ICANN Meeting - Paris. Workshop: New gTLDs - Shaping the Future of the Internet? Monday, 23 June 2008 >>CHRIS DISSPAIN: Ladies and gentlemen, we appear to have lost a wireless microphone. It appears to be like the one I'm holding. If you have it in the seat next to you or in your seat or in your hand, please raise your hand and the flight attendant will come and take it away from you. >> -- that represent the diversity of views about the potential changes that we have ahead in the Internet space as the new gTLD program potentially will be launched. At the end of the session, Mr. Kurt Pritz will also give a status update on where we are on the implementation of the program. This is a unique moment for the Internet and the way we could potentially see significant changes and impact the way we use the Internet, the way we brand on the Internet, the way we find information, and the way we find each other. I hope you enjoy today's session. And thank you. >>CHRIS DISSPAIN: Thank you, Karla. Good afternoon, everybody. Sorry we started late. For those that don't know me, my name is Chris Disspain. I am the chair of the country code name supporting organization. And those of you in the room who know anything about ICANN will know that that has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with new gTLDs, which I suspect is why I'm standing up here moderating this debate. I'm going to quickly set out how this is going to work, and then we're going to have an introductory video. There are a number of videos that you're going to be watching this afternoon. And the video presentations talk to a series of questions, those are what would be a great idea for a new gTLDs, what impacts to new gTLDs have on the Internet now and in the future. What's the biggest risk that new gTLDs represent? What's the biggest opportunity? Who will apply and who should apply? Now, it's important to note, here comes the disclaimer, the videos are for illustration purposes only. They are not ICANN policy in any way. But they are -- they're to help you think about the questions and provide some ideas and maybe even a little controversy. We'll play a video before the part of each session and it will introduce the question. Then we're going to have a discussion. And the discussion is going to be with you in the room and also with the featured participants is what you're called on here. So well done, featured participants. And I will -- I'll introduce them to you very quickly, and I'll probably get this entirely the wrong order. John Berryhill, Antony Van Couvering. Susan Kawaguchi -- am I doing okay so far? -- J. Scott Evans -- now I'm gone. Because you're not on here. Caroline Perriard. Susanne Skov Nilsson. And (saying name). And when they speak, they'll tell you a bit about who they are. And I'm going to call on them, some of them specifically, for each of the questions. But they can also contribute at any other time, if you'd like to. I particularly like to thank Susanne Skov Nilsson of (saying name) for their participation in this workshop and for the participation of their members. When we've done all of that. (Ringing). >>CHRIS DISSPAIN: When we've done all of that, Kurt Pritz, who is SVP of services for ICANN, will introduce you to the latest implementation details and the timeline for how ICANN may, pending a decision of the board, implement the new gTLDs. So that's the safety demonstration over, and I'm going to call for the first introductory video, please. (Video playing). >> I'd like to see new gTLDs for children and for cities. I don't want any more alternatives to dot com, and I don't want gTLDs to become battle grounds for factions in political disputes, for example, over disputed territories. >> (Speaking in different languages). >> The more the merrier, it's going to be a major step toward a real global village with a thriving marketplace. It will perhaps change the way the Internet works. So any community that has (inaudible) enforcement should be given the chance to obtain a top-level domain. However, it is critical that there is some sort of separate relation from a trademark lawyer's perspective, this would be similar to the way we deal with, for example, certification marks and (inaudible) marks. >> I think there ought to be a domain name dot KOM, and that way, people who can't get into the regular dot com would have one that sounds just like the one that has already had all the names taken. Wait a minute. I'll get back to you. [ Laughter ] >>CHRIS DISSPAIN: Okay. Actually, that's not a bad idea. So the first question is, what would be -- sorry. Put my glasses on -- what would be a great idea for a new gTLD? So you've seen some examples up there. And let's see if anyone in the room has got any thoughts about what would be a really good name for a new gTLD. There's one there. >> (inaudible). Dot Paris. >>CHRIS DISSPAIN: Okay. So that would -- [ Applause ] >>CHRIS DISSPAIN: What would we call that, a -- okay, if everyone's going to clap every time someone says a name they like, we'll be here all day. Go ahead. So that's -- so that's a city name. Of course, it could be Paris, Texas, it doesn't necessarily have to be Paris, France. But I'm assuming you mean Paris, France. Yes, okay. But you take registrations for Texas people, presumably. >> (inaudible). >>CHRIS DISSPAIN: Okay. All Parises in the world together. Excellent. >> Chris? >>CHRIS DISSPAIN: Yes. >>ADRIAN KINDERIS: Adrian Kinderis. I think dot triple X would be a good one. [ Applause ] >>CHRIS DISSPAIN: People will think we work together. Thank you. Dot Paris. So that's a geographic one. I presume there are other geographic ones. [ Laughter ] >>CHRIS DISSPAIN: Stay on the geographic theme. We don't have to. Talk about whatever you want. >> Dot Africa. >>CHRIS DISSPAIN: Dot Africa. Okay. Another geographic. That's interesting, because that's a continent. So that would be -- >> How about dot dem, Web site -- domain for Web sites devoted to democracy. >>CHRIS DISSPAIN: Dot dem, D-E-M, as opposed to DAM, which is reserved for Tina, anyway. So dot dem. >> Dot Berlin. >>CHRIS DISSPAIN: AH, yes. >> Mother ship of all city TLDs, so. >>CHRIS DISSPAIN: Okay. Anybody got any -- >> There's one more here. >> Over here. >> Thank you, dot med for Mediterranean region. >>CHRIS DISSPAIN: Dot med. Okay. So the -- >> Over here. Dot LAT for the Latin American continent. >>CHRIS DISSPAIN: LAC. >> LAT. >>CHRIS DISSPAIN: LAT, dot lat. >> Thanks very much. >>CHRIS DISSPAIN: So it seems that the -- so far, anyway, it seems the kind of geographic city name type of things are quite popular. >> Any name that doesn't interfere with any technical operation of the Internet for which there is some demand, it doesn't create any problem anywhere else. So lack of, you know, clear opposition, strong support, good proposal, that's it. The name is not the relevant part. >>CHRIS DISSPAIN: Amadeu, thank you. I -- whilst I agree with you, your technical assessment, I think, actually the name is quite important, as judged by the fact that a number of hands have gone up to talk about the particular names. Anyone have any thoughts about whether it's likely that large organizations might want to register dot their name and use it in a different way, use it only, perhaps, for advertising Web sites and internal e-mail structures? So would eBay consider dot eBay, perhaps? >> Susan Kawaguchi well, it's definitely something we would look at. I'm not the businessperson. I'm the global domain name manager. So the BU is looking at that. But I have no idea which way we'll go with that. >>CHRIS DISSPAIN: Does anyone else on the panel want to take it on? >>CAROLINE PERRIARD: I thought maybe we could -- I'm working for NESTLE is a big company. So it would be a good thing to ask. Let's we use the trademark dot NESTLE and sell it to a competitor or whatever, a third party. We cannot sell the domain name, because the domain name is nestle. So this is for me the first problem I see. >>CHRIS DISSPAIN: Okay. Anyone else? >>SUSANNE SKOV NILSSON: I would say speaking for rights owners that any new top-level domain is really a risk for the increase of conflicts, potential conflicts. So I would say that the fewer new TLDs we could get, the better. But looking at if we're getting them, I fail to see the very big need for extra geographical domains, because what do we get from those that we don't already have in the country code domains, for example? >>CHRIS DISSPAIN: Sure. >>SUSANNE SKOV NILSSON: My point would be, if you need new TLDs, maybe they should be for limited business areas, like we have now for dot AERO or dot museum, and where you could restrict the applicants to a certain area of business which would also reduce the -- the risk of conflicts for the rights owners. >>CHRIS DISSPAIN: Thank you. Those of you who think about whether you want to address the point of whether we should have as few new gTLDs as possible. >> It's interesting that you bring up the two utter failures in gTLDs. To me, a TLD is a question of identity and not functional use. So any TLD that brings to light some group that was previously having difficulty being seen is good. From a company perspective, it's largely a kind of branding. But for me, I would like to see TLDs that represent linguistic groups, people who have had a hard time being seen on the world stage. This is an excellent opportunity for them. To me, that's the most important thing that can happen. [ Applause ] >>CHRIS DISSPAIN: I'll get you. >>JOHN BERRYHILL: You know, I -- coming from the new world to the old world here, I feel like we're having a discussion as to whether or not we should colonize new continents. And I think a lot of the landowners in the old world may have felt, well, if we suddenly have more land, that makes the supply of land make the value of mine go down. But the best way, I think, to predict the future is, listen to exactly what I say and do the opposite. Because the Internet's not very good at conforming to top-down expectations and what we think will happen, what anyone might -- what anyone might think is a good idea. Before the Web became a dominant application of the Internet, we would have endless discussions about use net news groups and whether or not we should create a news group for discussing this topic or for discussing that topic. And the expectations were that if I created a space for a discussion, that people would want to discuss it. It didn't work out that way. So it doesn't conform to the expectations. And I think that in an environment where anyone is entitled to try, and where the barrier for entry is low, it's much better that we let Internet users sort out the winners and the losers rather than trying to impose, you know, my particular perspective or even the people in this room, however numerous we are, you know, we don't represent the potential of 7 billion Internet users. And I think only in an environment where people can try, and fail, will we find the ones that win. >>CHRIS DISSPAIN: (saying name) wanted to say something. >>J. SCOTT EVANS: As far as dot Yahoo!, we have a great space to jump into the space if that's something we wanted to do and drive our business. Maybe it should be dot Yagoogle or dot Microhoo. Anyway, whatever it may be, we might do. What I have not seen is any demonstration that there's a need for new TLDs, other than desire for people to make money, which is a wonderful thing. I like to make money as much as the next person. But I've never seen any need. And I work with a lot of trademark owners who argue to me, it seems to me the experiment has shown that it's been a failure for most new gTLDs, because they have not in any way been successful or in any way thwarted dot com. Dot com still remains the 800-pound gorilla. And why should we have to invest huge amounts of money to protect our brands when the new registries do not, because they take all of their trademarks and put them on a reserved list, along with ICANN. So they're out of the fight with cybersquatters because they don't have to deal with it. So they're frustrated, and they see hundreds. But there is also an argument -- and I have heard poisted (phonetic) -- that perhaps if the real estate is not as scares, then cybersquatting will lose incentive, because there will be so many different real estate areas to be in that it would be very difficult to get some sort of absolute monopoly on a name, because you could just move to the next dot KOM perhaps if something like that would come along. >>CHRIS DISSPAIN: Okay. Thank you.. >> Thank you. Coming from an at-large perspective, I would say that it is not what I would like to see as new TLD, but what the user would ask as a new TLD. And I am sure that the user now is searching for something that can help him to return to its community and its region. I would like to say that in our case, in the Arab region, we would be happy to see the dot Arab that has a good significance for our culture and business and many things. And in the Mediterranean region, dot med is also a very good possibility for us, as far as to group this community around. And I'm sure also that individual users and commercial users will be happy to have this new community. >>CHRIS DISSPAIN: Thank you. Seems to me that there's -- certainly from the names that have been mentioned and talking about the use of the names, the community-based cities, areas, et cetera, seem to have quite a lot of support. But I haven't -- there's not much -- certainly not much has been said about anything else. But then I suspect that's at least partly because people don't want to necessarily say what it is they're going to try and get. Yes, sir. >> Hello. My name is Philip Van Gelder from INDOM. I was thinking of causes like dot cancer and dot HIV and that sort of thing. >>CHRIS DISSPAIN: Yep. There was another one over here. And Amadeu as well. And a gentleman here. >> SIÔN JOBBINS: Siôn Jobbins, from dot CYM for the Welsh linguistic and cultural community. I think profit is certainly a motivation for a top-level domain. But that wouldn't be my main reason for applying for one. The main reason would be to try to promote the use of the Internet in different languages and different cultures. I think that's a very valid and important part of the Internet's use. And we've discussed how that's been happening across the years now. So certainly profit is important. I think that's a very valid and important part of Internet use. And we have discussed how that's been happening across the years now. So certainly profit is important. The viability with domain is important. But I think for me, more importantly, is to promote use. Especially in lesser used languages and cultures. And I think this is a very important part for the Internet to play. [ Applause ] >>CHRIS DISSPAIN: Thank you. And I think you win the prize for the first Welsh accent at ICANN meetings. So congratulations. >>AMADEU ABRIL i ABRIL: I have a request. The question is why we should have new TLDs? They have approve, but they would need a browser on the screen. If that's not possible now, could that be done later? >>CHRIS DISSPAIN: You want to pull up a browser on the screen. >>AMADEU ABRIL i ABRIL: Yeah, because I need someone to type a couple of things just to show an example. >>CHRIS DISSPAIN: Go talk to some technical people about that and we'll see what we can do. If we can do it. But not right now. >>AMADEU ABRIL i ABRIL: Right now, I defer to your knowledge of staging the section. >>CHRIS DISSPAIN: Not right now but we will get there. Yes, sir, do you not have a microphone? You just have a hand. The lady here. >> Hi, my name is (saying name) and I represent Tralliance and dot