The example of new gTLDs: Opportunities and risks for European stakeholders – WS 03 2011

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30 May 2011 | 15:00-16:30
Programme overview 2011

Session teaser

This EuroDIG workshop on critical Internet resources is targeting not only “ICANN insiders” but all stakeholders and will focus on the new gTLD program with a view of identifying the opportunities that these new internet resources may offer to European stakeholders but will also look at the challenges and risks that these bring may about for governments, businesses, civil society and the technical and academic community.

People

Key Participants

  • Sebastian Bachollet, ICANN Board
  • Wolfgang Kleinwächter, University of Aarhus
  • Désirée Miloshevic, Afilias
  • Erika Mann, ICANN Board
  • Ana Cristina Neves, Knowledge Society Agency (UMIC), Ministry of Science, Technology and Higher Education
  • Mike Silber, ICANN Board
  • Theresa Swinehart, Verizon
  • Rolf Weber, University of Zurich

Co-moderators

  • William J. Drake, University of Zurich
  • Thomas Schneider, Swiss Federal Office of Communications

Session report

The (European) opportunities and challenges brought about by the introduction of new gTLDs was discussed together with certain regulatory challenges for ICANN and governments.

The participants considered it likely that the new gTLD program would be launched by early 2012. There was a shared expectation that between one and several hundred new gTLD applications would ensue. The main benefits of new gTLDs discussed included:

  • the end of the scarcity of attractive and short domain names;
  • an increase in competition and consumer choice;
  • an expanded range of opportunities for freedom of expression;
  • more opportunities for non-commercial cultural, linguistic and community based initiatives;

European companies and civil society organizations were encouraged to participate actively in the establishment of new businesses and initiatives using new gTLDs.

The high application fees (USD 185 000) and the even higher cost for running new gTLDs were considered by some to be a major problem that could limit these opportunities (permitting highly profitable initiatives to be realised while excluding stakeholders from developing countries and non-commercial initiatives). The initiative underway in ICANN to provide financial and technical support to needy applicants was welcomed.

Challenges relating to the new gTLD program included:

  • costly brand protection strategies by trademark holders,
  • consumer confusion,
  • abusive and criminal behaviour,
  • new challenges to privacy protection,
  • proliferation of government policies blocking and filtering at the top level of the Domain Name System (DNS). For example, some governments have already announced that they would block access to new gTLDs like a proposed “.gay”; the spread of such practices would raise concerns for the protection of freedom of expression and the universal resolvability of domain names.

Regulatory challenges and key messages of EuroDIG participants to ICANN and the GAC:

  • Strong support for the multi-stakeholder model;
  • ICANN should work harder to find the right balance between commercial and public interests;
  • Structural problems in the ICANN model where remedies should be found in the mid-term:
    • as a private entity tasked with managing a resource of global public value, ICANN should continue efforts to make sure that this resource is managed in the global public interest. Governments, civil society and the technical and academic community, in their respective roles and with their experience, should support ICANN and ICANN should take their advice seriously;
    • the liability of ICANN board members in their personal capacity and the contract-based approach to industry regulation fosters a tendency to overvalue legal issues to common sense issues, and to develop complicated legal structures that require a high level of expertise that is not evenly shared on a global level and creates inflexibility.
  • New gTLDs should be introduced as soon as possible, and ICANN should not wait until every single detailed problem is solved first. It should, however, be aware of the fact that there are still outstanding issues and should try to find remedies in the implementation of the program;
  • The new gTLD program should be implemented in a way that fosters true competition and facilitates the entry of new players in the domain name market;
  • Industries which are highly regulated offline should be adequately treated online;
  • Applicable national laws and international human rights standards must be respected. Due diligence, legal and contract enforcement, and consumer protection and empowerment should all be taken seriously. Governments and the GAC have a key role in supporting ICANN in these regards;
  • ICANN should take into account not only economic issues, but also the social, linguistic, and cultural aspects of the DNS;
  • Community and other non-commercial initiatives like spaces for children following creative commons models should be fostered;
  • Finding appropriate support mechanisms for needy applicants, especially for those from developing countries;
  • ICANN support and protection of the rights of vulnerable communities which are not ready and able to participate in the first round(s) and will be able to come in only at a later stage;
  • The introduction of an Early Warning System for “sensitive” strings and issues of morality and public order. The ICANN community, including the GAC, should continue to assess such mechanisms and be ready to undertake reforms and adjustments if necessary;
  • When implementing the new gTLD program, ICANN should monitor and assess the impact of new gTLDs on human rights like privacy and freedom of expression. Safeguards should be put in place for guaranteeing respect for human rights and applicable laws, for example by hiring a human rights expert or creating a human rights advisory body;
  • Any national-level blocking and filtering of TLDs should be made transparent and should be well justified, including in relation to international human rights standards.

Transcript

Provided by: Caption First, Inc., P.O. Box 3066, Monument, CO 80132, Phone: +001-719-481-9835, www.captionfirst.com


This text is being provided in a rough draft format. Communication Access Realtime Translation (CART) is provided in order to facilitate communication accessibility and may not be a totally verbatim record of the proceedings.


>> Bienvenu. I think we’ll start on social time a few more minutes because people are kind of wandering in. It’s after lunch.

Okay. I feel some compulsion to start since you’re all sitting here expectantly and here on time. Alas not all the people listed as key participants are here yet. But we’re hoping they’ll join us as we go. We’re also hoping that that stops. (construction noise).

I imagine – has the remote – who’s here from technical? Somebody? We’re not up yet? Okay. You just join in progress. There’s no access to personnel of the conference center?

>> The door is closed next. I tried to open it. But it is closed.

>> This is sort of like being in Vilnius at the IGF. We will all have to shout to each other. Hello, I’m William Blake. I’m from the University of Zurich. This is the workshop on the opportunities and risks for European stakeholders. We, I gather, will be having people wander in at various rates over the course of the next hour and a half, including Thomas Schneider from the Swiss government who is supposed to be comoderating this with me.

[Laughter]

But perhaps can’t find the room or is having a very important lunch with powerful people that can’t be denied. And we are also missing some others. But they’ll get here over time.

But I can begin. We only have an hour and a half and I don’t want to waste too much time here.

This workshop is dealing with the new gTLD program that’s been pursued in ICANN. And when I say pursued, I can say that with a certain wry sensibility because it’s been pursued for quite some time.

As you all know, alongside the CCTLDs there are currently 22 gTLDs in work today, eight that pre-dated ICANN.com, EDU.gov, and so on. 7 that were approved in the 2000 round, Euro business, Copen info. And so on. 60 TLDs in round 4. Dot Asia. Jobs, et cetera. This year we launched Dot XXX that went live April 15th. Has anybody looked? Nobody wants to admit it. So we have those generic TLDs up and running now. But of course there’s bench debate for many years in ICANN and in the broader Internet community about the benefits, potential benefits of vastly expanding the gTLD space in order to provide far more opportunities for communities to utilize the net more effectively, to promote speech, and to promote greater economic activity development and growth, et cetera.

And so accordingly, there has been, over the years, a program within ICANN to look into how to do this. And the technical feasibility of it has been checked out and people are confident that there’s no problem in terms of risk, scalability, et cetera. Now it just becomes a matter of getting the rest of it right.

So in the generic name supporting organization of ICANN, the GNSO, of which I am a member of the council, they spent some years developing, in consultation with other members of the community, a policy process to visualize exactly how this would all work, what would it mean and so on. And it was a process of very substantial consultation in cooperation with many different parts of the larger community, in ICANN, both the government advisory committee, the at large advisory committee, the CCTLD people, security and stability people, and so on. And ultimately, then, at the end, the GNSO council adopted in 2007 a policy for establishing new gTLDs and ICANN Board acted in June 2008 to put this into motion.

Following that, then, there’s been some further development having to do with, first of all, figuring out various implementation aspects of this process and also establishing the applicant guide book, people who participate in ICANN will know that a light motif of all ICANN meetings is a long session. Or we get to go through the hundreds of pages of the applicant guide book together. And people raise concerns and suggest tweaks and modifications are then made. This has been, as I say, a very consultative and deliberative process over a long period of time. That has necessarily involved some delays, which from the standpoint of some of the potential new applicants, has been frustrating. Those who are eager to see this market take off and see this happen have been very kind of edgy about the pace at which everything’s happening. But it is a process of making sure that all the T’s are crossed and the I’s are dotted and all the different parts of the community and the larger Internet environment who will be impacted by this expansion of the – (phone ringing) this could be Thomas – of the space – hello?

