News Review: ICANN, ccTLDs, and the Domain Name Marketplace (slides)

Domain Mondo's weekly review of internet domain news [pdf]:

Feature •  ICANN is struggling with its domain name marketplace index and the relevance of ccTLDs in the global domain marketplace in competition with gTLDs. See Incompetent ICANN Struggles With Its Domain Names Marketplace Index.

The slides (pdf) here (embed below) are from an ICANN57 session presentation authored by Andy Simpson, Principal Data Scientist at Verisign, about ccTLDs in the global domain name marketplace.

Main points:

• Evaluating the domain marketplace using exclusively gTLDs introduces disproportionate regional bias to marketplace characterizations. 
• 51% of registrants' portfolios in European countries are made up of national ccTLDs.
• gTLDs and ccTLDs coexist and share of market varies from one country to the next.
• Many ccTLDs market themselves on the global stage directly against gTLDs. [.CO being just one example of many.]
• ccTLDs are a significant component of the domain name marketplace and any index that characterizes the health of that marketplace should consider the ccTLDs role and contribution.

Maybe ICANN, which does not have even one data scientist among its bloated, mostly overpaid management and staff, will get a clue and hire one. Even some ICANN stakeholders are aware of ICANN's incompetence in this area (see below). Unfortunately, ICANN has mostly relied on "junk science" experts, see, e.g., News Review [20Nov]: ICANN Used 'Junk Science' Firm to Justify New gTLDs.

#ICANN57 Public Forum @Jvzuck: #ICANN needs to get into the data business. Get a data scientist & collect data for use in supporting PDPs.

— Samantha Dickinson (@sgdickinson) November 8, 2016

New gTLDs - Competition, Consumer Trust & Consumer Choice Review Interim Findings & Next steps | ICANN.org: "One thing that has become clear to the CCT-RT is the need for additional data to be collected and curated by ICANN on a more regular basis. A large part of the recommendations will involve the need for robust and complete datasets for future review teams, outside analysts and policy development teams."

Other Internet Domain News:

•  How Incompetent ICANN Helps Cybercriminals, Cybersquatters, & Spammers: Here’s a secret: ɢoogle.com is not google.com | AnalyticsEdge.com.

•  World's largest domain name registrar GoDaddy (NYSE: GDDY) is in talks to acquire Host Europe Group (HEG), expand into the more profitable web hosting business and broaden its customer base in Europe. HEG could be valued at about €1.7B, or over 12x its forecast 2016 core earnings of €140M according to a report in Reuters.com.

•  ICYMI: "You had said that the Governmental Advisory Committee in the ICANN was inherently unstable, and that it was like the UN within the ICANN. Now that the post-transition terms of engagement are established, do you think that still holds?" Milton Mueller: "It is. The problem with the GAC is not so much that it represents governments. But you have this one-government-one-position approach to it, which makes it just like an intergovernmental organisation."--Times of India | IndiaTimes.com.

•  DIDP Request 20161024-9, The Centre for Internet & Society:

Request (24 October 2016) (pdf): "... This is a request under your Documentary Information Disclosure Policy for information on ICANN’s process for verification of identity of gTLD bidders. There has been a lot of discussion about the legitimacy of Nu Dot Co which recently won the auction to control the .WEB domain name. Our specific questions are as follows: 1) Documents showing the process followed by ICANN to verify the identity of all gTLD bidders. 2) Affidavits filed by ICANN regarding the identity of Nu Dot Co. 3) Any other documentation showing that ICANN was able to verify the identity of Nu Dot Co. ..."