travel. And my comment is an analogy of, that the Internet is our current book store or library. And you don't go into a library or book store that doesn't have categories. And I consider these top-level domains to be the category that you are looking for information. The verticals. If you are looking for cars, that you go to dot auto or dot cars, et cetera. And I see it as a way to reduce the clutter, organize and have our end users find what they are looking for quickly and getting accurate information. >>CHRIS DISSPAIN: Thank you. [ Applause ] >>CHRIS DISSPAIN: It's coming. >>J. SCOTT EVANS: The IP community for years has wanted that type of structure put into place, because we have had the fewest problems in dot aero, dot coop, in the areas that do validation and make sure that the people who participate within the community actually deserve to be within the community. >>SUSAN KAWAGUCHI: For example, eBay dot travel, we couldn't qualify for. We aren't a travel agent. We do have a travel category on the site but I don't want to have to go out and enforce upon eBay dot travel, eBay dot fam, dot Africa, dot dem. I am fine with as many new gTLDs as that are allowed. The application goes through the application process. Don't expect the trademark owners to fund that in the sunrise period. >>ANTONY VAN COUVERING: May I? >>CHRIS DISSPAIN: I'm sorry. He has been waiting for a while so let him go first. >> (saying name) from CR domain. Well, the ccTLD have done a fantastic work in sustaining the global Internet. Countries like Brazil, like Germany -- >>CHRIS DISSPAIN: Australia. >> Australia, for example. So what would happen if somebody takes the name Brazil, for example. Wouldn't that go into collision course with dot BR? >>CHRIS DISSPAIN: Can we take that point to a question later on when we're going to talk about risks? Is that okay? >> Of course. >>CHRIS DISSPAIN: Okay. Thank you. >> And a great risk. >>ANTONY VAN COUVERING: Yeah, I would like to respond to the person from dot travel. I think you're right, of course. But I wish that all people were reasonable. I wish that they thought logically. I wish that they would make clever decisions. But they don't do that, and nor do they navigate in the way that you would wish them to. And I suspect that my colleagues here are not having a great deal of trouble with dot coop or dot travel because there are extremely few registrations in them and that might have something to do with the policies that are being put forward. And people are not terribly rational and they will navigate as they will. It is part of our job to respond and not to dictate. >>CHRIS DISSPAIN: Can I just pick up on a point that -- I'm sorry, I didn't get your name. I apologize. You talked about reeducating the users. How many -- think about how many names do we think we would need to have before we broke the constant dot com, I will look in dot com because it is will be there. Is there a number? Does it have to be a really large number to re-educate the Internet user? Because if they don't know it's there -- and clearly, the new ones that we have had so far, whilst some of them are existing and making money and nothing like are as big as the other ones. That's worth thinking about. One second, Kieren. >>SUSANNE SKOV NILSSON: I think that somebody mentioned the success or failure of a TLD. But how do you really measure that? Because I think that for a lot of the very general and open TLDs, we see a large number of registrations. But that's simply because the right owners feel compelled to go out and register their domains in order to protect their name. But they don't even -- they don't really register because they need the domain but simply to protect their rights. Whereas for the very limited domains like dot museum or dot aero, you may not have so many registrations but that's because only people who actually need the registrations will register. >>CHRIS DISSPAIN: I understand what you are saying, but hold on a second. You have got your rights protected if you have got a trademark. You can't seek to -- The purpose of the trademark is so that if someone breaches it, you have protection. The method of protection is you do something about it. But to seek to try and -- just because there are now massive greater things that can use your trademark because now you can register domain names whereas 20 years ago you couldn't, that's just something you have to deal with, isn't it? Why do we have to make a system that protects you when you are actually protected by having the trademark? >>J. SCOTT EVANS: You have to have a system that protects me because I represent 55 million users who come to my set a day and they don't like when a misspelling takes them to child pornography. They don't like it when they are asked to reaffirm their Yahoo! Mail account and their bank accounts are empty. They don't like it when they go to get their credit checked and they find out someone has bought a home. >>CHRIS DISSPAIN: But none of that is actually to do with domains -- >>J. SCOTT EVANS: But they are using our domain names out of our famous trademarks to redirect traffic to nefarious activities. And it's not something I am making up. You can read about it in the Wall Street Journal, the Financial Times, the London papers. And it happens to a segment of society that probably needs the help the most. They are the people who are unfamiliar with the Internet who have been given a computer by their children and told to do online banking, and they find themselves in a morass of paperwork and lawsuits. >>CHRIS DISSPAIN: Sure. >>J. SCOTT EVANS: And so we're looking out for the users who trust us to be the guardian of our brand, to make sure that when they go to something that bears our brand, they receive what they expect. >>CHRIS DISSPAIN: Okay. I'm going to take one more comment from the floor and then we are going to move on because we have time constraints. Yes, sir. >> The public service television -- telephone network still has the long distance codes that it was set up with. So how about we reserve dot moon and some of the geographies that might be relevant in a hundred years? >>CHRIS DISSPAIN: Okay. Yeah. Kieren, one more comment from Rob, and then we do have to move on, honestly. Here. Sorry, did you have an order or something? Okay. In that case I will do two more comments and then we will move on. >> This is -- >>CHRIS DISSPAIN: Maybe three, maybe four. >> This is (saying name) from dot (saying name) association. I would like to know the opinion of all the people of the whole, and also from the ICANN representatives about the idea of worldwide new domain; okay? For all the families in the world. >>CHRIS DISSPAIN: Can I suggest you send an e-mail to Kieren, and ask him to ask everybody for you, and I'm sure he will respond. Because we actually don't have time to take an opinion poll right now. Rob had a question here and James. Is that you, James? James had a question at the back. Kieren. James and then Rob and then that's it. >>JAMES SENG: Hi, James Seng here. I'm going to ask a very obvious question, or rather just an observation that I'm kind of disappointed that no one points out any IDN top-level domains. I was hoping that more people would propose some in this round of bidding. >>CHRIS DISSPAIN: Thank you, James. Rob. >>ROB HALL: Chris, I think one of the questions you are trying to get to, you started out initially is how many will there be. And I think you hit upon something that everybody is being very quiet about their pet domain because those like dot family came out and said they are going to get it, you are going to have someone else come out now and try to get it, just to divvy it up or to be able to bid for the right to it. I think it also depends on the barriers and price points. So if it's 50 grand I am going to apply for dot rob or dot hall or maybe give my friend dot kinderis as a vanity thing. You are also going to have companies use domains for other things other than the web as you suggested. So you are going to have companies use them for e-mail and things we haven't even thought of yet. Then that's the beauty of the Internet. And J., to your comment about dot Yahoo!, I assure you I am big enough yahoo to go after dot yahoo if you don't. So I think you are going to see companies like yours and eBay absolutely go after their TLD, and they should if they want to protect it, especially the more generic ones like dot apple. Because although you have a trademark in a specific country and a specific area of business, there's not to say that other yahoo's don't exist on the planet as well. >>CHRIS DISSPAIN: We are going to take the next question and these questions are wide questions so if you have got comments that you still need to make, you can make them in the other questions, too. So the second question we are going to move on to is what impact do new gTLDs have on the Internet now and into the future? And I believe there's a video. (video playing). >> New gTLDs that are intuitive may make Internet searching easier and reduce the dependency on search engines. >> (inaudible) in the beginning to search engines and get used to many extensions, and start using them as facilitators in a yellow page way of search. (Video ends.) >>CHRIS DISSPAIN: Thank you. So let me get to my notes. Gee, they are short, aren't they? So I'm actually going to ask a couple of people on our panel to address the question what impact do new gTLDs have on the Internet now and in the future. Perhaps from a brand owners point of view. Susan, do you want to take it first? >>SUSAN KAWAGUCHI: Well, I do see a need for something to replace dot com. When we roll out a new brand, we are frequently hunting for the dot com. We can get it in most of the top 50 extensions, but the dot com is always the first thing we check to rule out, no, we can't use this. Come up with a new idea. So if somebody came up with a viable option to replace that would have the same impact as dot com, yes, we would be all for that. And maybe we need to see a lot or many, several, how many you want to count, new gTLDs come out. But when I see the thousands that are predicted, I shudder because I know I am going to be either registering or enforcing. Either way I am going to be doing a lot of work and a lot of money. >>CHRIS DISSPAIN: I know you are not going to answer this question with any official, because we are just talking hypothetically here. Wouldn't you, couldn't you spend some of your marketing dollars, if you registered dot eBay as a TLD, couldn't you spend some of your marketing dollars on positioning dot eBay so that your clients knew that your new products were always going to appear in dot eBay? >>SUSAN KAWAGUCHI: I see that as a viable option. I don't know what the marketing and branding group is going to do. That's totally their decision. I also see that as a viable option from a security point of view. If we manage the registry and we don't rely on all the country codes, we still keep eBay dot DE, eBay dot CH. >>CHRIS DISSPAIN: Dot AU as well, thing. >>SUSAN KAWAGUCHI: It's a redirect to Germany dot eBay. We control the registry. We have a lot more security. >>CHRIS DISSPAIN: Okay. Can I ask Susan the same question? >>SUSANNE SKOV NILSSON: I very much agree with Susanne, actually, on her views. >>CHRIS DISSPAIN: Caroline. >>CAROLINE PERRIARD: I feel the consumer would be a bit confused if you had too many new extensions, especially generic names. Like if you want to communicate on nutrition and you want to communicate on bioproducts, okay, you have dot bio, great. But someone is using organic and you have dot organics, and how the consumer is going to choose if the consumer is typing whatever, dot bio, dot organic -- >>CHRIS DISSPAIN: On that basis you would abolish at least 70% of the brands of yogurt because it's impossible to know to choose what yogurt to buy (inaudible) any of them. Isn't it the same thing? Consumers are confused all the time, aren't they? >>CAROLINE PERRIARD: Probably. >>CHRIS DISSPAIN: Isn't that how you guys make money? >>CAROLINE PERRIARD: You have even more to choose from. If you have to choose the first part before the dot and then the second part, you have two choices to make. >>J. SCOTT EVANS: I keep hearing collapse and everything when somebody makes a dig at trademarks unless it's your trademark. I have registries and registrars call me furious because when they were an absolute nobody they really didn't care. But when all of a sudden they had skin in the game and it's their consumer calling them because they thought they were updating their account and what they did was get rid of a domain name that's very valuable to them and now they have to go through a court case to recover it, trademarks were important for everyone. And those of how are thinking of starting new gTLDs, one day you hope your trademark is the, to misuse a trademark, the Coca-Cola or Rolls Royce of trademarks. So be careful what you ask for, and in that vein I want to plug that tomorrow at 2:00 the intellect property constituency is taking the first hour of its program to offer to anyone who is interested in starting a new TLD a program that just reviews -- writes protection mechanisms that reviews other TLDs when they are launched. So we can all understand issues that have been come upon by applicants when they started this process, we are not telling you what to do or how to do it, we are just trying to inform you how it's done and what pitfalls lay out there so we can extend the hand and work cooperatively to assist you to have a successful business and to protect brand owners in protecting their brands. >>CHRIS DISSPAIN: Yes, go on. >>JOHN BERRYHILL: I was going to say, you will be finishing that at 3:00 or 4:00? 