[Laughter]

Thomas? Speak louder. Here. Talk into the microphone. Okay, fine. I’m starting. See you when you’re here. Bye-bye. Sorry. I wouldn’t normally take a call. I thought that might be the cochair, the comoderator. So, anyway, there’s been this process that’s been going on for some time trying to elaborate everything and make sure everybody’s on board and that outstanding questions have been answered.

As many people will know, recently there have been a number of representations from the government advisory committee that they still had a number of pressing outstanding issues with the program. And accordingly, they have been dealing with the members of the Board about that. We had an extraordinary meeting in Brussels where in February 2011 where the GAC provided a score card assessment of some outstanding issues that they were concerned about. And then the Board responded. It was a very, very interesting meeting and a very interesting step towards a multistakeholder process in which governments play, one would think, a larger role.

There will be, then, a further interaction between the Board and the GAC coming up. We have a meeting scheduled in Singapore when only the Board members know what will really happen there so I will let them characterize. But it could be that we will soon move towards some launching of this activity, we shall see.

So the objectives of this workshop, then, are to raise awareness of the new gTLD program to identify new opportunities and risks to all European stakeholders associated with the program, and there are many opportunities. And potentially some risks, as well. To provide inputs, if we can, to governments about how they might consider approaching these issues, both within ICANN and at the national level. And if possible to identify some messages, perhaps, that could be conveyed to ICANN, the GAC and the larger community about what the European stakeholders expect about the new gTLD program and how it’s going to be implemented going forward.

To address these issues, we have a stellar number of people who have been very involved in the process and represent a number of different constituencies or groupings within the ICANN environment. I don’t know if Sebastian’s here? Sébastian Bachollet is a member of the ICANN board from France. Wolfgang Kleinwächter is not here yet. But he will wander in later. Desiree Miloshevic is here from Afilias, one of the major registries, of course. Erika Mann is here from the ICANN board from Germany. Cristina Neves is here to my right. Also Mike Silber from the ICANN board from South Africa. Theresa Swinehart from Verizon from the USA is over here. And Rolf Weber was listed but that was a mistake because he’s actually comoderating another panel. So there you go.

Well, what we hope to do, then, that’s a lot of speakers, but they’re going to make relatively short interventions. We have a set of questions we want to walk through with the community and what really hope to do is foster as interactive a dialogue as possible, provide an opportunity for everybody in a very nonhierarchical way to give their views on the new gTLD program, its perils, prospects, opportunities and so on.

To start us off, I think I’d like to the your Honor to the members of the board who are here – turn to the members of the board who are here who are particularly well-placed to explain the basics of what the new gTLD program is about. Can I just see a show of hands. How many people have followed the details of the new GTDL program just so I know? Okay. So it’s good that we perhaps lay a framework.

Again, this is very much geared towards trying to do some outreach towards people who have not necessarily been deeply involved. So I think it will be very useful, then, if the Board members can provide some foundational background for 10 minutes or so about how the program works, whatever aspects they think are important. And then we will go into some back and forth questions with members of the community. Are you playing for me or somebody else?

>> No, I’m trying to – seats for you.

>> WILLIAM DRAKE: Okay, fantastic. Thank you very much, Erika. And when we do turn towards the more interactive part of the program, I don’t know if the remote is up yet? Is it?

>> Not yet.

>> WILLIAM DRAKE: Not yet but we’re waiting. When we do begin the more interactive part, if you raise your hand and make an intervention, can you please identify yourself for the benefit of the people around the world who are listening on the remote?

Okay. With all that by way of background, let me turn then to Mike Silber to start, to give us some basics about what the process and more importantly the content, the main highlights that people should know about of the new gTLD program. Mike?

>> MIKE SILBER: Thanks, Bill. I suppose being a lawyer, I should start with the standard disclaimer that while I happen to serve on the ICANN Board, views expressed are my own, can’t be attributed to the organization unless I specifically indicate otherwise. If you’re unsure, please ask, clarify. I’ll do the best that I can to try to indicate where views are held.

Also, it’s a great pleasure to spot the appearances, not European, so it’s a great pleasure to be here at the EuroDIG as an African from the darkest continent, it is a pleasure to be here in civilized Europe. Microphone?

>> Yes, for the remote.

>> MIKE SILBER: For the remote participants. Okay. I’ll try and focus on that. I think Bill missed something in trying to gloss over in his introduction. And that is the element of monopoly that has come into being through the structure of the original domain name system because domain names by their very nature are a natural monopoly. It’s one of the reasons that we keep coming into conflict with trademark lawyers. Because trademark lawyers are used to dealing with I think it’s 42 different classes. So you can register united as a bank. You can registered united under transport. For United Airlines you can register united under computers. If you happen to want to launch united computers. But the domain name system doesn’t lend itself to quite the same structure. So it’s unique and it has certain natural monopolies within it.

The way to deal with that is to extend the tree. Because if the tree is leading you to monopolies, if there’s going to be a monopoly within dot com for commercial, why don’t you then create alternatives for commercial registrations?

Some within the country space, if you’re going to create monopoly in a country space, just as an example within Spain, Portugal, France, but it doesn’t meet the needs of a significant language community in that area, namely the Catalan community, well the answer is: Don’t complain about it. Don’t get into a fight about “well who really has the right to that name for that geographic region”? Rather, extend the tree. Grow the branches instead of now trying to dispute as to who controls the specific branch which currently exists.

And that was the suggestion actually that comes from John Postel. Now within the techie as long as you mention John and you said that it was John’s idea, everybody sort of holds their hands up in reverence and said “well if John had the idea, then obviously it was a good one, we should continue.”

But John’s idea really, around the time when the domain registration structure had led to a monopoly in dot com, and very high registration prices, John’s idea was to launch new top-level domains to increase the number of branches on the tree.

Now, because of the processes that happened, that didn’t start until ICANN was formed. And it took a certain level of maturity within ICANN before ICANN started what was really the first round. What we’re talking about here, well we’re talking about new generic top level demands, we’re actually talking about the third round of new generic top level demands. We’ve been through two rounds already. The first was an open round. It was quite interesting. It led to some interesting names, none of which are being particularly successful. The second round was focused far more on what were called sponsor TLDs. Now, other than the spectacular newsworthiness. And I was very pleased not to have been shouted at by – in the video feed this morning. So I’m quite grateful that it broke down because I was the sort of particular embarrassment.

But other than XXX, there have been very few spectacular TLDs that have come out of that sponsored round. In fact, most of them have been running quietly under the radar. I mentioned dot cat for the cat an LAN language community earlier as one that is just running along successfully carrying on.

There are some that are less successful. There are some that are more successful. Just some examples that have come out of that round would be dot museum to cater to the world’s museum community, which unfortunately for them has a very tiny number of registrations relative to the number of museums who have websites. Because most museums, for some other reason, tend to register under the country top level domain rather than under a generic dot museum name. But they have some registrations, dot Mobi’s been successful, been through some structural changes. But the notion of needing an early sponsor has been interesting. And has a lot ICANN more learning.

Which then led us to now what I would really call the start of the third round, or three, one and soon to be followed by 3233 et cetera. The first notion is that to some extent we’re building a sourceage machine. And I know there’s a famous quote that people who are interested in politics or eating sausages should not watch laws being made or sausages being made. So to some extent, there is an element as Bill was saying about the detail and the technicality that I’m not going to go into. But we’re literally creating a machine which will take applications in at the one end and turn out top-level domains at the other end. There will not be a specific limit as we had before. There will not be a single round and then we will proceed at a later stage. It should be a relatively continuous process, staggered, appropriately moderated and maintained and under control so that we don’t cause any technical disruption to the root. But at the same time, not with a specific end goal in mind. We’re going to choose six or we’re going to choose the best 10 or whatever it is. As long as people are interested, in the same way as generic top level domains and country top level – country code top level domains operate at the moment. As long as there’s a demand, and as long as the system technically can meet that demand, people should have the ability to meet that demand. Which means if you miss the good idea today, you can apply for it again tomorrow.

That being said, we do need some degree of limitations so it won’t be a single process. Once it’s started will never stop. But it will be divided into rounds or phases of applications.

The first thing that we realized at ICANN is we’re not particularly good at deciding what people’s business models are or which are going to be successful and which are not. So we tried to take ourselves out as an arbiter. We’ve learned from the mistakes that we made in XXX or our predecessors made in XXX. We made some determinations there. There were changes and shifts that happened midstream. And that led the current Board, as much as I have sympathy for the view that the Board didn’t consider the views of the GEC and others, to an extent, we were very much trapped by circumstances created by our predecessors into a situation we certainly, I felt, forced into a process.

