION TO THE RELEASE OF THIS
REPORT AS "REPORT (PART ONE) OF WORKING GROUP C OF THE DOMAIN NAME
SUPPORTING ORGANIZATION, INTERNET CORPORATION FOR ASSIGNED NAMES AND NUMBERS"
As a member of Working Group C, I
object to the release of this report "Report (Part One) of Working Group C
of the Domain Name Supporting Organization, Internet Corporation for Assigned
Names and Numbers" (hereafter referred to as "Report of Working Group
C") for the following reasons:
1.
The members of Working Group C
have never given approval of this Report.
As such, this is not a "Report of Working Group C".
2.
The members of Working Group C have not given approval to allow the
co-chairman of Working Group C to use his absolute discretion in determining
what goes in this particular report and then releasing this report as a
"Report of Working Group C".
As such, this is not a "Report of Working Group C".
3.
The co-chairman of Working Group C has decided to release this report as
the "Report of Working Group C" over the known objections of some members of Working Group
C to releasing the report as the "Report of Working Group C'.
4.
Some members of Working Group C
probably do not know this "Report of Working Group C" exists. An extremely short period of time
(approximately 7 days) was allowed to review and provide any suggestions
regarding this document.
5.
The co-chairman has refused to change the name of the report to
"The Co-Chairman's Report on the Progress of Working Group C". This would permit the material in the report
to be released but allow the members of Working Group C to approve and release a report from Working
Group C entitled "Report of Working Group C".
6.
The issuance of this report, without the members of Working Group C
approving, either the language in the report or granting this authority to the
co-chairman, sets a bad precedent for future reports. Why have members?
7.
Public Comments have never been requested on this "Report of
Working Group C". Prior public
comments were received on an Interim Report.
The "Report of Working Group C" being released now has new materials for which public comments
have never been received.
8. The release of any "Report of Working
Group C" without first obtaining public comments on a draft of the report
is contrary to ICANN's stated policy of " the development of consensus
based policies (such as policies concerning new names) in an open, transparent
and bottom-up manner in which interested individuals have an opportunity to
participate and comment" (see ICANN FAQ on new generic top level domains -
posted September 13,1999).
9. This report was hurriedly prepared and
little time allowed for review because "Members of the Names Council"
requested "WG-C file a report before the NC's meeting in Cairo next
week." Either Working Group C
should be allowed sufficient time to study the issues, explore all the options
and timely complete a report or the Names Council should disband the Working
Group. To require a Working Group to
hastily prepare a report for the sake of an upcoming meeting, with insufficient
time for members to study, provide comments and approve the report, does not
establish a lot of faith in the ICANN process.
Bob Broxton
Member of Working Group C
Richmond, VA