3:00. At ten minutes after 3:00, I will be holding a seminar for people who want to secure domain names, and I will teach you the five fastest jurisdictions in which you can obtain a registered trademark so that you can then exploit the mechanisms that J. will be describing. I really hope, I hope five years from now I can come to you and complain about the burden of protecting the revenue that I reap from 55 million users. I was in Versailles palace over the weekend, and my wife said, "Isn't this a wonderful place?" And I said oh, but the upkeep must have been terrible. I wouldn't want to live here. So I hope we can all share your burdensome day, J. >>CHRIS DISSPAIN: I am going to take one comment then ask a question. >> (saying name) from Australia. In fact, I am Chris's chairman. Since when did great and famous business names become generic? Would they fit into the definition of generic names? >>CHRIS DISSPAIN: Well, that's an interesting question. And I didn't say that because he is my Chair. That's an interesting question. >>J. SCOTT EVANS: I think there has always been in this debate a misunderstanding. People would say, well, that's a generic term. A generic term in the world of intellect property is a word that describes or is the product. So auto for automobile is a generic term. Auto for software that images brain surgery neuro scans is not. That is known as an arbitrary term, such as Apple for computer software. It is a dictionary term. It is generic for Apples. It is descriptive for Apple sellers, but it is a famous trademark for Apple computers. So you get lost in the nomenclature and how it goes around, but that is a very important distinction. And I tell clients all the time when they pick marks, if you are going to be using the Internet as your number one source of advertising, don't pick a dictionary term. Because Apple has to compete with the Washington apple growers, give a teacher an apple for teacher day. So your add words and key word spins are going to be much higher because you have to compete with dictionary terms. >>CHRIS DISSPAIN: Thank you. I will throw this in and, Antony, I will ask you to talk about it. Apparently the estimate for Fortune 500 companies is that they spend around half a million U.S. dollars a year on domain protection. That's not all of them. That's each. >>J. SCOTT EVANS: That's hugely low. >>CHRIS DISSPAIN: That's hugely low? Okay. So do you want to start with that and see where we will go? >>ANTONY VAN COUVERING: Absolutely, I would like to change the subject because although trademark concerns are interesting, especially for people who own brands, I really don't think they get to the point of what new gTLDs will do to the Internet in the future and what impact they can have. >>CHRIS DISSPAIN: Sure. >>ANTONY VAN COUVERING: We heard that IDNs were brought up. I think that's an interesting case. Everything I know about the Internet says everyone in this room doesn't know anything. That the only way you learn about what people want is by seeing what they do. And so to me, the biggest impact this set of TLDs could have is to give people a space to vote with their clicks, so to speak. And I certainly hope we see that. And I note, by the way, that there are many jurisdictions in top-level domains in the world where brand owners don't register names. I am not familiar with very many names in Zimbabwe, for instance. So in the end, you end up registering names where you do business or might potentially do business and you begin to ignore the other ones. So from the trademark perspective, I certainly hope that we have enough that this just begins to dilute the problem for you. >>CHRIS DISSPAIN: Can we throw this open to the floor now? And I don't just want to talk about trademarks. There have got to be other trademarks that new gTLDs are going to have. Is it going to change users' experience of the net? Is it going to make searching -- is it going to change searching? Gentleman over here. Is it going to change the way you search? Are we going to search -- who knows? >> Yes, it's going to change the way cities work. It's going to enable people to connect with one another. It's going to enable the world to find cities. New York City, London, Paris, smaller cities. Thank you. >>CHRIS DISSPAIN: Can I ask you a question? May I -- >> Absolutely. >>CHRIS DISSPAIN: It's NYC; right? >> Yes. >>CHRIS DISSPAIN: Why NYC? >> That particular? Why not New York City or -- >>CHRIS DISSPAIN: Yeah. The Big Apple. >> Well, I think it's short, descriptive, memorable. It's a good domain name. >>CHRIS DISSPAIN: Okay. Good. Anyone else? Yes. Gentleman over here. >> Just to try and answer your question, I'm thinking when it changed the way people can access domain names, are we suggesting that we open up all the domain names to everybody? Currently we have got about 160 million domain names. Now you are talking about opening up a thousand, 2,000 extensions. Is this going to be an exclusive club for just people who can afford to run registries as the person from eBay was saying, or is everybody going to be able to chip in? It sounds like it's going to be a bit exclusive, and it sounds like if I wanted to chip in with Rob and buy Adrian an extension, I might have to -- it might be a bit difficult for me because I won't be able to afford to run the registry. So what are we doing here? Are we reinventing the wheel? Are we trying to open up the right side of the system now, now that we think the left side is saturated? >>CHRIS DISSPAIN: I'm sure the existing registries will be only too happy to discuss with you operating your new gTLD on your behalf. Rob? You just want to say yes to that? >>ROB HALL: No. I want to answer your question, Chris. I think one of the fundamental changes that will occur as we get new TLDs regardless of what they are is people's perception. I think someone touched on it earlier, that right now com is the dominant one. And I have heard theories of if we get a thousand new ones, or 2,0000 new ones, com will still be dominant one because there will be too many. I believe the opposite. I believe most of the world now believes, they have heard of com, maybe net and org, the other TLDs, info, coop, and museum. You still say dot name to someone and they look at you like what is that? A lot of software doesn't accept it, even, as a valid TLD. I think what will change as we roll out the next level and get a thousand or 2,000 or hundreds of new TLDs is people around the world will realize there is a difference and there are such things as other new TLDs. And I think that consumer behavior and that individual behavior will start to change towards TLDs. And we can spend all day predicting what that will mean and the outcome, but I agree with my friends on the panel that we just don't know what that will -- what ultimately will come of that ten years down the road. But one thing I am confident of is as we roll them out, individual behavior on the Internet will change realizing hey, there's more than just dot com out there, whether it makes dot com more or less valuable is a huge debate. I personally think less as people realize how many other TLDs. The country codes have been doing a good job of this, but I think we will see a vast change in software and how people think and behave with new TLDs. >>CHRIS DISSPAIN: Thank you. Khaled and then I have got Adrian, I have got a gentleman at the back. >> I would like to escape from the commercial side of thinking and return back to the user, because, in fact, this new gTLD thing will give a new space where it will have multilingual and multicultural content and presence of users all around the world. And having focused only on commercial side and protecting trademark and intellect property, it's not only a fair thinking for the user, which is the basic thinking of the Internet. And let's say that domain name is, first of all, an identity before becoming property of any mark. So let's preserve identity of communities, which is right. [ Applause ] >>CHRIS DISSPAIN: Mr. Kinderis. Sorry, Mr. Dot Kinderis. >>ADRIAN KINDERIS: Yes, thanks, Rob. Thanks. Adrian Kinderis. So what one of my concerns is, is that we have talked about with your thousands of new TLDs and let the market dictate who are going to be winners and who are going to be losers, my concern is when we do get losers, there are lots of companies out there building businesses exclusively online, and developing brands that are reflective of the name space that they are in, ending in dot com for example. If I had dot Adrian, and was selling domains under that and dot Adrian went under -- it's a thought I don't really want to do, but all those businesses all of a sudden find out my TLD now doesn't exist. So I think you just need to be careful and there should be some caution about just throwing the door willy-nilly and what happens in the event that one of these registries falls over and goes bankrupt. And does that mean all the businesses hanging off have to suffer. >>CHRIS DISSPAIN: Good point. Gentlemen at the back. Sorry, I want to remind everybody to say their name. >> Thanks, Chris. My name is (saying name) and I would like to just try to call out and have the conversation about Internet users themselves. So while there is a lot of discussion about how many TLDs we should have and what has been a success and what hasn't been a success, I think it's important to consider traffic and what are people actually typing into browsers. Why do users type in dot com why do they type in dot DE, why do they not type in dot biz or dot museum? I am hesitant to believe that it's a lack of their understanding or their desire to have other segmentation in the Internet for information. Alternatively, I think that we have tested new TLDs, and I think you can understand based upon looking at traffic, based upon looking at the number of domain names that actually have active content, that these TLDs have been a failure. And thus, what is the real driving factor in needing a thousand new TLDs? If we're not listening to the people actually typing domain names in, I think we are missing the point here. >>CHRIS DISSPAIN: Thank you. I have one at the back, Bernie, and then I have Bertrand, and then I have got Ron. And I have got Amadeu, of course. Who is calling me? >>J. SCOTT EVANS: Right here. >>CHRIS DISSPAIN: I'm sorry. You are in the queue. Okay. Bernie and Jeff. >>BERNARD TURCOTTE: Thank you. Bernard Turcotte. Interesting discussion, but we seem to be forgetting what has driven a lot of Internet is the affordability and the flexibility to let it try to do things. We have worked with a very small set and a lot of constraints, and guess what? Some of them have really not worked out. But I mean if we're really trying to look at what can happen, maybe we have to expect that, you know, the results will be proportional with how affordable it is so people with really neat ideas but maybe not a lot of money can go out and try these. Now, I know it makes the IP lawyers shudder, but that's the reality of what the Internet has been. And we have been trying to pick winners and constrain it in about 80 different ways to make people happy. If you want the success of what the Internet does, then you have to let it do what it does. Which means you make it available and you let people play with it. >>CHRIS DISSPAIN: Thanks, Bernie. [ Applause ] >>CHRIS DISSPAIN: We have -- Kieren, one here. Bertrand. He has got a microphone. >>BERTRAND DE LA CHAPELLE: Hi, this is Bertrand De La Chapelle. First point in relation to what was said earlier about what happens when a TLD, a manager disappears and so on, I am incredibly surprised and I must say it is a bit saddening that with all the speeches that we have about the main mission of ICANN, as being -- ensuring the stability and security of the Internet, the unruly proliferation of new TLDs is one of the major threats in terms of stability because of the very comment that was made before. Millions of people are going to register their domain name build their business on this. And you really believe it is the best service we can make to the security and stability of the Internet to allow the framework to have some that fail, some that don't fail? I don't believe so. That's the first point. The second point is that there is a great capacity to make distinctions between different types of TLDs. And I am afraid that at the moment, the framework is again trying to find a one-size-fits-all procedure for introducing all types of TLDs. And there is no reason, really, to do this. And the last point is in all of the discussions that emerged yesterday in the GAC GNSO discussions and earlier, there is an obvious category that is emerging, or two actually, which are glTLDs that include country names, actually, because IDN ccTLDs are country names and are gTLDs. Cities, regions. And there's the other dimension which is linguistic and cultural TLDs. And many of the delicate (inaudible) issues can be resolved probably by addressing it as a category of cultural and linguistic TLDs. And I would suggest we explore the benefit and the social utility of those two categories as a special case. >>CHRIS DISSPAIN: Thank you. I have Susanne. >>SUSANNE SKOV NILSSON: I think that the impact on the users will not be very big. Because I think that users will not go to -- if they want to buy a car, they won't look particularly under dot car. They will look under the car they want to buy and then dot com, or they will use one of the search engines. And I think the search engines will still be the major -- the preferred way of finding the Web site you're actually looking for. I don't think that dividing on the new gTLDs will make it that much easier for the user. And that's why I think it's still back to the commercial point of view, and you will see a lot of businesses actually having to again file to protect their brand or just why can't they just file under the current. If you are not a brand owner or you're a new brand owner, then find the right domain name under the existing TLDs. I'm not sure that 100 new TLDs will make it easier for the user to find you. >>CHRIS DISSPAIN: Okay. Jeff. Then I have -- I put you, Amadeu, then Khaled, then Amadeu, then Alex. >>JEFF NEUMAN: This is Jeff Neuman. I'm just going to make a quick point. I think nobody in this room is qualified to make a determination as to whether a TLD has failed or succeeded. And I would like, for the record, to clarify that point. Because I've heard reasons that, you know, we're a failure because you guys can't monetize our traffic. Sorry. Or, we're a failure because we don't have the numbers that dot com has. I will tell you that there are hundreds of thousands, if not millions -- over a million dot biz addresses and businesses out there that actually do use your name. In fact, the local hardware store in my community uses an address called Viennapaint.biz. I don't think they believe the TLD's a failure. So for anyone here to call any TLD, even a museum or an AERO, a failure is just missing the point completely. [ Applause ] >>CHRIS DISSPAIN: Khaled. >>KHALED FATTAL: Thank you, Chris. Khaled Fattal. I will be speaking here wearing different hats. And I think, with your permission, Chris, I would like to help redirect. The question that has been posed for this particular session perhaps should be reworded to say whom are these new gTLDs going to serve? And this is where I factor in the element of not just ASCII TLDs, but I also factor in IDN gTLDs, whether they happen today, next month, or in two years. James Seng made a very good point earlier on which is absolutely relevant. And I think we sort of get carried away in the moment about looking at current experiences. And current experiences, and visions from current experiences. But I challenge most to actually look at, when we talk about globalization and internationalization of the function of ICANN and the Internet, et cetera, et cetera, the next billion or 2 billion users are not going to come from the English or the ASCII Internet. They're going to come from those regions. And unless we re-ask the question, whom are we going to serve, is this process of the new gTLDs a mechanism to raise new funds? Is it to try to create new opportunities for selling more domain names? Is it to create more possibilities for companies who have to go out and do defensive registrations? So I personally know the answer. But I think it needs to be a well-tabled question and a challenge for all of us so at least we keep our eye on the ball. Thank you very much. >>CHRIS DISSPAIN: Thank you. While the microphone's going to Amadeu, antony, and then after that, Alex. >>ANTONY VAN COUVERING: So I don't think dot biz is a failure, but I can name some that are. Dot YT, dot WF, dot PF. I am personally saddened and disappointed that the representative from France to the GAC would stand up and say that he's saddened and disappointed, because these are all TLDs that serve as geographical community that's under the control of France that are not even open. They are dormant. So, personally, I find the comments about how we should conduct ourselves freely on the Internet, well, saddening and disappointing. >>CHRIS DISSPAIN: Thank you. Amadeu. >>AMADEU ABRIL I ABRIL: Okay, I'm Amadeu Abril i Abril. A disclaimer. I have not been working for dot cat for the last year and a half, so I am not just claiming my success at all. Now, I just wanted to show you some data. But as it's impossible to have a browser on the Web, we would need probably something like a technician or somebody who knows the Internet. Let me just explain that to you. You can do that at home. It's funny. Go to Google, and in the case, you put site, colon, dot cat, for instance. See how many results, how many pages are indexed by Google as belonging to dot cat domains. 