Why New gTLDs + IANA Transition May Be The Undoing of ICANN
Comments are now scheduled to close 20 May 2016 23:59 UTC (extended from May 13) on ICANN's
Draft Report: New gTLD Program Safeguards to Mitigate DNS Abuse.You can read all comments submitted
here.
Below is the comment submitted by the Editor of
Domain Mondo, which is also
here (pdf).
May 13, 2016
To ICANN:
For the
new gTLDs mania, we are now entering
the
repudiation phase – a moment where
“all the lies
that had been built up alongside the excess are aired out in public.”
Your “draft report” misses the mark.
You claim your purported purpose was, and is, “to examine the potential for increases in
abusive, malicious, and criminal activity in an expanded DNS and to make
recommendations to pre-emptively mitigate those activities through a number of
safeguards.”
Abusive, malicious, and criminal activity in an expanded DNS
happens most frequently at the second level or registrant level, not at
the first level or TLD which is controlled by the registry operator. Exceptions
may be extortionate or other abusive practices, pricing, etc., by registry operators, which ICANN’s own Business
Constituency and IPC can, and have, well advised you concerning, and which may
be remediated through contractual terms and conditions, and effective Contract Compliance, which has been
lacking at ICANN.
When ICANN unwisely decided to expand the global internet
DNS and add more than 1000 new gTLDs (from just 22 gTLDs and 200+ ccTLDs), you
exponentially increased the potential and actual opportunities for “abusive,
malicious, and criminal activity“ in the global DNS without
any safeguards for the global internet
community which has suffered as a result, just so ICANN, and the domain name
industry, could “
make money.” You
have not been a good steward of the global DNS.
In the absence of responsible stewardship of the global DNS
by ICANN, you have left it to others, from sovereign nations like China (which
essentially is now running its own DNS inside China via the ‘Great Firewall’ and
legal requirements imposed upon registry operators, registrars, and registrants),
to companies and individual consumers which are deploying
TLD blockers on their own networks.
Contrary to what you apparently believe,
less is often
more, and
excessive competition can be
destructive, to
markets, to companies, and to individual consumers.
Even worse, you have adopted the extortionate business model
in-house at ICANN, by, in effect, forcing established trademark owners, to pay
$185,000 plus annual fees, plus operating expenses, for a gTLD used primarily
for defensive blocking, at the top-level, their trademark in the global DNS:
“ … closed and
predominantly defensive .Brand TLDs account for roughly one-third
of all new gTLD applications. Put another way, it would appear that
.Brand TLDs are being disproportionately
relied upon for ICANN revenue, even though they represent a tiny proportion
of second-level domain names under management. For example, .Brand TLD registry
operators, such as Apple Inc. or Yahoo! Inc. have
activated only a mandatory minimum number of second-level domain names,
yet they pay ICANN precisely the same fixed quarterly fees as certain open TLD
registry operators, such as Vox Populi, which currently has over seven-thousand
domain names under management.
2 It is the latter category of TLD
registry operators that are more likely to be controversial and thus ultimately
more costly to ICANN in terms of political, administrative, compliance and
legal resources.
3…” --
IPC Comment on Draft ICANN FY17 Operating Plan & Budget and Five-Year OperatingPlan Update, p.2 (pdf)
Accordingly, the hard truth is that ICANN, itself, is today
probably the chief “abuser” of the global DNS. Now that ICANN is irrevocably
committed to this ever downward spiral of irresponsible management and
stewardship of the global DNS, I,
like many others, have pretty much given up on ICANN. As a registrant, I am now in a defensive
mode in response to ICANN’s failed stewardship, and have little confidence that
ICANN will survive long-term once the IANA transition is complete. Most likely,
the model proposed by China and others, of a government-led multistakeholder
institution to replace ICANN, will eventually prevail due to demands of the
global internet community for safety, stability, and security of the internet,
and responsible stewardship in the global public interest, of a global public
resource.
Respectfully submitted,
John Poole
References:
- Usage Trumps Registrations: Why Past TLDs Failed and Why Many Will Follow in Their Path (CircleID.com)
- News Review [May 8, 2016]: ICANN, IANA, AFRICA, WSIS, XYZ, Chinese Speculators
- Blocking New gTLDs, ICANN's 'Shadiest' Top-level Domains, 'Wholesale'
- ICANN Damaged a Competitive Domain Name Market With Its New gTLDs
- Housing Bubble Like New gTLDs Mania? The Big Short Trailer (video)
- Tim Berners-Lee on ICANN, new gTLDs, public interest
- ICANN Insiders On New gTLDs: Mistakes, Fiascos, Horrible Implementation
- ICANN, DNS Abuse, New gTLDs: Bad Policy, Horribly Implemented
- News Review [May 1, 2016]: New gTLDs 'Nobody Cares About' - ICANN's Trash Problem
- ICANN, Esther Dyson, Becky Burr: The Historical Perspective
- Esther Dyson Told ICANN new gTLDs were a mistake in 2011 (video)
- ICANN's Boondoggle (MIT Technology Review | technologyreview.com)
UPDATE:
see also Lack of Trust in Internet Privacy and Security May Deter Economic and Other Online Activities | Department of Commerce - NTIA:
"NTIA’s initial analysis only scratches the surface of this important area, but it is clear that policymakers need to develop a better understanding of mistrust in the privacy and security of the Internet and the resulting chilling effects."
