At the ICANN meeting:
Today is for public commentary on various proposals, by-laws amendments and other topics. The discussion has been fierce.
Reminder: You can follow the meeting yourself — live, if you wish — by visiting the remote participation and archives Web site run by the great folks at Harvard Law School’s Berkman Center for Internet & Society.
The most important issue being decided here, from my perspective, is the addition of top-level domains (TLDs). In morning discussions, ICANN board members asked whether the domain name system, specificially the servers that hold the information, will remain stable once new domains are introduced.
Internet service providers are particularly worried about the stability question, as they are the ones on the front line when Net problems occur. They’re asking for a slowish rollout of new domains, to ensure that the system can handle the additions.
Other people scoffed at the notion that stability is really all that much of a problem. The system is remarkably resilient already, they say, and adding new TLDs to existing databases should not be that big a problem.
A tougher question is what happens during the first few days when the new TLDs are launched. Esther Dyson, chairman of ICANN, asked the “gold rush” question — that is, will there be a massive rush to register by trademark holders, speculators and others who want to get into the new TLDs before someone else does? Clearly, there needs to be a mechanism to prevent major trouble in this regard.
The big trademark holders are insisting that they be protected no matter what happens. They want to prevent anyone from registering a new domain that, in their view, violates a trademark.
Easy to ask for, but that demand raises big questions. Suppose there’s a new “.consumer” top-level domain. Why should there not be, say, an “wal-mart.consumer” domain where customers can discuss how Wal-Mart treats them, or where they can discuss company policies. If there’s a “.union” TLD, why not have a “wal-mart.union” area where people can be organizing unions at the company?
In other words, there’s a free speech issue here. Automatically protecting trademark holders from any use of their names in domain registration is just as bad as giving them no protection at all.
The afternoon was dominated by several divisive issues. One was about who would be on the board. Many people believe proposed revisions to the ICANN by-laws are designed to reduce the number of “at-large” board members, but in a fairly sneaky way.
Several board members expressed surprise at this interpretation, which comes in the context of a planned study on how big the board should be and who should be on it. Audience commentary suggested that activists who want as many at-large members as possible were not mollified.
Board member Vint Cerf came up with the best answer. Make it clear in the revision, he said, that the board wasn’t trying to pull a fast one and that the number of at-large members would remain nine barring an explicit change in the board’s thinking. That won support from several people who were among the most worried.
The other big issue of the afternoon was the way the public will be voting for at-large members of the board. The nominating process has been stacked in a way that, if not altered by the board at its meeting tomorrow, all but guarantees that the only nominees will be the ones selected by the board’s nominating committee. That’s not very democratic, but the board pointed out that ICANN doesn’t have the resources to provide a totally open-to-all-comers election.
Commentary from various organizations supported lowering the requirements for third-party nominations. It was difficult to tell from the board’s responses whether those requests will win approval. I’m guessing there will be a small change, but not enough to bring would-be board members out of the woodwork.
Tomorrow: The board meets, and makes some decisions that will help shape the Net’s future. Watch this space for reports.