9,400,000, something like that. It changes each hour, but over 9 million. Now do the same with all the other sTLDs or gTLDs, dot biz, whatever. You will be surprised. Now, do the next thing. Go to preferences, say, search in language Catalan. Do that for dot com, dot info, dot net, dot org -- sorry, dot org, not dot info -- and dot ES. The only ones over one million, dot EDU and dot info are the only ones close to half a million. All the rest are below one hundred thousand. The result is, since the appearance of dot cat two years ago, there are nearly double content in Catalan on the Internet. You know why? Because this filled up, people realized they have a place in the first division, not just in the second division. That special language. We're all bilingual in different languages. We all speak Catalan and Spanish or Catalan and French or Catalan and Italian, and sometimes some other languages. So, for these kind of communities, it's just an example, if you provide the right resource, managed the right way, this boosts contents, which is what the user wants. They don't want to buy domains. There's only 30,000 domains. But there's huge content, new content, in that language for people that like using their language. That's important. Then you can export that to real communities that exist offline. And they have a common life online. People tend to go to places that are -- you know, that use the languages they understand. I don't go very often to the, let's say, Korean district of the Internet, because I can't read a single word of Korean. It's my fault, I know. And I know that's much better than the things -- the places I go normally. But I cannot, because I don't speak this language. So there is an online community that uses that language and goes normally there. This one we should ask about trait branches or families or whatever. I'm not saying it's not. But is there a common life online that, you know, there's a purpose online that we serve not offline. Yes. Why not, then, go for it? It will work. Last thing. Dot cat only had 85 defensive registrations. Why? Tight control on pirates. There are some of them, but they're very marginal. Two UDRP cases, only one of them being a real cybersquatting, the other one being a contractual dispute with a terminated dealer that was also a licensee for the trademark. So it was not a clear case. So the question here is, this is just for minority languages, so on, but you can export that to many other communities, with (inaudible) or wherever, where there's a real interest in real common activities online, you will boost the content for these people. Okay? >>CHRIS DISSPAIN: Thank you, Amadeu. [ Applause ] >>CHRIS DISSPAIN: Okay. This is the last -- this is the last comment on this section. Alex. >>ALEJANDRO PISANTY: Thank you, Chris, and everybody. I think that Amadeu has been the first speaker to actually address your question of what's going to be the effect of new gTLDs on the Internet with one answer. Otherwise, we don't know whether the users will be more confused, less confused, need more classification, need less classification. I would add one more thing, building upon Bertrand De La Chapelle's intervention about concerns for stability and security. One very specific concern for stability is that there should be an assumption that in the process for -- in the next round for new gTLDs, players find -- are ready to find the results final and let the experiment start. And that means unless there's something really outrageous out there, which I doubt, renouncing the recourse to litigation, litigation in these processes is used politically as well as for its own purposes. It's used to inflict costs and bloodshed and a number of other nasty things. And it only clogs the process, makes it -- that's what makes it so doubtful for proponents to be successful. And in the end, it clogs the evolution of the gTLD system. It clogs the experiments, because everybody has to freeze until it's solved. >>CHRIS DISSPAIN: Thank you, Alex. We're going to watch this -- the video in a second. But Bertrand has reminded me that I did say he could have a re-rebut- -- whatever it is, a right of reply. >>BERTRAND DE LA CHAPELLE: No, I couldn't eschew a right of reply. It's a very fair question, and I'm very happy that you raise it because this fits exactly in (inaudible) of what I'm saying. What we're doing is try to optimize the management and the social and economic value of the TLDs. You may know, as you apparently follow that very closely, that France has launched a process for reviewing the management of its various TLDs. We are blessed with a large number of them. But defining what the appropriate policy in terms of the number, the differentiation, is typically a policy question. And the only thing I would like to see is that the debate on the general policy about gTLDs is balancing as well the social and economic value creation. >>CHRIS DISSPAIN: We're going to move on to question three before we run out of time. What's the biggest risk that new gTLDs represent? (Video.) >> As the owner of a well-known brand in the U.K. that happens to be a not-for-profit, I'm afraid that unrestricted new gTLDs open to anyone without adequate measures to protect the rights of others will become virtual dustbins, full of domains owned by speculators and of little use to anyone. We can't afford to register in gTLD after gTLD. >> (inaudible) there's an impression that there's a new gold rush, and inevitably, a risk of lawlessness. This could lead brand owners to turn their attention to the registries, or even ICANN itself. Hopefully, we have all learned from our past experiences, and trademark owners, too, will view this as an opportunity rather than a risk. >>CHRIS DISSPAIN: Okay. Do we have -- Kurt, is Kurt here? >>KURT PRITZ: Over here. >>CHRIS DISSPAIN: Do you want to -- Kurt, you or who should we -- we should start talking about what the risks are from a security point of view, spamming and that sort of stuff. It's definitely not you. No. Just thought I'd ask. Dave Piscitello, is he here? No? Go. >>J. SCOTT EVANS: That is one of the reasons we are offering this workshop tomorrow, is because that is a real reality that could happen to businesses. They can get thrown into litigation, even with the best of intentions, as some of the TLDs in the past have, because they're doing something new and speculative that's never been done before. And so in starting up, because capital is so tight, and if you're working with venture capitalists, it is so closely watched over, you don't want to be spending your money on fighting a lawsuit with a trademark owner or fighting a lawsuit, because the day is coming when some aggressive trademark owner is going to take the position that either ICANN, the registry, or the registrar knew that this was a possibility, were on clear notice, because it has clearly been happening for years, facilitated it, and therefore you are liable as a facilitator for vicarious liability. So that's the reason you need to think about these things, not just from brand owner perspective, but from your own business perspective. >>CHRIS DISSPAIN: Okay. Antony and then John -- or John. >>JOHN BERRYHILL: I think Jeff Neuman can shed some light on this, that prior to the launch of dot biz, Sun Microsystems had written to both ICANN and to NeuLevel threatening that the word "sun" belonged exclusively and solely to them, and threatened even before the launch of the registry that they were going to sue ICANN and NeuLevel if they did not get the word "sun." And getting back to your point about using fanciful marks, I think that's very important for companies. But I think that we have also reached a point -- you can look at -- this morning from WIPO, there was a decision with an Italian shipping company named "Decal" who had filed a UDRP complaint against someone using "decal" to sell decals, the stickers. The unfortunate thing with some of these policies that you're promoting is that the domainers have learned to play the trademark game, too. During the launch of dot EU, for the months leading up to that, Benelux trademark office was clogged with trademark applications for every generic word under the sun, and including "sun," to the point where, you know, I think we need to get back to looking at the law as a mechanism to remedy a harm. You have harmed me. I am going to seek a remedy for it. The way that law does not work is, I have a preemptive right. Yes, if I'm a mark owner, I do have to redress wrongs that have been done to me. But simply because we have a technical system that allows you to assert a prospective injury as a reason for constraining the operation of others is just not the way that law in most countries has operated since LEVITICUS. [ Applause ] . >>CHRIS DISSPAIN: Going to get antony, Susanne, and Khaled, and then I am going to go to the floor. If people have comments -- it's not -- there's a grave danger here of this discussion becoming solely and only about trademarks. And it's not only about trademarks. There are other security issues out there as well. So we've got some comments from the floor. >>ANTONY VAN COUVERING: I will happily change the subject. I think that the largest risk that we face in this process is that we really don't have a lot of space for things to fail. And, hence, as an experiment, it's not terribly useful. And it means that the process is full of, quote, unquote, safeguards that are there to prevent failure. This really cuts down on the different kind of business models that are out there, especially with the high fee, where you have to seek funding, you simply are not going to get a lot of people who are able to experiment very widely. And we've already seen there are only a few tranches of kinds of TLDs that are being proposed. So I would be very happy to see some way, perhaps from the ICANN staff, to allow a transition of names, something -- I don't know what the answer is, but we need to find a way for things to fail or else we're not really going to have a good experiment. >>CHRIS DISSPAIN: Fair enough. >>SUSANNE SKOV NILSSON: Your comment before about pre-rights and enforce the makes me say also that we need to -- or I would hope that new TLD owners would actually look very much into some efficient UDRP proceedings for the new top-level domains, because this is essential if we're going to deal with all the conflicts that will necessarily follow from the new TLDs. And I would say that also, even looking at the current UDRP proceedings, which I think have the problem that the trademark owner, right owner, will quite easily file a UDRP proceeding and also win it, but the only cost is actually to the rights owner, and with the new development on paper click portals and so on, infringers will actually register a lot of domains, they will make money off of it until they are asked to deliver it back by the UDRP proceedings. But it will not have cost them anything. They will have made money in the meantime. And the only cost is actually on the trademark owner. So I would like to see a reform also on the UDRP area. >>CHRIS DISSPAIN: I'll let you respond and then I'm going to the floor. I think there is a legal issue with arbitration proceedings making money awards. But -- >>JOHN BERRYHILL: Yeah. There are protection mechanisms and there are protection mechanisms. For instance, in the rollout of dot info and dot biz was the first opportunity that we had to see a difference between different protection mechanisms. Now, in dot info, there was a sunrise where presentation of an official certificate gave one a presumptive right to a domain name. In dot biz, there was a proceeding where one could register one's right that would allow one to bring a proceeding if a domain name was registered. What's particularly interesting is that somewhere -- I think Mike Palage knows the number -- somewhere around 65 to 80% of the dot biz proceedings were found in favor of the domain name registrant because so many trademark owners assert preemptive global rights in, you know, generic words that people are using generically. With the large-scale PPC participants, one of the things that we have now operating at the application level is that you can eliminate all of those infringing domain names tomorrow, but the Internet service providers, at least in the United States, -- if someone is a Time Warner subscriber or an AOL subscriber or a Verizon subscriber, all of the nonexistent domain names resolve to parked pages anyway, so that, you know, you can say that, well, some cybersquatter has 100 infringing domain names. But if he doesn't have them, then, effectively, Verizon has all of them, Verizon has every geometric possibility of your trademark resolving to a parked page. >>CHRIS DISSPAIN: Thank you. Okay. We're going to the first comment from the floor. Kieren, you know where you're going. Yep. Young Eum. >> Young Eum Lee from dot KR. I would just like to actually summarize the -- some of the points made earlier in pointing out some of the risks involved with new gTLDs, which is, first of all, that there could be a failure. And even though you devise a mechanism to account for the failure, the fact is that a registrant would have registered a domain, would have announced it, and all of a sudden, the top-level domain is not there anymore. And your comment about being redirected to a parked page doesn't -- I don't think it would apply if you -- I don't know -- maybe to an -- your ISP. But -- I mean, you might not get anywhere. And the other thing is, from a user's point of view, I think -- I mean, coming up with new TLDs that have a certain -- a number of significant community base I think does make sense. For example, cities and regions and cultures and languages. However, I am really worried when we talk about thousands of new gTLDs, because it would, I mean, really, really confuse the user. And now when I try to find a domain, I go to -- I type in a certain domain, dot com, or dot KR. But, I mean, with thousands of new gTLDs, I think I'll just go to a search engine. And a third point is that -- I'm sorry -- third point is that it actually may create an exclusive community or exclusive group of companies or whatever that has the financial means and the support to create that top-level domain. And, actually, what other people have been talking about in terms of people not having their space in the Internet, having their voice, I don't think that -- that would apply in -- if we were going to be having -- I mean, the current mechanism that we have. >>CHRIS DISSPAIN: Thank you, yum. Can I get a show of hands of people who want to speak so we know where they are. We've got one, two, three, four -- Kieren, are you paying attention? Okay. So I'm going to -- Maria, you're going to manage that side. Kieren, you -- sir. >> Good day, my name is Dan warner from fabulous.com. I'm a strategist, so I think about these things quite a bit. And I think one of the biggest risks that are actually -- that actually needs to be addressed is the barrier of entry risks in association to these gTLDs. Right now, you have -- when you talk about barriers of entry, you really have financial, technical, marketing, and competitive barrier of entry risks. And for someone new that's trying to come into the industry or to launch a new gTLD, one of the marketing risks are that you're going to introduce so many of them that it just becomes static to the market