The one thing we wanted to take out was any subjective interpretation buy the ICANN Board. We’re selected and appointed for all sorts of reasons. One of those is not because we’re the best arbiters of moral values in the world. And so we shouldn’t be put to that role. We are not necessarily the best technical arbiters in the world. We’re representatives of a community to try and give a voice to this multistakeholder community.

So the idea was to take us out as far as possible and to create as much guidance through this possibly overly detailed applicant guidebook that has been in process for the last 2-1/2 years, but to create a process which is as far as possible objective and which hopefully results in a decision coming before the Board which says: The applicant exists. They have good standing. They have a basis to continue with us. There is no technical downside. They have met all the technical, commercial and legal requirements. We suggest you proceed. And unless there’s some compelling reason that a number of experts, in going through the evaluation have missed somehow, we should be able to simply say thank you very much. We are rubberstamping the advice that we’ve gotten from our various experts. The application can proceed. And through the phases, there may be some slight changes to the way this is done, but hopefully it should remain reasonably consistent for a good number of years to come, with successive phases of applications coming pretty quickly. You know, I would think at least every year, maybe more frequently, maybe slightly less frequently. But pretty much year there should be another round or another phase of applications that can be gone through.

Now, I’d rather not go into, then, the various issues, the major points of struggle because I think those will come up. But needless to say, expecting that you’re going to create a perfectly objective process where human error is completely removed is the stuff of dreams. And so what we’re dealing with here is a situation where the possibility for human judgment and human error as well as unequal treatment is a major concern, and that’s where the controversy has started developing.

>> WILLIAM DRAKE: Thanks, Mike. That’s a very useful background. And just to be clear, the staff is at various points put out different numbers for what their expectation of where we might be a year, two years from now in terms of the number of gTLDs. So could you just give the audience, if they don’t have background, some sense of what that might be?

>> MIKE SILBER: And I think it’s depended on where we sit in the process. I don’t know. The fact is that we’re not necessarily objective. It’s the stuff of business cases and rough case analysis.

But suggestions have been anything from slightly short of 100 in the first phase to over 500 applications in the first phase. The suggestion being that a batch of over 500 would be too cumbersome to handle within a reasonable period of time and that that batch would have to be pared down on some basis to something more manageable approaching the 2 to 300. But that 2 to 300 a year would be feasible.

>> WILLIAM DRAKE: Thank you. So the point, of course, then is quite obviously we’re talking about a substantial expansion in the gTLD domain name space. And this has all kinds of potential implications from the standpoints of speech, copyright, everything else. So you could imagine the range of issues. And of course then you add on to that the whole question of internationalized domain names, versions, et cetera. Let me go to the other board members quickly for some quick comments and then bell’ start to move toward stakeholder views on Sébastien, could you add anything? You might be helpful to highlight a few of the issues that have been par you lawyer bones of contention unless you had something else you wanted to emphasize?

>> SÉBASTIEN BACHOLLET: Thank you. Sébastian Bachollet. Yeah, I think what is important is to close the process. It was opened by long discussion at the GNS level to have a policy. It was accepted by the Board in June 2008 at the prize meeting. And since the last three years, we are, the community’s working on the implementation phase of this program. And if we can close this phase in June, it will be great. Not to say that it will be the best program we could have. We can spend 10 years more and maybe have something better. But we also can spend 10 years and not have something better. Then it’s time, from my point of view, to close as soon as possible now. Knowing that everybody will disagree with one part of the program, because I don’t think that there is one person who is happy with all. But we hope that everybody could be – could live with the program as it is.

I have two points I think we need to be careful in the future. A lot was said about trademarks with the support of government. The government says that they speak on behalf of the citizen. I hope one day to have the government saying something on that program on behalf of the citizen because today the government is speaking more and more about trademarks but not about end-users. And I have one fear. I hope it’s just a fear. That it will be very confusing for the end user when you will have, in the next few months, beginning of next year, let’s say, or after, 500 new gTLD. How you will be able to recognize where you are in this domain space, in this space? It will be difficult. And I don’t think we can add something within the program to take care of that, but I hope that we will be able to handle this situation in the future and that the end user will be joined by the governmental representative to help in this arena.

So the second point, I hope that it will be done parallel to the launch of the program. It’s to support media applicants. Because we need to find a solution to help some proposers to be launched. It’s not just because you have money in your pocket that you can participate, at least it’s my feeling. And I would like very much that we find a solution to help. And when I say “we,” it’s not we as a Board. It’s not even we as the ICANN community. It’s more generic. It could be other who could help. But it’s important.

And my last point is that we need some followup. I just want to take one – it’s something that could happen. It’s are we coming to an expansion of the domain name space? Or are we going to duplication of the domain name space? To say in other words, do we have more capability or do we have the obligation to have more domain names to go to the same website to take just one of the possibility of users of domain name? It’s important because if we just create space to be duplicate, what is the purpose at the end of the day? So at some point I wanted to bring today – and I didn’t say that at the beginning because I am not a lawyer. But what Michael said at the beginning, it’s quite clear that I am not speaking on behalf of the Board. And just there for myself. Thank you.

>> WILLIAM DRAKE: Thank you, Sébastien. That was helpful. Erika, do you have a point or two you’d like to add on this?

>> ERIKA MANN: Actually, I thought we would have just one speaker, but now having two guys speaking from the Board, I somewhat feel obliged to say something. Yeah, it’s a natural human instinct. Again, I’m speaking on my own behalf. Few comments, maybe. I liked the discussion about gTLDs because it’s a fascinating debate. I mean, it is how, you know, on the top level domain name, how the new system will be designed. And it’s really – having been a member of the parliament 15 years, from a political point of view, it’s a fascinating discussion because I think we see some of the mistakes which we have made on certain other regulations somehow, you know, can be similar what we are discussing here.

And I understand the government. I understand the governments are concerned. I understand the GEC. I am just a government advisory body for the ones which are not used to the slogans of the ICANN word. For media, actually, three issues which I think are fascinating for all of us. One is the domain name actually similar or identical to a trademark. And of course when you look back into history, it is not. It’s not a duplication of a trademark. It’s something completely different. And it’s more occupying a service agreement space.

But, anyhow, it’s an interesting discussion because I can see and can understand why some companies or some organizations are afraid that when somebody else takes in their domain space and their trademark space in a domain space that there are some fears.

The second issue which I like and which I think from a policy point of view is interesting is the fear of government that the Internet should be perfect. It should not have any negative connotations. There should be no negative connotations. And you can see this on the dot xxx because the classification for a domain porn site. And I obviously know – I mean nothing is perfect in our world. So why should suddenly the top level domain name, why should there be nothing which has, for some governments or for some citizens, which I do understand, which I fully understand their concern, why should it be perfect and why shouldn’t something show up which is – might have for some people a negative connotation, which I do accept. So nobody get me wrong. But I think this is just part of our life and part of our history and part of our societies. So why should the Internet on the top level domain name level, why should it be different?

And the third one which I think it’s a fascinating discussion is there shouldn’t be anything – anything – anything – negative or anything where a government might oppose against it or a group of governments might oppose because it might lead to the splitting of the Internet of the root. Now that is from a technical point of view, from a society point of view, a very fascinating discussion. But let’s be frank. That’s true. You want to have a united Internet. You want to have an Internet. And I fully agree and share the concern. But then if it leads to the opposite effect, it would mean, you know, you would have a kind of sanitized top level domain name area, completely sanitized. And I just feel very uncomfortable with the thought. Because who are we of understanding and judging the top level domain name really in the right way?

And I really woke up. I mean I always felt a concern. That’s why I voted in favor of the dot xxx. But when we discussed it, it was – if it’s not mistaken, it was the beginning of the Arab spring. And so I thought to myself, hey, we don’t get even the real worldwide, we don’t understand what is happening in our real world, so let’s be very careful, you know, of prejudging how a top level domain name should look like.

I mean, those are just three policy considerations which we are maybe probably not mentioned before. Thanks so much.

>> WILLIAM DRAKE: Thank you, Erika, that is helpful. My comoderator the eminent Tom Schneider from Switzerland is here so I hand it over to him now.

>> THOMAS SCHNEIDER: First of all, hello, sorry to be late. Some things seemed to be late today so I might not be the last one late for something of the but apologies for that. There’s an even later one than me. Wolfgang Kleinwachter is of course welcome. Thank you to the ICANN board members to present this quickly the key points of this new program as they see it.

