by Chuck Kisselburg
ICANNWiki.org
Today ICANN turns 10 years old!
While many may wish ICANN never existed to begin with I can’t help but reflect on the industry as a whole. In the last couple of months, when talking with people, I would ask them to think back to what the Internet was like 10 years ago for them. That usually follows with a “wow” like facial expression. In other words, they are in agreement that the Internet has progressed greatly in the last 10 years.
When you look at this industry from ICANNWiki’s perspective, the entire ICANN community includes not only the ICANN “academics”, but the registries, registrars and Domainer communities as well. I should also note that I also view ICANN “academics” apart from the global movement centered around Internet Governance.
Not only has ICANN built structure to support the survival of the Internet, but the other communities associated have created a whole new multi-billion dollar industry. As with several of my previous posts one thing I find energizing about this community is the very fact that it is entrepreneurial. Overall this community of ours is still in its infancy, working to move forward while at the same time helping to define its future.
And, from my perspective, the future looks even brighter with the work that is being done towards opening up the market for new gTLDs and, of course, the vast impact the Internet will have on those with the introduction of IDNs.
As we take this time to reflect over the previous 10 years, what about looking ahead? What would you like to see? Personally speaking I feel that the whole ICANN community is in a TREMENDOUS position to utilize its vast contacts to assist in more humanitarian efforts, whether that be in areas of charitable fund raising, such as what Sedo has done with its “SedoCares” initiative or in developing programs whose goal is to assist in disaster relief efforts, such as what DotAsia has done with “Relief.Asia” and their mindset in giving back to the .Asia community.
So as the day goes with the world’s financial markets reeling from recent events, wars in other countries and the world watching and waiting for a new US president to be elected, ICANN turns 10 years old today. For some this is a celebration. For others this may only fuel their dislike of the organization. However, travel back to your experience with the Internet 10 years ago today. I don’t know about you, but I can’t help but marvel over the organization and efforts that have brought the overall ICANN community, not to mention the Internet itself, to where it is today.
Happy birthday, ICANN!
Now, I’ve got to go. A phone call is coming in on my PC…….
September 30th, 2008
by Chuck Kisselburg
ICANNWiki
I have been reading several blog posts concerning ICANN’s possible adoption of the auction model to help solve disputes regarding applications submitted for the same, new gTLDs. To be specific, the concept of an auction was raised through the efforts of auction design firm PowerAuctions LLC with the assistance of ICANN staff, resulting in a paper regarding the auctioning process for new gTLDs. In other words, multiple organizations can submit applications for the potential gTLD, “.bank”. To resolve the issue “.bank” would be sent to auction for resolution.
For me several things come to mind…..
WHY NOT?
First of all I would have to say, “Why not?” At the conference in New Delhi Peter Dengate-Thrush, ICANN’s Board Chair, complimented those from the DotAsia organization for the fantastic job they had done and that, through the use of the auctioning system implemented by DotAsia, all domain names that were requested by more than one entity were handled through the auction with none having to go through a dispute resolution process. The auction process seemed quicker with less fuss associated. Case closed.
So from the standpoint of DotAsia successfully handling duplicate requests quickly and easily without having to go through the normal dispute resolution process, why shouldn’t ICANN take note of such efficiencies?
JUSTIFYING AN AUCTION BID?
As noted from reading the paper this process can get expensive for those submitting applications and wind up in the auction process – kind of. “Huh?”
When reading the paper the three bullet areas succinctly summarize the use of the auction process.
• Applicants whose true intentions or abilities are to serve many users would be able to justify higher bids than applicants who will serve few users;
• Applicants capable of providing high-quality service at low cost would be able to justify higher bids than low-quality, high-cost applicants; and
• Applicants who intend to develop the gTLD immediately would be able to justify higher bids than applicants whose purpose is to hold the gTLD, unused, for speculative purposes.
The question that comes to mind revolves around the word “bid”. In other words, “… justify higher bids… “
So instead of a typical auction process whereby users can bid as high as the price will go, there appears to be some form of justification required for one to add a higher bid. In other words, with each potential increase in the bid price, competing organizations need to justify why their bid should be taken over the others. In other words this could be a long drawn out process. The nice thing about this is it serves to guide the awarding of the gTLD to an organization that will do something with their new gTLD. However, it still remains to be seen that if someone goes through all the justification and receives the highest bid to receive the new gTLD, can they truly be held to the deployment of the new gTLD or can they simply sit back on their new gTLD, doing the minimum amount of sales, if possible, knowing that it may become more valuable later? Valuable to whom? But that is under ICANN’s control, correct? Perhaps as long as it is under an ICANN controlled Internet.