and that you're trying to compete not only against existing brands, but completely -- 200 new brands at the same time. And if you happen to be dot com, you laugh your way all the way to the bank, because there's going to be almost no chance of being competitive if you actually set them up for failure by launching too many at the same time. The -- when you talk about barriers of entry, who has the least amount of barrier of entry in order to get a new gTLD? It is the existing registries and registry services that already exist. They have the technology infrastructure; they have the marketing infrastructure and experience; they have the financial means. What would happen if VeriSign applies for dot chat, dot blog, dot shop? You think, as the owner of dot com, that they're going to really give it their competitive all to actually replace themselves? So what kind of regulation are you going to put into place? How are you going to keep the existing registries and registry services that benefit from, you know, shadow registries, if you would, from actually dominating the new space and really introduce competition? >>CHRIS DISSPAIN: That's a very good question. Anybody want to answer it? Kurt. Sorry, I didn't mean you to answer the question. I meant you wanted to make a comment. Okay. So did anybody want to -- anyone at all with any response to -- Jeff, you've got a response? Kieren, microphone to Jeff, please. >>JEFF NEUMAN: I've been hearing a lot of talk lately about the existing registries, you know, reaping all the benefit. But I will tell you that if you look out in the hallway here, you're going to find a lot of new companies and a lot of registrars and others that are entering into the, quote, back-end registry market. So to just assume that there's -- you know, that the existing registries are going to get a boon, you haven't basically looked at all the booths out there. There is competition, there will be a lot more competition. And I think that that's something that people have failed to recognize. I also did want to make a point, I think it's important, too. And I want to acknowledge the work of ICANN staff, especially Patrick Jones, who's been working on a registry failover policy and has been working the registries. And I think we would be remiss not to talk about that, because it almost sounds like from listening to people in this room that registries are going to fail and nobody's thought about it. People have thought about it. There is a plan that's being circulated. It's been worked on very hard by the registries. That's going to be soon to come out. Hopefully, soon. We'll have to ask Patrick about that. But a lot of work went into it, a lot of thought. And certainly we want community input into that. We shouldn't be afraid of failure, but we should think of mechanisms to address that failure if it does happen. >>CHRIS DISSPAIN: Yes. Okay. Thank you. [ Applause ] >>CHRIS DISSPAIN: Now, Kurt, you wanted to make a point. >>KURT PRITZ: Well, that was my comment exactly. And I wanted to address the comment earlier about registry failure. So Jeff, for once, has complemented me instead of contradicted. >>CHRIS DISSPAIN: Thank you. >>KURT PRITZ: But certainly there can't be innovation without some risk and some risk of failure. So that needs to be taken into account, will all the risk be mitigated? No. But there's this registry failover program, for one, that provides for escrow of data, mechanisms and agreements in order to transport data over to a succeeding registry, and mechanisms for awarding that data. So that's been anticipated to a certain extent. But the risk is real. >>CHRIS DISSPAIN: Okay. Can we take another question from this side of the floor. There were some hands up over there. Maria. There's a hand up at the back there. >> Thank you. (saying name) from Egypt. But, actually, I'm based in France, three years and a half, and I'm studying I.P. and domain name law. In addition to what has been said about the protection of I.P. rights, I -- and the creation of new gTLDs, I just have -- I'm afraid, actually, that by creating new gTLDs for certain communities, certain parts of the population, more -- the more we favor the diversity, I guess the more we create a larger risk for the diversion of certain countries. Actually, we have in France a demand for a version of domain name (saying name) the northern part of France. I guess the French government won't approve and won't have the same response like we have for dot cat. So moreover, actually, it's not only the -- not only it's not the role of ICANN to determine the criteria of creating new gTLDs for certain communities; it's not actually -- ICANN doesn't have the legitimate to do such a thing. Thank you. >>CHRIS DISSPAIN: Thank you. I have a comment at the back. >> My name's Mike Rodenbaugh, I represent the business constituency on the GNSO Council. But I'm speaking personally. To the surprise of some, I'm sure, in this room, I won't talk about trademark issues. I'll talk about some of my other favorite topics in order of personal preference: Spam, phishing, malware distribution, child porn, all the other bad things that the domain names are used for via Fast Flux, DNS exploits, or otherwise. And, you know, today, to follow on what Dan Warner and Jeff were talking about about, you know, multiple new registry operators coming into the market, yes, that sounds really good. You know, we only have ten or 12 of them today. And certainly that doesn't really make sense in a global economy. It would be nice to have more. But the fact is that only a few of them really -- and to their great credit, you know, the larger ones especially -- take steps to mitigate abusive behavior, to detect it and take action against it. I'm very, very concerned that with an influx of new TLDs and new TLD operators that it simply will not have the customer service capabilities, the research and development budgets, et cetera, that have gone into fighting those problems today. And what we have seen over and over again in the anti-phishing community is that TLDs get hit. The ones that don't have processes in place get nailed for a while until the anti-phishing community can convince them to change their policies and practices. This happened earlier this year in Hong Kong, for example. But again, to their great credit, they understood the problem and they took steps to address it. They no longer really have a problem with phishing at the moment. Of course we'll never stay ahead of the phishers. That just won't happen. But we have to keep fighting them. And we don't have policies in place today, uniform policies, that apply to registrars and registries that force them to act in response to complaints that provide reasonable evidence of abusive behavior. We need these sorts of policies, particularly as we get into the world of 200, 400, 5,000, according to ICANN staff we can have 62 million new TLDs. Thanks. >>CHRIS DISSPAIN: Thank you. I'm going to have -- (Applause.) >>CHRIS DISSPAIN: -- one comment from Khaled, and then I am going to have a comment from the other Khaled, and then we are going to move on to the next question because we have to. >>KHALED KOUBAA: I would like to join Mike in his way of thinking, and I would say that all we are hitting is a problem like phishing, cyber squatting and all of this, and all of those are several criminal activities that has been created before the first round of new gTLDs. And even was encouraged by some commercial companies. But I will mention a small analogy with the car. All of us know that driving the car is very dangerous. So if it is not possible to have a car and to drive it and manage this risk each day and day, we will not have each, some months, a new brand of car. But the user, in this case, is demanding new types of cars and is driving each day new types of cars. And the risk of driving and being dead with the an accident is managed. So the management of all this risk, like phishing and cyber squatting, has to be treated in terms of having new gTLDs. >>CHRIS DISSPAIN: Thank you. Last one and then we are going on to the next question. >>KHALED FATTAL: Thank you, Chris, Khaled Fattal again. Thank you for giving me the opportunity again to address these discussions. I think many of us here have made some excellent points which are very relevant in their own scope. But if I can actually, again, once again take this conversation one step back. Come to the recognition that we first need to address whom we are trying to serve, then it makes it a lot clearer whether the rounds of gTLDs will become successful, how, and what needs to be done. >>CHRIS DISSPAIN: Okay. >>KHALED FATTAL: The challenge we face ahead of us is the following. And especially when we factor it in from an internationalization perspective. We all know that there is an after market in the domain name reselling business. I mean, only a couple of days ago, there were the auctions for domain names taking place, just before the ICANN meeting was taking place. And to the concern of many, I'm sure once they find out, there were certain names which were still available for people to go and buy. For example, you had dot Israel that was being auctioned and you also had a dot Koran. Imagine if we have another -- >>CHRIS DISSPAIN: Dot com. >>KHALED FATTAL: And dot com, Israel.com, yes. Now, these exist in the general -- in the possession of the general public. They are possessions. And, you know, when they were bought -- when they were sold originally, they were probably worth about six bucks. I can tell you from what I was informed that dot Koran dot com, the bid came to about 400,000, didn't reach a half million, the asking price, and did not sell. And it had no specification on the potential use. Multiply that by a thousand potential gTLDs. Why this needs to be discussed on a very important level is we go back to the issue of policy-making. The policy-making is factored in in how do we proceed further and whom are we trying to serve? There is an element that we have to come to terms with. This is not an exercise in just doing business, while I'm a businessman as well. This is an exercise in doing public good that serves the global community. >>CHRIS DISSPAIN: Thank you. >>KHALED FATTAL: Thank you. >>CHRIS DISSPAIN: Okay. We are going to take the last two questions and roll them together, for the purposes of the video. They are a slightly more upbeat question, after what are the risks, what is the biggest opportunity and who should is going to apply and who should apply? Which we kind of talked about a little bit as well already. So hit the button. (Video playing) >> Domain names have grown from less than one million to something like 150 million in a decade. Opening up the gTLD space will bring out a new wave of creativity from brand owners a private island on the Internet. Will be a desirable commodity for some brands and increase the confidence of Internet users. >> The enfranchisement of Internet communities around the world. >> I think the real key for ICANN is to try to build value behind old domains or even new domains like dot net, dot org, dot biz, all of these names really need some more awareness, excitement, some energy. Because we're now as a business the only domain (inaudible) is dot com and I would be reticent to do dot biz or something else as a domain name unless there is no other choice available to me. We need to change that and the best way to do that is (inaudible) campaign, education campaign, get the word out and explain to people why (inaudible). >> Currently there are many family Web sites, groups of friends Web sites, or those of people with shared interests. But it is appropriate to have a specific domain, one that guarantees a safe, secure family environment. We would like to make possible that from now on each and every family has both its physical home and its cyber home. The ultimate goal is that any procedures, administrative tasks and connections with financial or institutional entities can be done through this Web site as a window from the family to the world. (video ends.) >>CHRIS DISSPAIN: Is that both of them? There's more. Okay. There's one more. (video playing). >> Many members of ICANN's current communities will apply. But I would like to see newcomers to the process. Plus some big brand owners doing exciting things as well as communities of interest from the developing world. >> Speculators, domainers, (inaudible), those who suffer from delusions of grandeur, those who came second in the past, and so on, will be amongst those who will apply first. At the same time, from a commercial perspective, is a chance for trademark owners to experience the Internet as a positive rather than a negative challenge. And it's more importantly from a social perspective, there's a chance for communities of interest to command respect from societies from which we emanate to set a (inaudible) course in the World Wide Web. (Video ends.) >>CHRIS DISSPAIN: So all you navel gazers out there. Let's look first of all at the opportunities. What do we think is the biggest opportunity? Khaled, would you like to comment on that? >>KHALED KOUBAA: I think the biggest opportunity for the new gTLD is to give more and more choice for the user and this gives him the opportunity to express himself to do whatever he wants. It's a natural human thing to have a choice to do whatever the human want. And regarding the fifth question about who will apply for the new gTLD and who should apply, I would say that in my personal point of view is that enough with commercial use of the Internet domain name space. Let's have this new gTLD things as give it to the user and to the community. >>CHRIS DISSPAIN: Thank you. I think your first point is an interesting one because you talked about consumers having more choice. And in the risks category, we are talking about consumers getting confused. But of course, with choice tends to come confusion. So therefore, the two things are different sides of the same coin. Yes. >>J. SCOTT EVANS: I think it's creativity and entrepreneurship that is the greatest benefit that will come. I mean, it's unlimited what can be done, and no one knows. But ICANN and the community needs to be very careful in how they manage this. Because if it's not done correctly, commercial interests will be forced to go to governments to seek the relief that they can't get if it's not managed properly. And so I think that that needs -- the reason it needs to be adeptly handled and managed in a proper and responsible way. >>CHRIS DISSPAIN: I understand that. But this is actually the what are the greatest opportunities. Gentleman there from the floor. >> My name is (saying name) from CORE. And I would say we -- I haven't heard much discussion about new business models, but there will be new business models coming. I predict, for instance, a free gTLD, and I think that they may be more restricted, but businesswise, there are more business models coming out so more the business community addressed. >>CHRIS DISSPAIN: Thank you very much. I understand. Next one. Yeah, go ahead. >> Philip van Gelder again. Just to roll two questions into one just like you did, Chris, a minute ago. What are the greatest risks? I think the greatest risk is to the current system. And as many people said earlier on, the current system that's been available for ten years has already tried to cure a lot of the problems that people have been talking about. There's register data escrow systems, registry failover systems, systems in place to protect IP owners. So we have already covered a lot of that work. The risk there is that we can have to start that again. What are the