One of the goals of this session, I guess, probably Bill has already mentioned it is to identify opportunities and risks for European stakeholders, for all stakeholders. So I would like to start maybe to invite you to maybe give us – we heard some of the ideas behind the new gTLD program from ICANN. But I guess we have some business representatives with us who would be able to give us some maybe more concrete examples what are the benefits? What do businesses expect and how they can profit or how our economies can profit from these new TTLDs?

>> I think right next to me we have one expert who has something to say on this. So Desiree, the floor is yours. And others please join in. This is a free debate. So anybody who wants to say something, just start. We will not have panels, panel discussions. We will try to have an interactive discussion.

>> DESIREE MILOSHEVIC: Thank you, Thomas. Yes, I will add a few comments. And good afternoon to everyone. I’m Desiree Miloshevic with Afilias. Afilias is registry, domain name registry that provides services and has been one of the most successful registries in applying for new gTLDs to ICANN over the next 10 years.

So I agree with the comments that have been said and the history that you’ve been talked through about the previous rounds of new gTLDs within ICANN. Somewhat different than this new round. I think there is a feel that this new round will certainly have much more applicants and differences in the interdynamics of investment in this round is also quite different than one in 2000 where Afilias applied for dot info and dot pro and dot museum. I only prepared 4,000 slides for you. But I won’t go through it now. And I have three books to launch. But since I’ve been in this DNS business since 1993, I think I’ve seen changes and the politics around the DNS is truly fascinating. When Erika talks about the control and trust on the DNS and the root server and the importance of keeping the one root unique for all the CCTLDs and gTLDs and that root is a message that we – that never is short of overstatement, I think.

I think how to say in this new round, we as Afilias, we see a lot of corporate brands coming to us as many other registries wanting to protect their brand corporate domain name. But equally we see the same diversity of applicants, whether they come from not-for-profit background or for profit, trying to gain this new opportunity and be the first one to get the new top-level domain name. Because I believe there’s a lot of them who think this is going to be the first round but possibly the last round, as well, looking at the number of applications and ICANN’s abilities to process that whole bunch.

And we can maybe later on go into this more important policy debate, how does that really apply to the region? Especially the region here in Southeastern Europe. And can the applicants really participate in this debate on equal footing thinking whether getting a computer is more important and getting education right and applying for new TLDs. And I would just urge everyone else to kind of jump and look at the opportunities in a little bit more American or western European way to see if there is something for them, for their communities that they would feel proud to establish.

So I’ll stop here.

>> Thank you. Other business ideas and perspectives for this? Please for the remote moderation, just let me remind you that you say who you are, where you come from, whether you’re married or not and so on and so forth.

[Laughter]

Present yourself so the remote participants also know who’s speaking. Thank you very much.

>> THERESA SWINEHART: Okay. I’m not sure I’m going to get through that list very quickly. My name is Theresa Swinehart I work with Verizon communications. Prior to that I was with ICANN for nine years. So I’m probably a little bit familiar with some of this debate. I’m actually not going to answer the specific question about the business opportunities but focus more on two facets just very quickly because I think it would be very nice to hear the dialogue in the room, as well.

So from my company’s perspective, we’re ones of the ones that have trademark concerns about the implications of new TLDs which is being worked on and is a reality of today’s environment. But I actually want to touch upon two issues that have broader implications for the governance debates that are going on in various forums. That has to do with the test of the process in engaging in policy discussions and finding the right balance of government input, other stakeholder input and striking that balance. And I think we’ve heard some comments on that prior to this.

The Internet governance overall dynamics and the references to multistakeholder models that we’ve heard throughout today and we hear on a regular basis. This is actually a bit of a test of that kind of process around a very specific topic area. And so I think it’s conceptually very interesting and important to follow that. What is the right balance? How is that dialogue going? And what are the right solutions?

The second I wanted to touch upon and I think is useful for the discussions overall because it’s relevant also for the opportunities that exist. If the relationship with the governments doesn’t work correctly, it will have implications in other Internet governance dialogues and that’s to be kept in mind.

The other area, though, and Erika has already touched on this is what are the implications of things with regard to the right of the dot that some economies may not want to have in the system? And what are the scaling situations if one has more than one to the right of the dot blocking by a country? And what implication is that on freedom of communication and transporter data flows? What it’s in relation to businesses or whether it’s in relation to social networking or communications overall, regardless of who the user is.

And I think those are two areas that we’ve seen come out of these discussions in the TLD debates. They are not unique to the TLD debates and I think the dialogues are very constructive and being looked at. But in the broader framework of governance, I think it’ll be interesting and timely to see what the broader implications are and scalability of that. And for industry, obviously, that seeks transborder data flow, it is important. But it is for communication, as well.

>> Thank you, Theresa. Maybe not everybody knows what you mean the right of the Dot. Maybe you could explain that for a second?

>> THERESA SWINEHART: In some of the blocking and filtering in using the context of the DNS for that, many of the requests are actually made to the left of the dot. So a name and then a dot Ch or a dot com or net or whatever it might be. Those situations don’t scale very well. It’s quite difficult because of the ease of registering domain names on a regular basis in multiple forms for that, plus a variety of other issues that people are much more versed in and have greater expertise than I do. But once you get to the right of the dot, you’re actually doing a block in the root, in the A root or in the root server system. And I’m not an engineer, but there’s implications for that if this happens on an ongoing basis. It’s just something to be aware of as economies become more cognizant of the Internet space on how that might scale.

>> Thank you. I think we’ll discuss this issue whether there’s a right to block the right or not of the dot or there’s a right to have a right of the dot and so on. I guess we’ll come that when we come to regulatory challenges which governments will face, probably.

Thank you. What we did not hear so far, maybe there’s somebody in the room, does anybody have knowledge or represent a business model, a concrete business model like dot Berlin or dot hotel, is there anybody that could explain what they expect from a particular example of a new gTLD? What value added in terms of economic value added that creates? Is there anybody in the room applying for a TLD? You’re not applying yourself but you know some projects, so thank you, Erika.

>> ERIKA MANN: No, I’m not applying. I’m not in conflict with my role. But because you mentioned the dot Berlin, because dot Berlin is an interesting example, actually. Because what dot Berlin, unfortunately nobody is here, but what they are doing is it’s an interesting model because they actually traveled the world to the various cities which are actually around the globe which are called Berlin. Now, I don’t know if they traveled to all of them, but they traveled actually to many, to understand if they would be happy and to build a Berlin community. That’s their idea, actually. So they will have a dot Berlin and then the various cities which would like to be grouped under this top level domain name, they can do so. Now, I like this idea because it shows something interesting, that there is not even between the big cities there is not an understanding about unified model. Because we have other cities – and I’m not going to name them, which really want to have their city name which would be their city name. So it will be one single city. And I think I like this because why shouldn’t there be, you know, competition even on such kind of models? Because the community is a very broad definition. It can be a community of, you know, citizens of one city; but on the other side, it could be like the dot Berlin model. Sorry, I’m not dot Berlin.

>> Thank you, actually we had someone from the dot Berlin community in the similar session last year in Madrid. Any other – that is also partly a commercial but more probably one of the noncommercial or at least with public aspects model. Is there anybody here that has some intentions to run a dot hotel, dot shop? No? Okay.

>> I think it useful maybe if you gave some examples of the kinds of things we might expect. Many industries, this is Bill Drake, actually, for the remote moderator, sorry. You can imagine many of the industries that are operating on, okay, yes, we’ll come over here, then, on a large-scale, hotels, banks, so on, might want to launch these things as well as, of course, particularly cities or other regions, et cetera. You can imagine that. Communities of interest around such issues as NGOs, nongovernmental organizations, Human Rights groups. We know that there will be several applications for dot gay. Which will come back to the question of blocking because it is an obvious one. Why? Because of governments. You can imagine that. I mean just think more broadly of the range of potential communities that are out there. And of course the important point to make about this is that not only does that create new spaces for communities to develop and to launch valuable real estate that becomes, you know, substantial assets over time, it’s also an opportunity to diversify the participation in the gTLD space, which is if you look at the market for registries, Mike mentioned at the outset the notion of dot com is a natural monopoly. I’m not sure it’s natural but it is a monopoly. But we would like to see presumably much more European participation and international participation in the registry markets and not have it all dominated just by American-based firms, for example, so there’s lots of opportunities here for Europe to get in, get a piece of the action and launch things that will prove to be really valuable global assets. Okay. Anna? Sébastien? And then Ana.