ICANN Response (23 November 2016) (pdf): "... Items 2 and 3 seek the disclosure of all “[a]ffidavits filed by ICANN regarding the identity of Nu Dot Co” and “[a]ny other documentation showing that ICANN was able to verify the identity of Nu Dot Co.” As you may be aware, Nu Dot Co.’s participation in an ICANN-facilitated auction is the subject of ongoing litigation. All pleadings filed in the Ruby Glen, LLC v. ICANN matter, including affidavits regarding the identity of Nu Dot Co. have been published on ICANN’s Litigation page at https://www.icann.org/resources/pages/ruby-glen-v-icann-2016-07-23-en. To the extent that there are any other documents responsive to this request, they are subject to the following Defined Conditions of Nondisclosure and are therefore not appropriate for public dissemination: • Information subject to the attorney– client, attorney work product privilege, or any other applicable privilege, or disclosure of which might prejudice any internal, governmental, or legal investigation ..."

•  Oracle and Dyn (Dyn.com): "On November 21, 2016, Oracle announced that it has signed an agreement to acquire Dyn, the leading cloud-based Internet Performance and DNS provider that monitors, controls, and optimizes Internet applications and cloud services to deliver faster access, reduced page load times, and higher end-user satisfaction. The proposed transaction is subject to customary closing conditions. Until the transaction closes, each company will continue to operate independently. Dyn's solution is powered by a global network that drives 40 billion traffic optimization decisions daily for more than 3,500 enterprise customers, including preeminent digital brands such as Netflix, Twitter, Pfizer and CNBC. Adding Dyn's best-in-class DNS solution extends the Oracle cloud computing platform and provides enterprise customers with a one-stop shop for Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) and Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS)." --Oracle.com (emphasis added). Note: Dyn is also an accredited domain name registrar with ICANN and suffered a recent DDoS attack.

• ICANN Public Comment Periods that close in December, 2016:

• Phase II Assessment of the Competitive Effects Associated with the New gTLD Program: Close Date 5 Dec 2016 23:59 UTC
• Proposal for Lao Script Root Zone‬ Label Generation Rules (LGR): Close Date 10 Dec 2016 23:59 UTC
• Draft PTI FY18 Operating Plan and Budget: Close Date 10 Dec 2016 23:59 UTC
• Revised Proposed Implementation of GNSO Thick Whois Consensus Policy Requiring Consistent Labeling and Display of RDDS (Whois) Output for All gTLDs: Close Date 12 Dec 2016 23:59 UTC
• Proposed Implementation of GNSO Thick RDDS (Whois) Transition Policy for .COM, .NET and .JOBS: Close Date 15 Dec 2016 23:59 UTC
• Continuous Data-Driven Analysis of Root Server System Stability Draft Report: Close Date 22 Dec 2016 23:59 UTC

•  Digital Divide: Most people have access to Internet services but many do not actually use them. The spread of 3G and 4G networks across the world make the Internet increasingly available to more and more people. In 2016, mobile-broadband networks covered 84% of the world's population, yet with 47.1% Internet user penetration, the number of Internet users remain well below the number of people with network access. While infrastructure deployment is crucial, high prices and other barriers remain important challenges to getting more people to enter the digital world.--International Telecommunications Union (ITU).

•  Facebook Said to Create Censorship Tool to Get Back Into China | NYTimes.com: "Unveiling a new censorship tool in China could lead to more demands to suppress content from other countries. The fake-news problem, which has hit countries across the globe, has already led some governments to use the issue as an excuse to target sites of political rivals, or shut down social media sites altogether."

•  Censorship alive and well in Silicon Valley: "It is a worrying to see the censorship of those we disagree with"--NewStatesman.com--Reddit.com CEO Steve Huffman publicly admitted to editing comments on the pro-Donald Trump subreddit r/the_donald ... Huffman [also] deleted comments from the pro-Trump community on the site, and also altered comments that insulted him.“This legitimately should result in him being fired,”...“If it doesn't then we know reddit as a whole is no longer trustworthy and should abandon ship.”

•  Delete yourself from the internet by pressing this button | TheNextWeb.com

•  Most popular posts (# of pageviews Sun-Sat) this past week on DomainMondo.com:

1. News Review [20Nov]: ICANN Used 'Junk Science' Firm to Justify New gTLDs
2. MacroView [21Nov]: 12 Days Post-Election, the "Trump Effect" Takes Hold (video)
3. TechReview[26Nov]: Trump Election Victory Aftershocks Hit Silicon Valley
4. Scott Galloway: Wall Street is Wrong About Google and Amazon
5. TechReview [19Nov]: Facebook's Anti-Trump Fake News, Was It Effective?