greatest benefits? Well, innovation, business innovation is one. But I think the greatest benefit will be choice for the consumer. >>CHRIS DISSPAIN: Thank you very much. I have got -- yes, hang on a second. I have one over here and then we will take yours, Karl. >> Thank you, Chris. Steve Delbianco with NetChoice. When it comes to an opportunity, it's an opportunity that is born out of risk, because I think it's a virtual certainty that the user confusion and frustration will serve to enrich and extend the power of one of the world's most successful and dominant companies. And it's not the company you are all thinking of. Consider this example. I am looking for a family friendly hotel experience in Berlin this summer. So under the gTLD scheme here, would I go to dot travel? Would I go to dot com? Or would I go to dot Berlin? Well, it's family friendly, maybe I will go to dot fam. And after trying each of those four sites in the various directories I will have absolutely no certainty that I am looking at all the possibilities. As a very frustrated consumer, I will be driven straight to the search engines. I will need to get to a search engines that's big enough to handle a billion or so names covering billions of pages of content with a lickety-split fast reply and it needs to be free so it has to be supported by ads. You know exactly what I am talking about. I will be driven to the search engine. So a lot of the benefits described today, that I would go to NYC or I would go to Berlin, I don't see it. The proliferation will drive me to the search engine, enhancing the market power of a search engine that while I am relieved they say they will do no evil, I believe that, but they will do no evil as long as we do all our searches on their Web site. So I'm persuaded that the opportunities will balance the risks and costs. >>CHRIS DISSPAIN: Thank you very much. Karl. >>KARL AUERBACH: Hi, I am Karl Auerbach. I am very concerned about ICANN with mission creep becoming a consumer protection organization and also at the same time being an organization that protects the interests of incumbents. For example, I have my own top-level domain. It happens not to be part of the ICANN INTA root zone, but it works by public key cryptography. You buy a name for a lifetime, you pay for services, there is no WHOIS, no WHOIS possible. Registrations are anonymous. That's a new business model. Will it ever be accepted by ICANN? I doubt it. But the point I'm saying here is, why are we so afraid of letting a thousand new ideas bloom? Why are we saying customers -- customers were confused when the telephone came along. They saw this dial with numbers on it. Let's accept people learning. Let's give people the opportunity to learn. Let's let new innovations bloom, and not seal the domain name space down. Now, I have computed how many top-level domains we can have. It's a number of approximately 100 digits. We will never -- that's more than the number of electrons in the universe. We should be able to have 10,000 new ones a year, not a number of thousand max. Old ones will fade. People will walk away from bad ideas. Let's let the consumer choose with his feet rather than having a paternalistic ICANN that tells the consumer what should be. Thank you. >>CHRIS DISSPAIN: Thanks, Karl. >>SUSANNE SKOV NILSSON: I think ideally, the new TLDs would provide a larger platform for communication and new commercial interests. But I think that in reality, what we will see are -- is that the applicants will be the large brand owners who will register just for protection, and it will be cyber squatters who will register for the profit, which is what we have seen -- >>CHRIS DISSPAIN: That's an awfully depressing view of the world. Okay. >>SUSAN KAWAGUCHI: So we will look at all of these. We'll review them, decide -- we'll try to pick the best ones, but we're not going to register in all of them. We'll take the risk of not registering and then enforce. Because otherwise, we're going to be registering millions of domain names in the scenarios that I hear today. So we won't be there as the major brand owner to provide the income in the sunrise period. >>CHRIS DISSPAIN: You could, of course, solve that whole problem if you registered dot eBay and blitzed everything off and said we put everything in dot eBay. But that's life. You have to do that with books, you have to do that with everything. Every time someone breaches your trademark, you have to do that. >>SUSAN KAWAGUCHI: It's a much wider audience. >>CHRIS DISSPAIN: Yes, but that's because the world has changed. >>CAROLINE PERRIARD: It's why we need ICANN's help at this moment. We can't just say we will enforce. Of course, it's what we will do if nothing is done at the beginning. But ICANN really has the power to say, okay, we will set up some requirement or you need criteria along with your new gTLD. So that's why this is important. >>CHRIS DISSPAIN: Absolutely. Antony. >>ANTONY VAN COUVERING: Yeah, I would like to take the thought about risks and opportunities and turn it on its head a little bit. We have any number of ways of allocating domain names. All the ccTLDs have them, the gTLDs have them. And it works pretty well. And we have seen in the ccTLDs that you have a very strict policy loosening up to a very liberal policy, especially in Europe that's happened. So what we are doing here is we are allocating domain names, once again. I expect in ten years, we'll see a lot of single registry/registrar pairs, all in one, because there will be TLDs that come out where registrars are not going to want to promote them. That already has happened in some. And so when we talk about risks of changing things, this new ICANN process is the risk. It is the change that we have. Whereas we see over 250 registries in the world already registering names on a fairly quick, consistent basis. And we ought to look to those models and try to not find all the problems out in advance, but to deal with edge cases post facto. >>CHRIS DISSPAIN: Thank you. I had Bernie -- no, sorry. You haven't got the microphone. I have got the lathe lady at the back there. >> Hello, Susan Reynolds on behalf of dot (saying name), an initiative in favor of a domain for the Galatian language and culture. It can be seen from a different point of view. They are not so important as a business. They are important for all those communities who identify themselves with a certain language and culture. So we're not talking about a region. We're talking about a language community, linguistic and cultural community, all around the world. Like there are Galatian speakers in Argentina, in Germany, in Switzerland. So what this colleague from Egypt said about the (saying name) region, we are not talking about regions. We are talking about linguistic and cultural communities like dot cat is not only for Catalonia. It's for all the regions and for all the people that speak Catalan or are related to the Catalan culture. Thank you. >>CHRIS DISSPAIN: Thank you very much. I have the gentleman here. Then I have Bernie, then I have Jean-Christophe. >> It's really fun somehow if we are reinventing the wheel. Some of you who are old enough to have written to Postel and others in the old ARPANET times. However, if we open the Pandora's box and we go to 10,000, 100,000, a million, then from the architectural point of view, you remember the success of the Internet and the DNS system is being hierarchical and distributed system. Here, what you are going to have, it's a flat system. One root and a million names. Fine, it's another model. But beware in ten years if we are not going to say, well, we really didn't learn the lesson when you had the DNS because you are losing the DNS hierarchy. And that from an engineering point of view has to be weighted. >>CHRIS DISSPAIN: Thank you. Bernie. Kieren. >> Really, just in support of what Antony and several have been saying. I was saying let's make it accessible and see what happens. There seems to be this dichotomy that some people in this room are really thinking continuation of the ASCII business model in the G space. But I think one of the surprises that's going to come up with IDN stuff arriving is a lot of people who may not be able to access this through maybe a C track will try and get something here. And I think that's something that we should facilitate and make every effort to do something. Because those communities are the users that want to do something and may do something interesting stuff. >>CHRIS DISSPAIN: Thank you. Jean-Christophe. >> Hello, I am Jean-Christophe Vignes from EuroDNS. First of all, welcome to Paris. I am really glad that it's the most well attended ICANN meeting so far. And many of those people are newcomer, and I'm really glad for them because, well, it's the first time they have heard that debate. I have to say I'm not that lucky. I have been around for seven years. And it seems to me, listening to that fascinating debate, maybe one too many, that it would be high time for the community to understand that the Internet evolves maybe a bit faster than various interest groups think it does. I have a really hard time understanding and even believing, really, that interest groups are still fighting against the same issues while, as somebody from dot Berlin said this morning, yet another ICANN meeting, yet another time when we're told that we will have more in yet another nine-month period. I think it's really important that people understand we do not operate in a vacuum. We cannot -- The Internet cannot serve the interests of this group or a tool to fight against the interests of one search engine company or another. The Internet is evolving. We need to embrace the evolution. In seven years, the Internet has evolved tremendously, and the gTLD issue has not. I think it's a bit of a pity. >>CHRIS DISSPAIN: Thank you. And that seems to be an appropriate moment, given that you have talked about yet another meeting in yet another nine months, to move on to the next bit. There will be more time for questions, but move on to the next section, which is the presentation by Kurt Pritz of the current status of the implementation plan. And because that's going to take a little while, may I ask you all please to thank our panelists for their time today. [ Applause ] >>CHRIS DISSPAIN: And we'll take questions on the implementation plan at the end. >>KURT PRITZ: Thank you very much. And thank you, everybody. This has been one of the most stimulating workshops we've ever had, with the widest participation by the audience, and a very coherent, interested, and informed discussion. So I'd like to thank Chris. Thanks very much for all the work you put into it. [ Applause ] >>KURT PRITZ: Hold your applause, it's a long list. I'd like to thank Karla Valente for all the work she did. Without Maria Farrell and Kieren McCarthy, it wouldn't have gone forward. And the panelists, who are fleeing, because they don't want to get stuck up there while I talk. And certainly to all of you. So I really appreciate it. Thank you very much. [ Applause ] >>KURT PRITZ: So while the presentation spins up, I'd like to mention that, given the level of interest displayed here, we thought it would be a great opportunity to again review some of the details and the thinking of how the implementation of this process will roll out. What will it take, how will you apply for a new gTLD, and how will that application be evaluated. So while I don't have all of you trapped, because some of you are leaving, we want to take this opportunity again, being ICANN, and being very open and repeating things, to review this material again. So the goals of the program -- yeah. So the high-level goals of the program are to launch a process that's very transparent, very timely, very predictable, and that maps to the policy recommendations that were made by the GNSO after nearly two years of work. And to do that in a way, as I said, where applicants can fully understand what is expected of them. And finally there's ICANN's security and stability mission. And we want to make sure all of this is done in a way that preserves DNS stability. So one big caveat here is, this implementation model is just that, it's a model. There's been a lot of work done by staff in consultation with the community to develop details of the implementation. But -- and this has been done at the direction of the board. But the actual final product may vary from this. So it's not to be relied on in way, shape, or form in developing a business model or how you might apply for a gTLD. So the aspects of the process are this: It's going to be very simple in most cases. It's going to be a five-level inquiry that applicants will develop their competence for running a new gTLD, will contain very objective criteria, it will be simple in most cases, but it will be as robust as it has to be. So it'll provide a path for addressing objections that may arise to certain proposed gTLDs. It has to be able to resolve situations where applicants apply for identical gTLDs. How is that -- how is that sort of issue resolved? So that's sort of the motto of the process, I think, is that it's going to be simple in most cases for the majority of applications, but there's a robustness to it that can address complexities that are introduced by certain controversial applications. So the -- this is a process flow of -- the very high-level process flow of the application procedure. Can you just go back one, please. So, essentially, you apply. And then there's an evaluation process. It's a four-step process. And then after that, if there are no complexities, the TLD is approved. However, like I said, there's a provision to resolve disputes if there's a formal objection that's raised to a TLD because certain aspects of it are controversial. And there's also a provision to resolve disputes arising out of string contention. That is where two or more of the applications are identical or they're very, very, very, very similar. So where did you go? Okay. Go forward two. There you go. Now go back one. Yeah, there you go. So this is the fastest path for an application. The blue part is really you're applying for the application. The yellow section is that four-question inquiry that's made, the evaluation, the initial evaluation of the application. And then the green part below is the delegation process, how the TLD is essentially inserted into the root. So I'm going to provide more detail into the process, so -- in the next slide. The first thing I'm going to talk about is the application period. This is a depiction of the application phase. There's some detail here you may or may not be able to read. But this is or is going to be posted shortly on the Web site. So the application period is very straightforward. It opens and it closes. The information having to do with specific applications, which strings are applied for and the details, won't be posted publicly until the application period is closed. Who can apply? Just about any entity -- a partnership, a limited liability corporation, a corporation. You know, anything that is not certain to die. There is a current discussion going on about separations of registries and registrars and the current requirement that separation be maintained. And that essentially means that registrars could not apply. There's a lot of work going on currently doing economic analysis and market studies that are going to inform a public discussion about that. So that economic analysis will be available very shortly, and that discussion will ensue. And that matter will be resolved in time before the process goes forward. The applicants will pay fees to apply. There will be an up-front