>> SÉBASTIEN BACHOLLET: What is important is that there will be a lot of different business models and it’s the right time to have more spread registry in the world because today except Afilias who is based in Ireland, there is not so much gTLD in Europe, but there are less even in Africa and South America and in Asia Pacific. But it’s important to have projects from this continent and any discussion that can lead to have projects from countries, from region, from businesses from the region will be, I am sure, very good for the evolution of the domain name space because we have today mainly U.S.-oriented organization for the domain name space. And that could be important.

You talk about some example about CCTLDs. There is no categorization in the project today. But we know that there are people who want to apply for region or language GLD. We know that companies who will want to launch all – crop TLD. And we know there are some generic name to be used by industry or by other organization who will be launched. And when we come back to the number, today there are around 200 known. That means that if we take the ice bag image, we will have 1,000 projects. I’m not sure that it will be the case, but you see the big difference we can imagine. Nobody knows how many we will get. But it could be from 100 to 1,000. And that’s a huge differences. But I think it’s important to know that all those numbers are. Thank you.

>> Ana, did you want to add something at this point or come back later? Your call. Then we’ll go to the gentleman over here.

>> ANA CRISTINA NEVES: Well, I’m here to talk on my behalf. So I don’t have any mandate from GAC, not at all. But as someone that is following this issue from the government point of view, I cannot talk from the business point of view. So I’m here on my behalf. But with concerns from the government site.

In fact, it is a fascinating discussion even because we are discussing this, I think nearly for 15 years. But I think that only for the last two or three years, the board and GAC are closing their dialogue. And so I think that’s why it’s taking so much time.

Now, Board is prepared to adopt the guidebook for the new gTLD program on the 20th of June. And we heard that there will be a big party in Singapore so mark that. I don’t think that governments like to be hostage of this kind of like pushing this kind of things. Well I think that we have to have a date. We have to have a deadline. We have to put an end to this thing. But, still, I don’t know whether this is going to work.

Now I just would like to mention something or to refer to something that was mentioned here about that the governments tend to single out the issues that are more – that address more the companies. Well, I don’t think that is true. I think that for instance the trademark issue is so complex that it takes time. It takes much more time than if you are talking about end user thing. So it’s much easier to negotiate something about the end user for instance than about the trademark. So it takes time. It’s much more complex. And on the end user, for instance, we still have to negotiate the application fee for developing countries or local entities and individuals. Even from rich countries. So I’m talking about the application fee.

And, finally, well, I heard something that was written by Wolfgang and I think it is the way out. I think he’s totally right. At this point, I think that we cannot postpone more the thing of the gTLDs. And I think that we have to launch – well, again, I’m speaking on my behalf – and I think that the possibility to start the process in two phases, it could be a good way out.

So first you could start the process with all those strings which do not have the potential to create any type of controversy and move forward with the first basket in Singapore. And that continue the negotiations amounting for both parties to remove the withstanding bottlenecks of the score cards as soon as possible. So I think that this is a good way. Is very positive, is a very constructive one. But still there are some issues and for the party, I don’t know if we have all the conditions, even if when we met – we meet in these meetings, we not only have these parties and all this fun. Thank you.

>> You know, this is Bill Drake and it just occurred to me that the moderators are systematically violate the rule at the outset. Do they recognize this? Okay. So hopefully they recognize at least us. But everybody else should really try to give their name when they speak. Thank you for that Ana. You flagged one point that I want to put on the table. The cost of applying is a substantial issue. And there’s been a whole process which when we come back almost immediately to the question of challenges I think we want to take up a little bit more.

I’d like to get some more voices into the room. We’ve had a couple of people raise their hands over here. Wow, there’s a whole bunch. Are these all on the question of opportunities? Because we’re going to come to challenges, problems next. So let me just call in the people who have been waving their hand. The gentleman here and then the woman here and then we’ll go after that to whoever wants it.

>> Yes. Hello my name is modern fisher from the – federalists the European NGO. So I would say I come from a civil society sector. And I wanted to also speak about opportunities because in a way, when you speak about businesses, it sounds very much like it is actual physical businesses from the real world that you want to transfer to the Internet again. Usually the debate, at least we had in summer school, was, for example, for dot domain because there’s a business that could certainly afford such a thing.

We were more interested in some – we came already to the costs that a civil society for us it’s usually pretty hard to pay for such costs. How much was it? I think 180,000? So for us it would be at least I think it would be very useful to have domains where you can actually, well, for example, like the concept of the xxx domains, I mean if you have a xxx domain, you know what you expect. I think that would be very useful if you also do it in a more societal way, maybe. For example, with the dot kids domain which could be white listed which is child proofed, which would be children appropriate content that are, in a way, monitored. But then you can skip, for example, the broader settings because that’s a content that should reach children, that’s the content that might give you the media literacy education that you need.

I could also imagine, for example, a space online for file sharing that would actually not represent a business but that would, for example, a do the PtoP demand where people have the possibility to exchange. But I know this is for real reasons probably not the most popular idea but also another idea that we have to probably promote creative comments in such a way where people actually can promote their contents and maybe also find a framework on how to get a reputation online by presenting the content as a more entrepreneurial space to have forum for the ideas, for content that you produced. So not always going through the big companies generating this copyright model but having web space to find a new way. Thank you.

>> WILLIAM DRAKE: Thank you. I think this is a very – it’s a not-for-profit example that you mentioned. And we will discuss later on when we come to the challenges why maybe there might not be so many of these or some smaller ones will not be feasible.

Those who want to take the floor, do you have examples or points about opportunities? Because the challenges will come later. Who wants to say something about opportunities? Louis? Do you want to have some? And then Louise.

>> Of course. Opportunities. Former chair of the ICANN Internet user committee ALAC and still Board Member of the Euralo is the European at large regional for users. I think broadening the space is an opportunity for the users. For example, in Germany, we have a very successful top level domain, country code top level domain that is dot DE. It is extremely successful. But part of the success is that it is really hard to find nice short words. You can still introduce on a sublevel. It would be nice to have some more space. And of course, yes, we do have dot doc something. But we would, for example, enjoy to have dot Berlin because there you have also a local aspect. It is good for business. It is good for people because they can on a local level say okay, here we have something that is of interest. And it signalizes right with the domain name what it is about. So this is really interesting.

There are some extra aspects, and we should have maybe closer look on the European level what are the differences of the structure of the domain names. For example, in Germany, we do not have a dot gov. And that sometimes causes problems because city names are related also to government. So there could be a possibility that government also has some extra sublevel domains which are reserved for this. So there is a large variety of opportunities here, how you can solve these problems or the opportunities you have.

One thing I would like to stress. That is, I do not think that a top level domain as such is a trademark. I think a top level from the user’s perspective, top level domain is the name for room of communication, a platform for communication in the Internet. And if you have a look at this perspective, then it is interesting to see what could be also solving some problems because in all these languages, top level domains have different sounds, have different meanings. I just thought of dot com in German. Com means come over. And when soccer game association they were longing for one player of their football game and a city said please parle.com, come over to us. So they used this as a word, not as a commercial something. But they used the German, just going by the sound, they said, they used it in that sense. So I think it is so hard to give a top level domain just one meaning. Because in all these languages, it has different meanings. And one way out might be to just say if you do not restrict it to a certain purpose and just give it for everyone free for use, then this might be really, really helpful for all of us. Thank you.

>> WILLIAM DRAKE: Thank you. Two more people take the floor for opportunities? Luis? It was you and then Maria? You want to say something? First Luis and then Maria.

>> Thank you very much. As a matter of fact, I think it’s very I don’t full to look at this question from the point of view of opportunities. Not only because when you look about the opportunities, you necessarily think about the major problems, which is interesting. So opportunities clear for business, the opportunities obviously to reinforce brands globally. But that raises the problem who has the right to protect the brand if it conflicts with other brands? And also what it means for a possible cyber skating, a new cyber skating, it is new top level domains. So it’s new possibility of – but for cities, it’s also a very nice opportunity for a better identification of the city for identity. And for the organization fits space, fits ecology space, let’s say, from this point of view. It’s interaction, it’s people, organizations in the cyberspace. And, again, to it, there is associated with it, there is a problem. With entitled to apply, one would say the mayor, but when there are two mayors because they own the same name. So again one of the problems you are trying to solve is relating to a very important opportunity.

