On Sat, 20 Sep 1997 17:32:04 +0000 you said:
I am aware that certain sensitivities and frustrations are involved here, on all "sides". Please try to keep this in mind when reading what follows. If you find anything offensive, please consider that it may be due to simple clumsiness or ignorance on my part, rather than to antagonism or malice.
There is an opportunity here to resolve, rather than to exacerbate problems.
All understood and I enjoy these discussions over some of the unmoderated lists and can take all criticism seriously since I respect the people here - as opposed to unknown email kings who spit out 20 pieces of garbage a day on gtld-discuss.
There was unanimous agreement by the participants that RIPE should nominate a European candidate to fill an iPOC seat.
This action item thus originates not in an attempt to impose a "European" agenda, but from what was understood as an invitation to become more involved.
Which I think is what IAB resolved by appointing Patrik.
I believe that the process is intrinsically -- certainly not exclusively -- political, and that the political dimension needs to be recognised rather than dismissed. The Internet has become a key element in the globalisation of commerce, and is therefore quite legitimately the object of attention for governments and trade organisations.
Once we let the Internet be dominated by "political" interests - then it is the end of the Internet as we know it. How many of you think CIDR would have come off, if the "political dimension" had been thrown into the equation? How many small ISPs would have screamed that CIDR and non-portable addresses hurt their business? How many European ISPs would have run to the EC and complained, stating the CIDR benefits only Sprint, MCI and UUnet?
I am still missing some fundamentals. From putting the questions to others, I understand I am far from alone. The following questions indicate the areas in which I would find more information helpful.
What problems are understood to be addressed by the proposals made in the gTLD-MoU and associated documents ?
To what extent are these problems expected to be solved by the new procedures ?
Unless there are specific entrance criteria for registration in each of the new gTLD's, how will they not become mere clones of .COM ?
Your questions require a fairly large reply and perhaps best is a face to face discussion, which I hope the iPOC can provide to RIPE.
d) Europe has 2 people currently sitting on iPOC: Geert Glas, appointed by INTA (a lawyer) and Patrik Falstrom appointed by the IAB (a techie from Tele2). How do these people *not* serve a *European* perspective?
Here, Hank, I think you beg the question which you have just raised.
The "Europe" which "has 2 people sitting on the iPOC" is that "Europe" (if any) to which these people are listening, and which they are keeping informed, and whose interests they are working to protect. I particularly avoid saying, "whose interests they represent", as I believe that if adequate protection is afforded actual representation may not need to be an issue. So far, this "Europe" is neither the "Europe of RIPE" nor the "Europe of the Commission".
This implies that the current members from IAB, ISOC and IANA represent USA interests. What I don't understand how there is a specific "European" interest that is different than a USA or Japanese interest in regards to gTLDs. No one from Europe has ever fully explained this difference to me.
I think it would be really useful if you, Hank, or Geert Glas or Patrik Falstrom could join us in Amsterdam on Thursday. I realize that this may not be possible. I also realize that the engagement whose lack I keep decrying is a two-way process, and that I too ought perhaps have done more sooner to bring it about.
Not I. Perhaps Patrik. I am just an outsie observer at this point :-)
(Don't forget the WIPO and ITU reps who live and work in Geneva who also sit on the iPOC - and you get to a total of 4 resident Europeans currently on the iPOC - a number way out of proportion to Europe's size)
I really think this is a red herring. Residency is not the issue.
I don't think it is a red herring. If someone carries an EU passport, pays taxes in an EU country and has lived in an EU country for 12 years doesn't that qualify him/her to represent European interests?
Regards, Hank
The same, and very sincerely. I have a feeling that we may be involved here in the beginning of what I have sometimes heard called "a violent agreement".
I enjoy every minute. -Hank
Niall
-------- Logged at Sat Sep 20 23:14:51 MET DST 1997 ---------
On Sat, 20 Sep 1997, Hank Nussbacher wrote:
This implies that the current members from IAB, ISOC and IANA represent USA interests. What I don't understand how there is a specific "European" interest that is different than a USA or Japanese interest in regards to gTLDs. No one from Europe has ever fully explained this difference to me.
My impression is that while there may not be a specific European interest there is certainly a clearly visible US interest. Oddly enough, that US interest is best expressed as "there is no significant non-US interest". The problem that the PAB/POC/CORE/gTLD MOU are supposed to solve has two aspects: first, the existing gTLDs (com/net/org) ignore the existence of the rest of the world. Secondly, the US is excessively fond of litigation. If .com was .com.us, there would be no PAB/POC/etc. Unfortunately those who originally designed the DNS forgot about the rest of the world. They set up a series of global categories (.com, .edu, .gov) that are universal, global. Then national TLDs for other countries were added more or less as an afterthought. The underlying assumption was {the rest of the world doesn't exist, there are no borders, only the US matters} blurred together. If the companies now in .com were in .com.us, then any trademark disputes would go to US courts and no one in the rest of the world would care. This is certainly what happens in the UK where there are disputes: the people involved are asked to go sort it out in the courts. Unfortunately .com is global and generally speaking there is no sane way to resolve disputes, because the holder of a .com domain name may be in any country of the world and their right to the use of the name may be challenged from any other country in the world. Therefore it is impossible to set up a general mechanism for dealing with disputes, because to do that you have to resolve hundreds or thousands of contradictory trademark rules, something similar to trying to solve 1,000 simultaneous equations in 3 unknowns. The gTLD MOU approach does little to resolve this unsolveable problem; instead the proposal is to create many new gTLDs, each of which has the same unsolveable problems as .com. From an American perspective, this makes a certain amount of sense. From outside it looks mad. Basically, the problem is that the Internet is excessively US-centric. We need people in the POC and elsewhere that are aware that there is a world outside of the United States. There are arguments for gTLDs. But I think that if there had been a strong non-US involvement in IAHC/the POC, that the whole thing would have been redesigned to where it made more sense. As it is, this American problem is being exported to the rest of the world in all of its mad glory. -- Jim Dixon VBCnet GB Ltd http://www.vbc.net tel +44 117 929 1316 fax +44 117 927 2015 -------- Logged at Sun Sep 21 07:53:26 MET DST 1997 ---------
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