application fee in order to have your application evaluated. If it's a very complex evaluation or a very controversial application, there will be additional fees, sort of a pay as you go, so that the applicant bears the cost of their application. There's two types of applicant. And this distinction really comes into play much later in the process and not really is taken into account in the initial evaluation. But there's an open type of gTLD that allows any type of registration. And then there is a community-based TLD. So the applicant will be asked to declare at the time of application which type of TLD it will be. Community-based TLDs are required to address a clearly identified, organized community or organization, and that it's supported or demonstrates support or it is endorsed by the organization. And the string itself to be a community TLD has to have -- the string itself has to have a strong nexus with a community name. The next slide. So next we're going to talk about the evaluation part of the process, the yellow part, where each of the applications are evaluated. And this next slide is a depiction of the process flow for that. And this is that four-step inquiry I talked about earlier. So the first two questions of the four-part inquiry really have to do with the string itself. And what are those inquiries? Well, first, they're straight out of the GNSO recommendations. But a TLD, the string itself should not affect DNS stability. And ICANN published rules about this, its recommendation for this, back in February. And they're along the lines of a string can't be longer than 63 digits, and can't be all numbers, can't start or end with a hyphen. They're generally derived from the RFCs on the matter. There's work going on in the IETF to develop an IDN protocol, IDNA, that will further inform the stability issue from an IDN standpoint. And the second question here is, how similar is the string to an existing TLD or even a competing application. So one of the reasons for being for this process is that -- or one of the protections for users, or one of the risks to be prevented is that user confusion should not result from the introduction of these TLDs. So in order to demonstrate this, ICANN will first employ an algorithm to assign a score between TLDs. And that won't be dispositive. That will merely inform a panel of examiners to determine if there's similarity between an applied-for TLD and an existing TLD. So we can't have that. The second level of inquiry is -- has to do with the applicant, not the string. And that is just that the applicant has to demonstrate the technical competence necessary to operate a registry, and also a level of business competence to -- or a coherent business plan in order to provide some level of insurance that the registry will be able to sustain ongoing operations. So in each of these cases, the request for proposal will contain a criteria, clear and objective criteria. And the applicant should be able to measure themselves against that in order to make sure they meet them even before applying. >> It will not be a business plan sufficient. >>KURT PRITZ: So the next slide? Thanks. If the applicant doesn't pass the initial evaluation, there will be an opportunity for an extended evaluation period. It's essentially the same inquiry. The evaluators will ask the applicant to clarify certain aspects of the application to determine whether or not they actually go ahead and meet the criteria. So that's sort of an appeal from the -- from failing the first inquiry. So that's it. If the applicant meets that four-step process, then they can be introduced into the root zone. And it's fairly straightforward. What I want to talk about next are some of the complex factors that might affect certain of the applications, but we think the minority. And next I'm going to talk about objections and the disputes that arise from projections. This process flow, the next process flow, depicts the four areas on which a formal objection can be raised to a proposed top-level domain. The grounds are -- the four grounds are really defined by important interests that are sought to be protected. So when the GNSO Council went through its deliberations and did its consultation with the community, it developed these four areas of interest that we felt were central to protection of users, protections of participants in the DNS. And they bear repeating not just for you to read, but first is that user confusion should be prevented. So TLDs that are so close that they can be misused or that users can be confused should be avoided. Second, that property rights should be protected. Third, that there should be some moral and public order safeguards. So, essentially, this is -- for example, governments have a strong interest in preserving public order. And lastly, there should be a protection of community interests. Examples of this are religious organizations, geographically based communities. There's been a lot of discussion about geographically based TLDs today, and also indigenous groups. So this is a somewhat complex area, and I think it deserves a few more minutes of discussion and some details about the objection process and mechanics. Why do we have an objection process? One is to protect the interests that we defined earlier. And the second is that the process has to find some way to divide public comment from formal objection. We've gone to school on TLD rounds in the past. And certain TLD applications raise quite a bit of public comment, and we were left with public comment and no formal process to deal with it. So the objection process is intended to draw a line between public comment and those that can formally object on very specific grounds. So it provides an avenue or a path for dealing with that level of public comment that rises to a formal objection. So these formal objections are filed during a predetermined time, probably right during the initial evaluation process. And that will cause a dispute resolution procedure to be started. And that disputes between the applicant and the objector and will be adjudicated by a dispute resolution provider retained by ICANN and be sort of independent process from the rest of the evaluation. Fees will have to be paid. The objector and the applicant will pay fees directly to the dispute resolution provider, not to ICANN, and have that dispute adjudicated. ICANN's investigating and considering a loser pays or some sort of similar scenario for that. So some of the details in this process, that there will be one dispute resolution provider for any one dispute type. So morality and public order objections will all be heard by the same dispute resolution provider. That's intended to provide a level of consistency across the decision. And it seems certain that that's the way it'll be run in the first round. We've -- ICANN's been discussing how to go about this with several recognized -- well-recognized dispute resolution providers that provide these services globally. And we're close to having agreements in order to furnish these services for all four of those types of objection. And those dispute resolution providers are working with ICANN right now, honing the processes for when and how objections are filed and what paperwork's filed and when they're heard and the timing of that. The process also anticipates multiple objections. So the goal there would be to consolidate the objections for consideration in order to expedite the process. The other complexity is identical strings or strings that are very similar. So the process for that is depicted here. And so what happens when applications are received for identical strings or strings that are very, very, very similar, so similar that user confusion results? Well, first the applicants when the applications are posted will be informed that they're in this so-called string contention, that they have competing application for the same string or strings that are -- that raise confusion in the minds of users. So we're -- the first step is to provide the applicants time to resolve the differences themselves, see if they can come to some mutual conclusion. But if not, there's two choices for resolving this conflict. One is a comparative evaluation, a weighing of the competing TLDs to determine a winner. And the other would be an auction. So this is how a community-based TLD comes into play. The policy recommendations by the GNSO provide for a preference, not an overriding preference, but a preference for community-based applicants. So if there's a bona fide community-based applicants that's among these contending strings, that applicant can elect to have all the strings enter into a comparative evaluation. And in that comparative evaluation, a winner should demonstrate clearly and convincingly that they provide more value to the global Internet name space and more value to that community. If there's no real clear winner, then an auction will be held to determine who gets the TLD. Auctions have been the subject of a lot of discussion as a potential mechanism for resolving disputes. ICANN is going to publish an economic case for auction for public comment so that the discussion about whether auctions are appropriate or not are continued. Before any auction is conducted, though, ICANN will also undertake a community-based discussion. We understand that there's considerable revenue flow associated with auctions. And how ICANN handles that revenue, segregates it from the rest of the ICANN budget, and makes uses of that revenue has to be a community discussion. So that'll take place. So at the end, we're left with a delegation process, then. We think the majority of the applicants will utilize the very simple process, and we think the majority of those will be approved. So this delegation phase is the final phase of the process. The first is the contract processing. So ICANN will pre-public as part of this IFP a standard base agreement. It's intended that the agreements be, essentially, one size fits all. There might be some variances in the agreement for, say, governments or IGOs who have a choice of law provision problems or something like that. Then once the contract is agreed to, the application and the contracts will be submitted to the ICANN board for approval, along with a staff recommendation that this TLD application followed the published process and this recommendation was made, with a recommendation for the board to follow that. There will be -- the board can always find a difference with that recommendation based on newly received information or something -- some other criteria. In that case, the board would send the application back into the evaluation process. And then just prior to delegation, the applicant's insertion of the root zone will be predicated on some demonstration that they're actually meeting the technical criteria. So when you apply, you write a story on a piece of paper that says how you're going to meet technical criteria and that you're competent to run a registry. Right before the delegation, there will be a technical check made to check certain available aspects of that to ensure that the baseline requirements are met. So that's, essentially, the whole process. If you want to go -- if we can discuss the timeline for just a minute, we expect to -- we expect that the policy will be approved in the upcoming future by the board of directors. And ICANN will finish its implementation work. We expect a draft version of the RFP to be published in -- around the September time frame or shortly thereafter. Then there will be a public comment period and adjustments made to the RFP in accordance with that public comment, if that's necessary, and a draft of the final RFP will be sent to the board for approval and then released about three to four months after the initial RFP. As the GNSO recommendations state, there should be an extensive communication period to announce this. And ICANN's planning a global communication in order to inform all regions of the new gTLD process. It's meant to, as much as possible, provide a level playing field for those that would enter the process, so that four-month -- there's a four-month period between the posting of a final RFP, the document that describes how to apply for an RFP, and then the application launch. So we expect that application launch to occur late in the first quarter of next year, or in the second quarter. So that was really, really, really fast. And I talked really, really fast. But I hope it was helpful to you. And I'm willing to take any questions if anybody has any. Yeah, Rob. >>ROBERT HALL: A couple of quick ones, Kurt. The algorithm you mentioned for confusingly similar, will you be publishing that ahead of time so we can tell, hey, maybe you shouldn't apply for that one because it's close to an existing TLD? >>KURT PRITZ: Yes. So you'll try it out and you'll receive a score. That score doesn't tell you the "yes" or "no" answer. It's just a score to sort of inform a panel of evaluators where it stands amongst the other applications. >>ROBERT HALL: On the objections, are they to the string or the applicants? Are you allowed to object I don't like this string, or are you actually allowed to object to an applicant? >>KURT PRITZ: So the objections are primarily about the string, because there's not much else at the application phase. So does that string -- can that string infringe somebody's rights or does that string itself, you know, violate norms of public order or morality. >>ROBERT HALL: When you say "clear all objections," it sounds like a mediation process is intended. Is it more of a decision-making by these providers if this is a valid objection or not or -- 'cause if someone just doesn't give up and wants to keep objecting, is the applicant then DONE? Did you read the word "clear," up there? That means, like, deal with them. That means not clear them so -- it's, essentially, a decision-making process where a dispute resolution provider will rule, provide a ruling, either in favor of the objector or the applicant. >>ROBERT HALL: Okay. So it's not just they have to have a meeting of the minds or consensus. >>KURT PRITZ: Correct. >>ROBERT HALL: There will be a ruling. Last question. Sorry, Kurt. The open versus the community. It seems that you're favoring community if there's at least one applicant. So let's say there's four applicants. One is community, three are open. Did I hear you correctly that the community one can then drag all four into a community-based assessment, even though, you know, that may be a very small community based to the three open ones? So if three of them all say I want to serve the entire global community and one say, "No, no, I'm going to use this for this little piece of a community," do we automatically then start down the community process and are they given more weight or more -- >>KURT PRITZ: Right. So the community-based TLD can drag everybody into the comparative evaluation process. And they get a pebble in their scale for being a community-based TLD. And then it's intended that the evaluation has to provide a really clear winner at the end of that comparative evaluation, how much value -- comparative evaluations are subjective. And so we'd want, I think, for there to be a clear winner in order to deal with that subjectivity. And so the arbiter or the decision maker in that case would have to find that one of the applicants clearly provides more value to the Internet community, more value to its community, and so should be awarded that one. >>ROBERT HALL: Just a clarification. You've used the words in your screen and now as "global and Internet community," not "the applicant community." >>KURT