BUSINESS!
The other part of me looks upon this as a way for ICANN to increase its health. Commercial or not, ICANN is still an operating organization that has bills and employees to pay. Bottom line (pun intended) ICANN still lives by a profit and loss statement.
When in Paris I overheard someone say that ICANN has sunk a lot of cost into developing the gTLD process and will continue to do so to finalize the process before organizations can submit applications. As such ICANN will need to recoup their costs. From a business perspective that makes sense to me as companies who wish to stay alive need to have income to recoup their costs, especially for development. In some cases startups will acquire the funding through key organizations becoming customers to help with the development of their product before they have a fully deployable product ready to be purchased by the whole world.
When reading ICANN’s 2007-2008 budget there were a couple of things that stood out to me……
“New gTLD Process” section:
“The process for the introduction of new gTLDs must be robust in form, timely and predictable to administer, and scalable to accommodate the numbers and variety of potential applications. The global nature and complexity of the project have direct bearing on the program’s start-up and recurring costs. ICANN anticipates a significant investment in the project, in year one, to create the gTLD program office.
The new gTLD process costs are intended to be fully self-funded and off-set by the application fees. It is anticipated that first-round costs will be significant due to one-time start-up expenses and that subsequent rounds will be less expensive to administer. Start-up costs include, but are not limited to: recruitment of new employees to staff the gTLD program office, professional services fees associated with production of the applicant request for proposal (RFP), development of the objections filed/dispute resolution model, retention of resources to conduct technical and business/financial reviews, and recruitment costs associated with the creation of an independent panel or series of panels to provide adjudication services around dispute resolution and string contention.
A significant component to start-up costs is the creation and implementation of a communications strategy, across many different languages, to announce and promote the first round to the global Internet community. ICANN will incur media costs when it publishes applications following conclusion of the application window. If ICANN is to foster a geographically diverse representation of service providers on the Internet, it first must communicate and educate them about the gTLD process.”
OK, so the above makes sense to me.
The other item that stood out in the budget was found in the “gTLD Registry Fees” section:
“In fulfilment of its obligation to develop alternate sources of revenue, ICANN has proposed the implementation of registry-level transaction fees. Transaction fees will serve to increase ICANN revenues and enable revenues to grow in proportion to growth in the DNS.”
“In fulfillment of its obligation to develop alternate sources of revenue…”. Hmmmmmm.
So, again speaking from the business perspective, I can understand where an organization would need to recoup its startup costs. I can see that as the costs are recouped the costs for new applicants will go down. I can also see a business always looking for alternate sources of revenue.
GENERAL THOUGHTS:
So after thinking about, “Why Not?”, “Justifying an Auction Bid” and “Business”, general thoughts come to mind……
1). If all of this is to shore up the expense of developing the process, then what was not learned through the awarding of new gTLDs for .asia, .aero, .coop, .org, .travel, .tel, .com, .net., .mobi, .biz, .net, .name, .museum, .edu and .info to name a few. There are also some applications that have been in limbo for several years, such as .berlin, .paris, .cat and .nyc, to also name a few. So with all of those that have signed registry agreements and have been placed in the root servers, and with those applications that are in approval limbo, I can only wonder what has NOT been learned that requires the recouping the costs for establishing a new gTLD process?
2). Only those that have significant amounts of funding will be able to submit an application for processing, let along survive the bidding process to win if submitted through auction.
3). Organizations who win the approval and sign the registry agreement with ICANN regarding their new gTLD will also have to recoup their costs, thus passing the costs of their gTLD acquisition cost to those purchasing domain name(s) for the respective, new gTLD.
4). I know there is a big question mark as to ICANN’s future. How much longer will they be under the US’ Department of Commerce? Will ICANN emerge from the Department of Commerce to be a separate entity that can, or will be allowed to survive outside the grips of the US government? In other words, will ICANN be able to move its operations to any location around the globe, such as Belgium? I know the question was raised directly to ICANN’s Board in Paris by Elliot Noss. The exchange between Elliot and the Board was frustrating as it was NOT like peeling away layers of an onion, but more like peeling away layers of an onion made of dense, tightly closed rusted iron. It was that exchange that points to the ongoing suspicion people have of ICANN.