-- John Poole, Editor, Domain Mondo 

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DISCLAIMER

The Not So World Wide Web: the Internet Digital Divide

source: Statista

The chart above shows how many people use the internet in all the different world regions.

25 years ago, on August 23, 1991, a British computer scientist, Tim Berners-Lee, who was then working at CERN (The European Organization for Nuclear Research), made the World Wide Web available to the public. However, even 25 years after what some call its inception, the World Wide Web is not nearly as universally available as its name suggests. According to the latest estimates by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), a UN agency specializing in information and communication technologies, only 47 in 100 people in the world use the internet today. While internet access in regions such as North America and Europe has become a utility like electricity and running water, people in less developed regions often still lack affordable access to what has arguably become the world's most important source of information.

See also on Domain Mondo: More Than Half The World’s Population Still Not Using The Internet

ICT Facts and Figures 2016 (pdf) embedded below (note: LDC - Least Developed Countries):


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DISCLAIMER

More Than Half The World’s Population Still Not Using The Internet

More Than Half The World’s Population Still Not Using The Internet (source: itu.int)

Note: The map above is based on 2016 estimates. The base map for this infographic is based on the UN map database of the United Nation Cartographic Section. (Source: ITU.int)

ITU, the UN specialized agency for information and communication technology (ICT), says 3.9 billion people remain cut-off from the vast resources available on the internet, despite falling prices for ICT services.

Digital divide means more than half the world is still offline: By the end of 2016, more than half of the world’s population – 3.9 billion people – will not yet be using the internet. While almost one billion households in the world now have Internet access (of which 230 million are in China, 60 million in India and 20 million in the world’s 48 Least Developed Countries), figures for household access reveal the extent of the digital divide, with 84% of households connected in Europe, compared with 15.4% in the African region.

ICT Facts & Figures 2016 shows that developing countries now account for the vast majority of internet users, with 2.5 billion users compared with one billion in developed countries. But Internet penetration rates tell a different story, with 81% in developed countries, compared with 40% in developing countries and 15% in the Least Developed Countries.

“Access to information and communication technologies, particularly broadband, has the potential to serve as a major accelerator of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Global interconnectedness is rapidly expanding, however more needs to be done to bridge the digital divide and bring the more than half of the global population not using the Internet into the digital economy.”--ITU Secretary-General Houlin Zhao

ITU’s ICT Facts & Figures also reveals that mobile phone coverage is now near-ubiquitous, with an estimated 95% of the global population – or some seven billion people – living in an area covered by a basic 2G mobile-cellular network. Advanced mobile-broadband networks (LTE) have spread quickly over the last three years and reach almost four billion people today – corresponding to 53% of the global population. But while the number of mobile-broadband subscriptions continues to grow at double digit rates in developing countries to reach a penetration rate of close to 41%, mobile-broadband penetration growth has slowed overall. Globally, the total number of mobile-broadband subscriptions is expected to reach 3.6 billion by end 2016, compared with 3.2 billion at end 2015.

Fixed broadband growth strongest in developed countries. Growth in China is driving fixed-broadband in Asia and the Pacific, where penetration is expected to surpass 10% by end of 2016. Mobile-broadband services have now become more affordable than fixed-broadband services, with the average price for a basic fixed-broadband plan more than twice as high as the average price of a comparable mobile-broadband plan. By the end of 2015, 83 developing countries had achieved the Broadband Commission’s affordability target.

Internet bandwidth: By early 2016, international Internet bandwidth had reached 185,000 gigabits per second, up from a low of 30,000 gigabits in 2008. However, bandwidth is unequally distributed globally, and lack of bandwidth remains a major bottleneck to improved Internet connectivity in many developing and Least Developed Countries.