PRITZ: I think both. >>ROBERT HALL: Is that specific or is that -- >>KURT PRITZ: I think it's both. >>ROBERT HALL: Okay. Thank you. >>KURT PRITZ: So can you put up the caveat slide again. Because I'm answering a lot of really specific questions. >> Where is the mike to ask a question (inaudible). >> I have a question -- >>AMADEU ABRIL I ABRIL: Very clever not having a mike in a line that I can see. But it doesn't work. I will find the mike at the end. First want, advice, take seriously the challenges or opposition to the applicants, not only to the strings, especially for community-based. There may be a perfectly sensible TLD for any community, but then Amadeu might decide to submit that. And the TLD would be great, but probably have nothing to do with the community, no representation or connection with it, and probably that would be the challenge, not the existence of the TLD, but who would be running that. The second thing, a couple of questions, very short, and general comments. First, any news about the evaluation fee? Guess no. So let's go for the next one. Why there is so long period between draft RFP and final RFP? Normally, final RFPs have always been more than 85% similar to drafts. So do you expect a storm there? Because now we will have something like eight months between the draft RFP and the date where applications can be submitted. We thank you for allowing all of us preparing applications to have such a long time. But, you know, sometimes it's too short, sometimes it's too long. >>KURT PRITZ: Thank you, Amadeu. The part of your question that I can address is the timing. So the time between the initial RFP and the final RFP allows time for public comment a month or 45 days, some synthesis of that public comment, and then submission of the final RFP to the board for approval, which requires a time. So those three times together probably equal three months. So those three times together probably equal three months. Then there's a -- we'll get -- So then there's a time period between the posting of the RFP and the launch of the process, and this four-month period is really intended to take the process out of this room. There are a lot of new participants in this meeting that are great, but there is a lot of ICANN cognizetti here that are fully warmed up and ready to go, and the four-month communication is intended to level that playing field somewhat, or at least let others in the global community know of the availability of new TLDs. So Ron. >>RON ANDRUFF: It's just a question, Kurt, of the -- with regard to the business model, business plan. So this is going to be a Web-based application. There will be no business plan submitted? Or will there be business elements you will put before us? I want clarification on that. >>KURT PRITZ: There will be some business elements to the plan. Black-and-white criteria are very hard. I think the work so far demonstrates that there should be some tie in between the business plan and the technical plan. So if you are going to run a very small TLD, you don't need a thousand gold plated servers. But if you are anticipating a large one, you should be able to indicate that you have business planning for that. So they should be rationally related and so some demonstration of that is necessary. >> Jeff here. A couple of questions. First, is the pricing of the evaluation going to be included in the draft RFP so that could be commented on as well? That's one. Number two is I want to disagree with Amadeu. I think three or four months is probably not enough. I'm not saying it should be longer. Don't get me wrong. What I am saying is there is so much left that's still not out there and that's not definite, I think there will be a storm of comments based on what we see for the first time in the draft RFP, which includes the contract which Kurt pointed out in a previous meeting would be part of the RFP. They would release the base contract. So I want to disagree with Amadeu because I think the amount and substance of comments will be great. And the third point is with the global outreach, I think you said this at a previous meeting, that period doesn't necessarily have to start with the release of the final RFP. That four-month period, is it possible to start that a little bit earlier. >>KURT PRITZ: So in reverse order, yes, it could. If it's believed that the communications process is complete and effective, the application price should be included in the initial RFP. So that's really short. Is that it? >> YJ Park, and can I clarify whether this process that you just explained also applies to the IDN gTLD creation process, too? So I mean to be more specific, those who are interested in IDN gTLDs, can they apply for these new spaces? >>KURT PRITZ: Yes, I think that gTLDs are gTLDs, whether they are IDNs or not. And they should be considered equally. And the criteria applied for considering ASCII TLDs would be applied for IDN TLDs. They are very similar in that instance. What remains to be done for IDN gTLDs I think is the IDNA protocol work, that the IETF, the volunteer organization, is developing a protocol to ensure the introduction of IDNs in a way that ensures stability and security. And so when that work is complete, essentially IDNs will be ready to be launched also. Yes. >> A question on IDN gTLD again. Will that be a constraint or restriction on who can apply for the IDN TLDs? Specifically, I am thinking about, say, American applying for a Korean gTLD, or a European applying for a Chinese gTLD. How would ICANN deal with that situation? >>KURT PRITZ: So I think -- you know, they are very specific questions, so never say this is the way it's going to be introduced and there's the caveat slide. However, the process anticipates that there might be an objection because an applicant does not represent a community appropriately. So if an American such as me applied for a dot Korea or a dot Korean, a member of the Korean community could object and say that I'm not an appropriate representative of that community. It's more complex than that because there are standing requirements and standards to be followed, but there could be an objection made to that TLD that says that applicant is an inappropriate representative of that community. >> But based on your process, that's an assumption that this is a community-based TLD, where in the specific case, it could be an open TLD. And in that case, there's no difference between an American applying for a Korean TLD and a Korean applying for a Korean TLD. Something is wrong in that process. >>KURT PRITZ: So let me try to do better. The community-based appellation really applies when we're considering strings in contention that two parties have submitted identical strings. In that case, if one of them is community based, that applicant can ask for this comparative evaluation. They get another pebble on their side of the scale. But the objections are really based on the label themselves, the TLD itself. It's not based on whether the applicant chooses a community. So you could have a community-based objection even when the applicant is an open TLD. Rob. >>ROB HALL: One other quick question. I appreciate your caveat, so it's within that. It goes to price, and I don't want specifics on price, Kurt, but you seem to imply that there were different levels at which fees would be funded. I know in the past we have discussed or suggested that there be an application fee, and then a process fee. Is it the intent at this point in the process, anyhow, to allow someone to apply after the objection -- after everything is published for the person that applied to say, oh, wait, no, I don't want to go any further in the process. Can I have most or part of my fee back? For instance, I might apply for a name that I look at the other and I say there's a really good community one, and I agree with them and I will not go up against them or not go forward with it. So is that the intent of the splitting? I think I saw on one of your screens. Or is it more to deal with if you get into heavy objections and there's additional fees? >>KURT PRITZ: So I think there's a strong argument to be made that even if you paid most or all of the fee up front that you should make some level of refund available to encourage problematic applications or those who want to withdraw to get out. Because if you have a problematic application that can result in litigation or something like that. So I think the process should motivate people to withdraw if they have problems, and perhaps make a refund available. >>ROB HALL: Perfect. Thank you. >> Kurt? >>KURT PRITZ: Eric. >>ERIC BRUNNER-WILLIAMS: Thank you, Kurt. Eric Brunner-Williams from CORE. Every time you make reference to the IDN activity over at the IETF, Kurt, at every presentation you make reference to security and stability. I urge you to find a better rhetorical device because whatever the motivation is for doing the IDNA activity, it's not well expressed by describing it as a security and stability motivation or issue. You can do a better job, and I know this isn't your personal area of expertise, but you can do a better job of representing whatever that activity is by characterizing it more accurately than as a sort of boogeyman of scary stuff called security and stability. Thank you. That's a suggestion. >>KURT PRITZ: Well, that's well taken. I know one goal of that work is to define clearly for potential applicants what scripts are available and provide a path for language variants. And so to the extent that's a stability issue, you know, you may or may not consider it a stability issue, but I was kind of going there. But I take your point very well and I will hone my language. >>NAOMASA MARUYAMA: My name is Naomasa. I have one question, hoping this to be the last question for the session. It seems that there are lots of questions still, I think, and that is a sign of there's lots of room to be decided. And probably you have to work very hard. And do you believe that -- do you have an idea to have another session to discuss these kind of issues? And another question is that do you have any plan to have the -- this kind of session afterward of the Paris meeting? >>KURT PRITZ: Hi, thank you. We have had several sessions with GNSO council to discuss aspects of this. We expect -- Can you put the time line up, KarlA? And then go back to the caveats. It's at the end. So I just wanted to check the timing of the Cairo meeting with this. So if you know the answer.... Sorry about this. This is why this is the last question. So I think there could be another session like this in the Cairo meeting, but certainly when the initial RFP is posted, there's time for community dialogue and community discussion, and ICANN could certainly arrange conference calls with constituency groups or advisory committees or other members of at large in order to discuss aspects of process. So -- >> While we are waiting, there are two more who were waiting. >>KURT PRITZ: Go ahead. >> Okay, talk about launch, Annette Muehlberg, At-Large Advisory Committee but here speaking on my own behalf. Kurt, it would be helpful if you, when you are talking about open and community based, to describe that also from a user's perspective. Could you tell me if open means also open that it's just not restricted and anyone can register? And community based, does that have an influence on limitation of registration possibilities? Is it also restricted or not? And about the intellect property rights, does that mean there are also restrictions? So it would be nice if you could just take that slide and interpret it from a user's perspective. >>KURT PRITZ: Yeah, right. It certainly will during the process. You know, an open TLD, it's your TLD. You can do anything you want to with it. You can allow all registrations, you could restrict registrations, however you so desired. If you elect to be a community-based TLD, that means you will represent that community, adhere to its goals, and you will then, going forward, carry that burden with you to be a community-based TLD. So that was like a ten-second answer to something we could talk about for a long type after this meeting. But I'm cognizant of the fact that we are over time. So how many more questions? Is this the last question? >>ANNETTE MUEHLBERG: It would be helpful if you would be a little more precise on that, really. >>KURT PRITZ: I'm sorry, Annette, what was your last comment? >>ANNETTE MUEHLBERG: I know we don't have much time now, but it really would be helpful to be much more precise on this issue. >>KURT PRITZ: Thank you. Did you have a question, too? Okay. So there's two more questions. >> All right, I will keep it really short. My name is Philip van Gelder again. It seems to me we are talking about two very different animals here. One is a community gTLD. The other is a company TLD or a brand name TLD. They are two very different things. Would the price be the same. >>KURT PRITZ: The application? Yes, I think in the first round they are going to be the same. So let me say two things. One is we're introducing an entirely new process in opening -- all of us at ICANN are opening our doors for business. And there's several uncertainties with that process. So in the first round, we want to try to limit the uncertainty. And we really need to go to school on the first round to determine how discounts might be offered for entities that are less able to pay the full application fee. The second point I want to make is that in the first round, we will also announce the second round and when that's going to be. So those that see a relatively high application cost -- and I don't know exactly what that is right now, so it might not be high, but a relatively high application cost can also see past that to the next opportunity when there might be some sort of assistance available for those that have a good reason for starting a TLD, but can't fund it right away. >>WERNER STAUB: Thank you. Just with respect to the question we had before. My name is Werner Staub from CORE. With respect to the question we had before, I think we had an accident in terms of language. The word open is not to be posed as such to community based. In the principles that have been discussed, just the word community based was used and it was not posed to any other adjective. Now, a community-based TLD can pretty well be totally open to any person in the world. If you look at the examples like dot HIV, there would not be a reason, they would have HIV or dot cancer, cancer to be part of that community. No, it's for all those who care, a cause. So this is not any restriction in terms of access to the TLD. The second thing is, you know, I was reassured yesterday by you that ICANN is committed to announcing follow-on rounds by the time it announces the final draft of the RFP, and I'm reassured by that. However, with respect to the meaning of that commitment, it probably has to be more precise in that it must be commitments to a frequency of follow-on rounds. Only that will make many applicants, and I know many of them here, decide that they would jump on the second or third of the rounds. That would make them more than six months away, one from the other. If they are like that, you will do everyone a favor because you will have less in the first round. >>KURT PRITZ: Thank you, Werner. You used to be satisfied with my answer that the second round will be announced, and now that you have gotten that, you want more rounds. So I would like to thank everyone for staying late, those of you that stuck around. And I hope you found it informative. So have a great night. We hope to see you at the affair tonight, and thanks for coming. [ Applause ]