Another opportunity happens for communities. Again, reinforcing identity, cohesion of community, bringing together people who share some values, some principles, some stories and allowing them to have better visibility in cyberspace and therefore in other activities. And again here, the problems, who is entitled represent the community. What about communities that are not ready or don’t know that they should be considering applying for their name, a top level domain, or even those because they state of development are far away from knowing about Internet like some tribes somewhere in the world. And again these are issues. Very important public concern that we must be aware of for this. Another opportunity very important that actually we are somehow not mentioning but it’s quit obvious is for registries and registrars. I mean it’s fantastic to have a new business setting this didn’t exist before. I mean to actually gain money, to make money out of a completely virtual business now on TLDs. And that again is related to one of the problems we face, the question of costs. And actually the question of costs is important because when you have something that costs substantial amount of money, then what you have is of course the ones who have more are favored compared to those who have less, which means that they appear here the problems of developing country of poorer regions and communities that may not afford the same sort of protection and therefore the idea that others may, due to economic advantages somehow take leave and pick up the names from another point of view should be provided for these groups. So it’s quite interesting this idea that thinking about the major opportunities also brings the major problems that have to be solved. And of course when you have that, you don’t remain paralyzed. You try to solve them.

I would just like to mention one problem that is related to the problem of solving this. So many people already mentioned that it’s taking quit a lot of time to deal with these matters. Well, first, they are complicated. But there is also another problem behind the way. This was handled within ICANN. And this is we found a tendency for trying to find prescriptive, final solutions to any possible possibility regarding the registration of top level domains at the forefront.

Now, the guidebook should have all things previewed. Well, when you have that in complex life, you are in trouble. Because it’s very difficult to set up all the possibilities. From my point of view, there are certain things that could be settled that way because they are very clear and there are others that instead of prescribing the solution, the action, you should prescribe a process for handling these sort of problems when it arises and when it appears. Maybe the year, well I’m going to do the same mistake that Wolfgang did at the beginning of the session because when you try to oversimplify situations, of course, but I’m going run the risk because it makes clear my point. So if you think about professional cultures, it is like we are trying to solve this issue from a lawyer’s point of view and not as much from an engineering point of view. And I think you need a combination of the two cultures. Thank you.

>> WILLIAM DRAKE: Thanks, Luis. That was very interesting. There’s only one point that I’d like to very quickly interject on that, which is it’s probably inherent in the model that we have here, though, you’re talking about the global governance of an asset that’s being done through contracts. And when you’re governing through contracts and you have the possibilities of people making legal challenges, there is a very strong pressure for people to want to get as much detail, catering to every possible situation into the rules because otherwise, you know, you can end with some real murky situations. But this has been of course very frustrating for everybody that the applicant guidebook has grown into this extraordinarily baroque, complex, ornate things with very real rules trying to anticipate every possible outcome. We’ve had Marie for a while waving and then we’ll go Bach to the gentleman in the back here. As time rolls on, let’s really try to keep to two minutes or less in our interventions and we’ll try to get more voices into the room.

>> Yeah, thank you very much, Bill and Thomas. Maria Häll. I’m working for the ministry of enterprise from Sweden. Also member of the GEC and I’m one of the three Vice Chairs of GAC. But I’m not talking on behalf of the GAC but on behalf of Sweden but more actually from my own point of view, actually.

I would like to echo both what Louis was saying. It’s hard to say whether I’m going to talk about opportunities or whether I’m going to talk about challenges because these kind of things tie together, of course. Also when we are discussing this because it has been a good discussion, especially in tend between the ICANN board and the GAC, I think, my point of view. But of course we are being digging into very certain issues. And the whole new detail program and this process and this very good dialogue is also taking a lot of energy. And sometimes I think that it is also taking – maybe losing a few perspectives. Like for instance the perspectives we have been discussing today. How the whole DNS business, Internet business or IP addressing business is actually affecting all other areas we’ve been talking about the technical aspect, the culture aspects, the policies aspects, the freedom of speech and so on. And so then of course it becomes to talk about the trademark issues here. That’s very much an ultra distance perspective. Yes. But of course from the government’s point of view, at least I could speak from myself and from Sweden. Everything we say and everything we do of course is from a consumer perspective. But of course we’re going to have some legislations, some rules and some development that is going to for some reason or the other affect the stability of the Internet or the openness or whatever. Even though it’s based on a technical development or a DNS development, or whatever. Of course in the long run it is going to affect consumers. So I don’t think we have lost – at least again I want to say that I speak for my own behalf or Sweden’s behalf – we haven’t lost the perspective of the consumer. That is the main thing that we need to have as working for the government.

And super quick one I think I have like 30 seconds. Of course I don’t think that the governments or any other stakeholders are actually trying to stride for the perfect Internet. I mean this is a self developing process. We are working together. We are having a very good dialogue and a more broader view with all the different stakeholders. But the thing which is also Louis from Portugal said we need to have processes that could adapt what’s happening in the self-development process. So we can actually have some kind of followup, ongoing followup and evaluation what’s happening. And that also has to take place in the new programmes as it has to do in all the other programmes we have around the Internet and of course in the offline world, as well. Thank you very much.

>> WILLIAM DRAKE: Thank you very much. The gentleman over there. Please introduce yourself.

>> I’m sorry. We can’t hear, the mic is not on. Could you switch on the mic, please?

>> My area – possibilities of the registration authority. So I as a user I have a right that the registration authority is doing the right thing when they – because if I go along to register a domain at some future time, I would expect that the registration authority would do the due diligence to make sure that I am who I am, that nobody came along and cyber squatted on me. So that’s being the sort of thing. So what kind of processes are we building in to make sure that we have the appropriate rights and responsibilities in there not only for the people who are actually creating and giving out, selling the domains, but for the end-users who might actually be the ones looking to acquire a domain? The can of worms here I think is possibly if you move this into the realm of family names, but I don’t think we go there. That releases a can of worms.

>> Thank you. Well as it has been said, the ICANN system is based on contracts. There is the RAA. We’ll not go into detail with this. And of course the implementation of these contracts are crucial because what is in the contract is one thing, but how it’s implemented and whether it’s implemented differently in several countries and so on, that has an effect.

I think it’s now time to move to the challenges part. We already had several elements. Maybe I just ask you to respond on a particular challenge. for example, for businesses, some type of businesses and the consumers in these businesses where they have a special regulated market in the real world and there are some challenges that we for instance as a government body get signals from that industry. If you take the banking sector, for instance. A dot bank of course could be a very nice opportunity if dot bank would have special security requirement that would be different than dot com or dot DE or whatever it is. So if you as a customer, as a bank, you could do you.bank. If you had the same as a music group or whatever, everybody would know that your name.bank is and your name.band is the music. But several are worried that if anybody who wants can apply for dot bank without any safeguards for them and for the customers that there are special rules applied and there is transparency and also accountability on who is behind running dot bank, that this would open the door to abuse and there is uncertainty, more opportunities for cyber crime, so on and so forth. This is one of the concerns that certain business industries, like insurance and sensitive about privacy and security, money, has. So how should we react to this, to some concerns like this on the part of the business community? What are your views? How should we react to this? Thank you. Mike.

>> MIKE SILBER: ICANN Board. Firstly sorry going back. I’ve been trying to get onto this speaking list for a while. Going back to the opportunities, if I can suggest if people are interested if how some of the current list of self-declared applicants are thinking about it, go to Karen McCarthy’s website, dot dht.nxt.com. And there he has a list of new Internet extensions and all the self-declared applicants. There are over 100 at the moment. How many will actually get through to submitting an application is anybody’s guess. Much there’s some contention in a couple of places. for example, dot Africa right at the top of the list, the two of them. But it’s interesting if you have a look there. Lots of geographic names. I’ll go through the first five or six because it’s to me interesting. Two for dot Africa. One for dot AAND Andalusia. Dot Athens, Dot Bösel. It comes a while before your first generic one. Two for dot buy. Council for BCN. Two Berlins. Then it gets to the first generic term dot bike. It goes through some interesting ones. A couple of trademark terms. Canon and Deloitte are the two that I’ve picked up so far. I’m sure a couple of others. But in terms of models, interesting ones.

In terms of challenges, I really have a problem with what Luis was suggesting about a process. Because that’s exactly what got us into the problem with dot xxx. And we’ve all seen where that’s resulted in. And maybe it’s because I happen to have liabilities as Director of an American corporation and as a non-American citizen, that scares the hell out of me. Because the thought of being litigated against in my capacity. Capacity in the United States is a frightening thought. So maybe I’m more risk averse than I should be and I should be more willing to just take process. But dot XXX is a great example of start a process, change it in the middle, try and get something to work and in the end get litigated against and do something that makes everybody unhappy.