5). What is the magic number that, once reached, the price for applications will go down? Through my reading of various blogs on the topic of new TLDs we could see larger organizations going after TLDs as part of their normal brand protection processes. One blog mentioned that such efforts of brand protection through TLD acquisition “could” mean a total of 18,500 applications submitted. At $50,000 a pop, NOT to mention the extra amount received via the auction process, any recouping of upfront costs could be accomplished very quickly!
6). With the amount of money ICANN is envisioned to bring in, might it then be able to take a good portion of that funding and turn it into global charitable initiatives, such as Sedo has done with their SedoCares program or how DotAsia – Giving Back to the Community is living up to one of their three mission statements through their Relief.Asia program? (see September 2nd blog post on “Sedo and DotAsia - Doing What They Did Not Have to Do“)
SUMMARY:
So to summarize, there are quite a few reasons that call for the need for an auction. However, with what I have read and heard, as well as NOT heard, business is business. Such a process will ultimately aid in the strength of ICANN’s bottom line, but will also need to be passed through to the those seeking domain names as the registry needs to recoup its costs. Also, as costs are recouped how much will the costs of applications go down? In other words, applications for new gTLDs will become like a “quasi” commodity as the process “should” be nailed down soon, however, it will never become a true commodity as a commodity implies competition. How can there be competition when applications can only go through ICANN?
So, will an auction help make the process smoother? I have no doubt it will. Will it also help ICANN’s bottom line? I also have no doubt it will. Should ICANN be able to conduct business and aid their bottom line through an auction? From a pure business perspective I can only say, “I have no doubt they should”.
September 8th, 2008
by Chuck Kisselburg
ICANNWiki.org
As you can see from information about the wiki, ICANNWiki.org is based in the city of Portland, in the state of Oregon.
Oregon is one of the world leaders for the Open Source community. In fact, it is not uncommon for companies from around the globe to open up a research and development arm here in Oregon to take advantage of Oregon’s Open Source community.
Portland, Oregon’s largest city, is home to many people who actively work with and develop for the Open Source community. As such there are many ideas and conversations regarding community. From my perspective, with my position at ICANNWiki, I can not think of a better city in which to be located to have active, ongoing conversations with other members of the Open Source community.
With that said I was at an informal after-hours event a couple of days ago where I had an interesting conversation with a gentleman whose business profession is that of copy writing. I have always viewed copy writers of any country as the unofficial keepers of their respective language. A good copy writer ensures what we read not only conveys the message properly, they ensure that what is conveyed is grammatically correct.
After learning about ICANNWiki.org and how it is a neutral resource for the various communities that make up the overall ICANN community, those being ICANN academics, registries, registrars and domainers, he could not help but refer to this community as “Your Community”. He was not referring to “Your Community” in a bad way, just his way of referencing the whole ICANN community in our conversation.
The reason I thought this conversation was interesting enough for a separate post is every language, in some way or another is adaptable over time. English is one of the more flexible, or adaptable languages out there. He noted that as time has progressed the English language has evolved very rapidly in the last decade. True, the advent of computers have brought English terms to English and other languages, such as “PC”, “hard disk” and “mouse”, to name a few. Also, through “Your Community” new words have emerged, such as “Google”, “Twitter” and “Yelp”, also to name a few. However this gentleman felt that “Your Community”, or the overall ICANN community, has done more for bringing change to, or “influencing” the English language than any other such “influencer”. What he was referring to was how the Internet has brought people together, locally as well as globally and how communication can take place NOW as opposed to later. People can text, call, IM (instant message), e-mail, play games, connect with other networks, etc… FAR more easily than they could a little over a decade ago. Think back to your communication habits or capabilities back in 1995.
ICANN has created the standards and stability for the Internet. Companies and domainers, through development, provide the content and applications people use while registries and registrars provide the naming conventions people use to access applications. So, in a nut shell, “Your Community” has done a lot to advance the evolution of the English language.
With that said I could not help but wonder if a person, whose profession is copy writer in the English language, has already seen a quicker evolution of English, what will other copy writers experience of their respective languages once IDNs have been implemented for 5 years?
So while he kept referring to “Your Community” in our conversation, I couldn’t help but think about “Our Community” and how often can you be part of something where “Your Community” can have such an influence on the evolution of languages and how people communicate. So, hat’s off to “Our Community”!
August 18th, 2008