Applications and Public Trust (was Re: Expansion of the IAHC)

[Simon Higgs <simon@higgs.com>]

Perry,

> Your mischaracterization of my remarks is astounding -- in fact,
> outrageous.

Why thank you. Your editorial judgement is almost as prolific as Jim Fleming's.

Let's just focus on the one area where you've already stated that
you've made up your mind, to the detriment of the net as a whole.
Here's the summary:

I wrote privately to Perry saying:

     "We have a major trust issue at stake here with the internet population
      and it's voluntary acceptance of the whole IETF/RFC authority structure.
      That trust is already badly dented by NSI's handling of the InterNIC
      (which is why we're having this conversation). To refuse to process
      those existing TLD applications in any way, shape, or form, will
      irrevocably damage the public's trust in IANA and it's ability to
      manage the namespace."

This came out of a previous mailing list exchange:

RE: RFC 1591 & no new TLDs

I said:
> > It DOES NOT single out ISO-3166 TLDs at all.

Perry then conveniently says:
> Unfortunately
> the sentence was syntactically ambiguous, but it was not placed there
> for decoration, and the intent is obvious to anyone familiar with the
> situation.

And my comments on this today are:

 - You're talking about the interpretation during the writing of a document
   which was assumed to be "bleeding obvious", but WAS NOT committed to in
   the final publication.

 - I'm talking about the interpretation many years later in the light of a
   totally new commercial environment (& as a result of actions taken by the
   InterNIC without a full public hearing). Consequently, portions of the
   community now feel there is a need for new TLDs (and supporting
   registries) other than ISO-TLDs .

Expectation and reality aren't the same thing, just like financial
projections and earnings aren't the same.

Find me somewhere where IANA clarified all this during the "Newdom era"
to your satisfaction. Where did they specifically say this only ever
means ISO TLDs?

They actually said "the original intent was towards ISO TLDs, but it
was left open in case there was a future need for other types of TLDs".

Then they said, "if you want to apply for a TLD today (that's any type
of TLD), here's what you do... send the .COM template to
"hostmaster@internic.net" as spelled out in RFC1591."

Consequently many people applied. As neither statements by IANA
actually contradicted each other, that's probably why IANA now has a
folder full of TLD applications which you seem totally unwilling to
recognize.

You can't tell me all those applicants got it wrong, and applied by mistake.

>:-|

RFC1591 rambles on about "the same rules applying to all requests", and "all
requests must be processed in a non-discriminatory fashion", and
"academic and commercial (and other) users are treated on an equal
basis". Are they all typo's according to you? You've never bothered to
address this particular paragraph.

Those people who followed RFC1591, and have already submitted TLD
requests per RFC1591 need to be honoured by having those requests
processed. I'm not going to tell you how to do that, because that's
what the IAHC was created to decide in the first place. But it has to
be done to ensure the continued public trust of IANA, ISOC, etc., and
keep government interference at bay.

Somestimes it appears that you seem dead against this because Eugene &
Palmer have applications in there too. Nah. Can't be. You're not like
that or you wouldn't be on the committee. I'm just glad you're not a
stubborn ego-maniac. Then we'd really be in trouble 'coz then you'd be
personally causing the net to fragment.

One more thing. The differentiation between TLD, ISO-TLD, and iTLD is
no longer more important than the differentiation between
Shared/Non-shared (say "thank you NSI").



Simon

--
If at first you don't succeed, skydiving is not for you.