Read the full ICT Facts & Figures 2016 report. See also: ICT Facts and Figures 2016 | itu.int.

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DISCLAIMER

Internet Broadband Affordability Map, A Global Digital Divide

Internet Broadband Affordabiity Map, A Global Digital Divide - source: Oxford Internet Institute, University of Oxford
This work is licensed under CC BY-NC 3.0.

The above Oxford Internet Institute (OII) map presents an overview of broadband Internet affordability, as the relationship between average yearly income per capita and the cost of a broadband subscription.

Data: The map uses the “Fixed (wired)-broadband monthly subscription charge, in USD” indicator published by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in the 17th edition of the World Telecommunication/ICT Indicators Database, using 2011 data--the most recent information available for this indicator in the dataset. The ITU defines the indicator as the following: “Fixed (wired)-broadband monthly subscription charge refers to the monthly subscription charge for fixed (wired)-broadband Internet service. Fixed (wired) broadband is considered to be any dedicated connection to the Internet at downstream speeds equal to, or greater than, 256 kbit/s. If several offers are available, preference should be given to the 256 kbit/s connection.”

The data also refers to the monthly cost of the cheapest entry-level subscription in any place. These values have been multiplied by twelve to obtain a yearly cost, and weighted over the gross national income per capita (Atlas method, current USD) data available from the World Bank, referring to the same year (2011). The graph on the lower-left corner illustrates the evolution of the cost of broadband over time.

Findings: This visualization speaks to one of the core themes of the global digital divide: the relative cost of being connected to the Internet. The price of a broadband connection in most parts of Africa is out of reach for people on average incomes. Africans need to pay ten times as much of their salary (if looking at the ratio of income to connectivity costs) for broadband as people in the rest of the world.

A monthly broadband subscription costs about 60 USD both in Australia and Mozambique. However, while the average yearly gross income in Australia is around 50,000 USD, the same figure in Mozambique is less than 500 USD. This means that while an average worker in Australia could pay for a year’s worth of connectivity with one week’s salary, a Mozambican worker would need over one and a half year’s salary. The average cost of an African Internet connection is now half of what it was four years ago, thanks to a series of cables laid around the African continent in 2009. Kenya and Nigeria, for instance, have 2011 broadband costs that are respectively 21% and 8% of what they were in 2008. These changes have undoubtedly contributed to the significant growth in the number of Internet users seen by both countries. The most striking drop in broadband cost has been observed in Burkina Faso, which has gone from over 1,700 USD a month to a most reasonable 55 USD (which still, however, represents 100% of the salary of an average worker).

Eritrea is the country where the Internet is least affordable. A yearly subscription there is the equivalent of almost fifty year’s worth of an average salary: an entire life of work! Over 18 countries still face costs of Internet subscriptions higher than the average income, including 14 Sub-Saharan African countries, the landlocked countries of Afghanistan and Tajikistan, and the islands of Kiribati and Solomon Islands. A broadband Internet connection cost over 500 USD a month in the Central African Republic, Guinea, Malawi, and Swaziland, as well as in Cuba, where, according to the ITU, 1,700 USD was still not enough to buy a subscription.

India and Sri Lanka have the cheapest broadband access prices, where access can be obtained for as little as 6 USD a month. Europe and North America have higher absolute costs, ranging between about 10 and 40 USD a month, but have some of the lowest relative costs in the world: with a couple of hours of work a month being sufficient for an average worker to afford the cost of connectivity.

Without the ability and means to connect, opportunities, information, and communication made possible by the Internet remain "out of reach."(Source: Oxford Internet Institute, University of Oxford under CC BY-NC 3.0)

Conclusion: if you are trying to establish a viable market for domain names in an area where internet is not affordable--examples: Africa, Cuba, and areas of the developing world--good luck! 

See also:

• Domain Mondo: Domain Name Registrations and the Global Internet Population
• expVC.com: Connecting the Next Billion, Goals for the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) 

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