And so I take the point that some of this could be done better. And some of this could be more process-based. But the last conversation that took place around a process was in terms of applicant support for needy applicants. And the suggestion was the program can launch, not applications be accepted, but the program can launch with the publicity around it recognizing that publicity needs to go beyond the traditional places where ICANN has made a noise and in the United States and in one or two limited English-speaking markets outside of the U.S. But that a noise needs to be made and pubs lis at this needs to be – publicity needs to be generated in a large linguistically diverse.

>> ANA CRISTINA NEVES: – locations. The program can launch while we’re still working on the detail on needy application support. But utilizing GAC advice that come through is insisting on certain figures for applicant support which makes no sense.

I’m sorry, I’m getting into detail, but it seems a little bit strange that on the one hand we’re being criticized for wanting to get into too much detail and not being willing to follow process. And yet when a process is suggested on something that – where it could work, that doesn’t get followed through.

The last I just wanted to say very quickly is if anybody thinks that 185,000 as an application fee is expensive, you have no idea what it’s going to cost you to run a new TLD. Especially with the additional security that’s been mandated with the additional technical capacities to make sure that it doesn’t fall over. And if some governments got their way and you had to actually have verified identity for each applicant, that would just triple the costs. I don’t know if you want to comment. I’d say you’d be looking at a couple of million dollars a year in pure running costs.

The application fees are almost irrelevant in the total economic model of a new gTLD. The application fee is almost just a good faith down payment. It’s 5 or 10 percent of your what annual cost is going to be. And there seems to be this obsession around $185,000 application fee in the sense that ICANN’s going to make a huge amount of money out of it. If somebody’s running a new gTLD, first I hope they have the financial resources to keep it going because if it falls over or if they fall over and somebody has to pick it up, that’s going to be a function that ICANN, together with other existing registries is going to pick up and it’s going to have to be put into the freezer forever and kept alive to keep those existing registrations valid even though they may not be further registrations. But that aside, this is not something that individuals are going to register. Why would an individual other than the most extreme case of ego, why would an individual need a new generic top level domain? Maybe Steve Jobs has got that much ego that he wants.apple. But I don’t think there’s anybody in this room and none of the individuals I know who really need to spend $185,000 application fee plus the couple of million dollars a year to keep up top level domain just for an end user. You’re going to be registering subdomains or using services under the domain. That’s quite possible you’ll be using a search engine under Google in future instead of Google.com. Now, that is use. But you’re not paying for that use. There’s no financial impact on you, the end user. Yes, you’re going to be served advertising if that particular model continues. There may be 100 new business models that are opened by this. But it’s not a case of we need to support needy individuals because there really need their own top level domain.

>> WILLIAM DRAKE: Thank you, Mike. Actually you’re right. The application fee is probably the minor problem. The running fee is probably the big one. You mentioned maybe other GAC members will jump in on that. You mentioned the example of Dot Bösel. The city of Bösel examined they would like to have a top level domain. But they realized for 150,000 people, the application fee, okay. But to spend millions on running this, we can just forget it. And Switzerland is not the poorest country in the world, but the third largest city can just forget a domain name because it’s too expensive, the question is why is it so expensive? Does it need to be so expensive with all the security and so forth? Maybe Maria and Martin was first. Martin and then Maria.

>> Martin: Yes. Martin Boyle. I’m with Nominet, which is the UK domain name registry. I have a separate question but I’d actually like to pick up on Mike’s point about the 2 million dollars a year. Because I’m actually questioning where does that come from? If you are a developing country, in a developing country and you decide just for the sake of argument that dot Nairobi is a good idea, then you’ve got a choice. You could set up your own registry from scratch. And that was going to cost you a hell of a lot of money. Or more likely you’d go around to Afilias and Verisign and mind machines and whoever else and get them to quote you a price running your registry for you.

I actually have difficulties in believing that the operating cost is going to be the barrier. The initial barrier is for a lot of developing countries, I think, going to come down to finding $185,000 when it is a concept very difficult to prove.

>> But you obviously want to answer to that.

>> To be honest with you, the $185,000 isn’t a problem if there’s money to be made out of it because the registry operators, which now includes the former registrars, the registry operators will front that money for an applicant where there’s a feasible business case. They will auto e have to put – they’ll have to put – and personally I think the whole initiative is on incorrect information. The critical issue, for example, dot Nairobi is commercially viable, there will be a registry out there. I won’t mention names you mentioned and I’m sure two dozen more who would be more than happy to put the $185,000 up because they’re expecting to make it on the back end. However, what they are going to want is minimum number of commitment. And if you don’t have minimum number commitment and if you don’t do the number of registrations per month, per year, whatever the terms would be, then you’re going to have to come up with a catch. That’s where the kicker is going to be.

So if it’s successful, if it’s a good commercial idea, I’m sorry I would have come back to it –

>> May I ask you to be brief because we’re running out of time?

>> A needy applicant won’t have to put up percent. If it’s a really bad commercial idea but it has some social good, well then they’re really going to struggle because they’re going to have to pay a registry operator to operate their registry. They’re not going to get it on a pure 50/50 split on the registration fee.

>> WILLIAM DRAKE: Thank you. We have little time. So let’s not spend too much. We see that the costs of this are controversial, I think we can say this. We do not go into detail. There are different opinions about the costs, whether they’re reasonable. It’s definitely a challenge for less well off, noncommercial projects. That is something that you cannot speak away.

Maybe we should now, the remaining minutes to talk about a few other things. For instance there are questions in the room like: Is there a right to get the domain names if you go for the rights of citizens? Who has the right to get a name like the known problematic ones with Tibet and other things. Is there a right to get a dot dog if there are controversial applications? What is the angle from a consumer rights, consumer protections and Human Rights point of view? Does anybody want to say something on this?

>> Yes, I’m sorry. I’m not used to talking out loud. I do all the typing. I’m speaking for myself, not for remote. Could you briefly explain whether there is an exclusionary group, what happens if I apply for dot God, dot Allah, is there a list of names that are automatically excluded and will not then have the controversy every time they’re applied for? I mean dot God, dot Allah and dot did gay.

>> The Pope sent a letter to ICANN that they should not give dot cat away. We should not give their IOC abbreviation. So there are examples of this.

>> Mike can answer this quickly.

>> MIKE SILBER: Very quickly there was a very limited exclusionary list incredibly limited really around the potential confusion with things like IANA. It’s not a list as much as ICANN is on it. That was of our own creation. It’s a historical issue.

The issue’s been raised by the GAC in terms of international Olympic committee and international Red Cross and inclusion on that list which we are concerned doesn’t actually help them. That’s been a major issue, this idea of public morality or some sort of offense that could be taken by a particular group. So there is a limited public objection process that would allow anybody to object to a name because it somehow is offensive to them or their group.

And I think it’s been one of the best suggestions that has come through the dialogue with the GAC is actually extending that. That there is now what’s called an early warning process. It actually is not an early warning. But it’s extending this limited public objection process for the GAC to turn around and give us two forms much advice as the board. The one is: You may have a problem with this name because some of our members are telling us that it’s sensitive. Which is different from: We’re giving you advice not to enter this name because as a consensus position, we do not believe that it’s appropriate or we find it offensive or however it will be couched. They’re going to raise it. So if, for example, dot God was applied for, somebody could turn around and say not a good idea, be sensible about it. And then the applicant has a chance to put their tail between the legs, take the majority of their fee back and slink off or to say I want to challenge it through the process. Then we as a board step out of it. We say that it’s got to go through an objective objection process. Or we as a board have to in terms of our bylaws accept the GAC’s advice if it is a consensus advice that they come to us with.

>> WILLIAM DRAKE: Thanks, Mike. You know, we are technically out of time. And the coffee break is starting. But probably there’s some people who would like to add a little more. So what I suggest we do, if you’ll agree, is, well but some people wanted the coffee. So let’s say we try to go for like five minutes more? And why don’t we try to get some people who haven’t spoken yet. I’m actually dying to talk about the reality of public order issue but I won’t because I want to hear other people’s voices. So maybe some people who haven’t spoken if you’ve got a question, a comment that you can con Sicily, briefly state. Let’s try to get as many thoughts on the table as possible and maybe we’ll do some quick summary at this end. And I know oh livier is jumping out of his seat there. And Alana also just go.

>> Thanks very much.

>> OLIVIER CRÉPIN-LEBLOND: I’m the chair of the at large advisory committee which is the part of ICANN that is supposed to act in the interests of the Internet users. I think that for people who haven’t been to an ICANN meeting, you’ve had a little bit of a taste of what it’s like with the disapprovals and the discussions and trying to reach consensus one way or another and the time that it takes, as well, to reach consensus. But I was just going to say that ICANN is a very open organization. And so I was going to do a bit of outreach which is something we haven’t done yet. One part of ICANN as I said, the at large advisory committee is at large. And at large is Internet users, which I believe is probably all of us here in the room. So that’s one community that is open for people to get involved in. Specifically if you are either part of an at large structure, which is a nongovernmental organization, or some organizations that are – that might be commercial or that basically help end-users to helping the Internet and getting online. It’s a very diverse group of people.

There’s also the noncommercial users constituency for NGOs I believe specifically. If you are a business, you did join the business constituency.

>> We got the message. Everybody who is a user should join ALAC and the other constituency.

>> I’m serious. Because this is the way that you can make your voices heard. That’s what I can always say. Talk to Olivier. They’re ready for you to talk to.

>> I have to run now.

>> Birgitta.

>> I am just dying this has been so boring. Sorry. This is just been so extremely technical. I nearly left. But just one question. Sorry. The question is this: And the reason why I’m saying it is really boring is that if you want to involve, for example, the citizens in cyberspace, us that use it, then I would sort of encourage others that are not in the complete technical lingo here to participate more, that have opinions about this.

I have a question. And that is in relation to what should be excluded. And I would really anticipate that the process of that would be transparent and open for anybody that’s interested in knowing what should be included or excluded.

And just as sort of because of my special interest, let’s say if Tibetans wanted to register dot Tibet, would they be allowed to do so?

>> Just a quick correction. The policy is that if it’s controversial and if it’s considered to create problems, then it will probably not be allowed. But there’s room for discussion for this.

>> Or actually dot Tibet is likely to be excluded on the grounds of its geographic nature and would need to get approval buy the country.

>> Can’t the government in excel apply?

>> Point taken. I think your earlier point is the most valid one, which is a lot of this is highly technical. And a lot of this is not relevant to end users until in just over a year’s time you’re going to find some really strange naming on the Internet. Just wait until you start finding other languages and names in other languages in syrilic letters and Chinese characters and Arabic characters. And the Internet’s going to stop looking the way that it currently looks. And that’s I think when the average end user is going to realize how much things have changed. But I agree with you, at the moment, it is pretty boring.

>> Thank you. Elvana.

>> Thank you. Elvana Thaci from the Council of Europe. We have heard here that we cannot have a perfect process. We cannot have a perfect Internet. We cannot have a prescriptive policy for UgTLDs. Yeah, I would agree with that. But there is one point we cannot fail and that is Human Rights. We have to be as – we have to prescribe as much as possible to ensure protection of Human Rights. And we heard from Theresa that a dot right restriction would result in restrictions of freedom of communication and freedom of expression on the Internet. And states have international obligations to protect freedom of expression. There are binding legal instruments to that. So my question to the GAC people and I realize we don’t have much time now is how are you ensuring that the processes and the policies, the frameworks for the UgTLDs actually have safeguards in place for freedom of expression?

>> I’ll come to Maria. One thing you would be interested in is some of us in the noncommercial environment said ICANN should hire a Human Rights expert we could have a larger process, too, but at least to start the conversation because there is no real focus.

>> Very short one today and to you Elena. I really very much agree with you. That’s exactly what I meant. We need to have another perspective to the issues you’re talking about. You have really, really technical detailed discussions which needs to be done but we also need to have this discussion on the perspective of for instance the Human Rights, the freedom of expression but also other policies. So that is exactly what at least I am trying to and the GAC trying to address, actually.

>> Thank you. Your neighbor wanted to say something for quite a while.

>> Hi, everybody. I’m Mayu. I come from Finland. I am a participant of the summer school and member of everybody talking on my own behalf. If I could depart from the TLD program that this is a bit related like in the end. And if I may I would really stress from the paper that I will get my message through most easily and understandably. But my question and my expression of worry concerns one of the core values you’re committed to namely representation. And its relation is what has happened with the registrar accreditation, RAA, anyways. And this also concerns data protection and privacy. In the other version of the 2001 RAA was on the table for discussion and comments you received, were a letter from Europe saying that the proposed policy on who was in bridge with data protection law and privacy rules. And this the time the question was database containing minimal amount of personal information available for public. The fact that Euro business is third biggest user of the Internet adopted in RAA policy. But as the RAA was revised in 2009, – adopted policy in spite of the opposition again voiced by Europe. I don’t even start with the RAA subsection 3.773. But I’m just thinking as a young European that what can I do to protect my privacy when even the big guys are ignored? How do you see this all in relation to representation where you’re committed? Thank you.

>> Thank you. Maybe one short reply to this. On a country code top level domain, you have more possibilities to determine on a national level what the legal basis of that is. For instance, if you don’t allow your operator of your country domain to have a contracted ICANN, he’s not bound by the provisions of ICANN to that extent. And they are of course on a Californian law. But if you have a new TTLD, this requires a contract in a different way than, for example, a country code top level name. This is one of the challenges that you might have. More protection, more national law applicable to your country code than to your city, where you are living because this is working on a different contractual basis with ICANN. So there are challenges with these contracts, of course I think we should not go too much into details of this. Other questions or comments? One last before we stop? Wolfgang, do you want to say the holy word for the end?

>> WOLFGANG KLEINWÄCHTER: I disagree partly with Mike Silber when he says you have to have 2 or 3 million budget to run a registry. I think around 11 CCTLDs functioning with a very low budget. So that means this is the result of a process. And that the bar is not so high. And because we have reached this level that the bar is so high, we risk another problem in the future that of the 1,000 new gTLDs, probably 500 are run by Verisign and 500 by Afilias. Because as Martin has said, if you start with nigh row Nairobi, then you are looking for somebody at the Beck and service of this, at the end of the day we will not see the diversity in the world as described by Sébastien. We have much more players, yeah. We have probably a lot more of gTLDs, but we will have a stronger monopoly or duopoly in this field. Say far I really am encouraging ICANN to rethink the commercial of financial environment for new gTLDs. As a starter it’s probably good because you have to make some experiences. But you should open an option that after a couple of years the prices go down because this is a resource which really does not involve so much costs. You can do it much more cheaper. And this would really then allow it to have a more diversified gTLD world otherwise you’re strengthening the monopoly, which is bad at least for the Internet users.

>> I agree with you Wolfgang except we’re talking about an oligopoly. Chris, we got to really let you have some coffee.

>> Chris: This is the crit buck ridge from the IPCC. This is the Internet sessions and the complexities around gTLDs means that’s taken up the whole session. IP addressing is also another area that comes under critical Internet resources. I wanted to mention that we’re actually going to have a session which is a side event. It’s not on program but it’s being held in the conference rooms tomorrow at 11 a.m. So if you’d love to see people on there to join the discussion of some of the issues around IPv 6 and IPv 4 exhaustion.

>> Thanks. And sorry, Chris, that it wasn’t time to go into those issues as well. But trust me. IP addressing even less technical than at the technical than gTLDs.

[Laughter]

This is a huge complex area if you were to come in an ICANN meeting you would be 12 hours a day seven days of nonstop technical discussion of these things which might make some eyes fog over. But the bottom line is that the decisions that are being made will have, as Mike indicated, a very substantial impact on the Internet and what the experience of the Internet is and how the Internet impacts society in years ahead. So it is good to have some sense of what these things are about.

I hope we gave you some of that. And again I’m sorry we went a little bit over. But we wanted to at least try to get some of this information on the table.

>> Before I give the floor to Desiree for final word. I disagree with you it’s technical but it’s highly political and social element. We should have maybe tried to concentrate a little bit more of these things I guess we’ll follow-up. But you see in the GEC and ICANN, it’s very difficult to leave the technical level because you always go back, when you don’t agree you go back into the technical e did ills at that. This is a human things. The aim was to discuss the political, economic and other aspects. Thank you for being here. Desiree, your last word.

>> DESIREE MILOSHEVIC: There is a who is policy review group going on right now. So it would be good if they could have your input into that process, as well.

And lastly just to comment on the price of new gTLD. I think if you look at aftermarket price of a good dot com domain maybe you can pay exactly the same fee for a new gTLD process. There will be a new change in dine an miss many. There won’t be just oligopolies but there will be like they were in 200 together and not for profits trying to run it on a really low scale and catering for small communities.

There will be a lot of failure. And I think I criticize ICANN for not sending that message out. And what will it take? And how that message will be taking out to the end consumer.

>> Thank you very much. Enjoy the coffee.

>> Thanks, everybody.

[Applause.]