How Europe caused CORE to fail
Jim Dixon jdd at vbc.net
Sat Jan 24 23:00:00 CET 1998
On Sat, 24 Jan 1998, Hank Nussbacher wrote: > One of the two major reasons the USA gov't has back off of this entire > proposal is the removal of the USA from gTLDs (the other is trademark > issues). Do you mean the gTLDs from the USA? Or perhaps US representation from the POC? > Lets look at the current POC: > > Amadeu Abril i Abril, <amadeu at nominalia.com>, Spain-Europe, appointed by > CORE > Rob Austein, <sra at epilogue.com>, USA-Americas, appointed by IAB > Willie Black, <w.black at nominet.org.uk>, UK-Europe, appointed by IANA > Patrik Fältström, <paf at swip.net>, Sweden-Europe, appointed by IAB > Christopher Gibson, <christopher.gibson at wipo.int>, International Treaty > Organization, appointed by WIPO Replaced Albert Tramposch (American) within the last few weeks. > Geert Glas, <geert.glas at lcv.be>, Belgium-Europe, appointed by INTA > Alan Hanson, <alan at finet.net>, USA-Americas, appointed by CORE > Glen Kowack, <gkowack at well.com>, USA-Americas, appointed by IANA > David W. Maher (POC Chair), <dwmaher at ibm.net>, USA-Americas, appointed > by ISOC > Robert Shaw, <robert.shaw at itu.int>, International Treaty Organization, > appointed by ITU American. > Christopher Wilkinson, <christopher.wilkinson at bxl.dg13.cec.be>, > Belgium-Europe, appointed by ISOC > > PAB Observers > > Peter Mott, <peter at 2day.net.nz>, New Zealand-Asia-Pacific, appointed by > gTLD-MoU Policy Advisory Body > Javier Sola, <jsola at aui.es>, Spain-Europe, appointed by gTLD-MoU Policy > Advisory Body > > Out of 11+2 members on POC, Rob Austein, Dave Maher, Glen Kowack and > Alan Hanson are USA reps. That makes USA representation about 30%. Go > back a year and you will find that in the IAHC the USA made up 54%. Ignore the observers who are, after all, only observers. Correct the count by adding Robert Shaw and Albert Tramposch back in (Tramposch only just left the POC) and you have 6/11 Americans, or 55.5% American. That is, the "decrease" in US representation is scarcely the issue. > Now lets look at the current gTLDs: com/net/org. 99% of all USA based > companies register their names in these 3 gTLDs. If we examine the RIPE > stats that are published each month, I would guess that only about 10% > of companies in Europe register in the gTLD area and prefer the nTLDs. > So the general makeup of current users of gTLDs is overwhelming USA (we > have said all along the gTLDs is a USA based problem and they should > migrate to .us as everyone else is using the ISO3166 nTLD effectively). You can count this various ways. By domain count US-registered .COM entries are somewhere in the low 70%s. > So for something that is mainly used by Americans, and created by > Americans (Arpanet), and run by Americans (IANA), we were able to > extract 46% non-USA participants. Not bad. But anyone who has followed > the IAHC, iPOC, POC lists and discussions knows that Europe and > non-Americans have been clamoring for *more* representation. So now USA > has a minority stake in POC (30%), due to the unrelenting pressure of > certain geographical interest groups. The POC was actually attempting to curry favour in Europe by handing out seats. This succeeded in Europe but may certainly have backfired in the States. But the gTLD MOU's problems aren't due to a lack of American presence. They are due to a very vocal North American-based opposition who are disdained by those who have been acting as spokesmen for the gTLD MOU and to a lack of industry support. Of the world's 10,000 or so ISPs only a few dozen have signed the MOU. Why? Essentially because the gTLD MOU crowd have ignored them and ignored their interests. > What have you gained? It could very well end up to be "king of nothing". > The USA gov't is not stupid. The gTLD MoU was set up in Geneva, > controlled via a very European run organization (ITU - go thru the halls > and count the number of European employees) and we might have been able > to pull it all off if certain people had checked their geo-egos at the > door and looked at what they had gained. All of this was done long ago and done by a US-dominated POC. The loudest voices defending the decision to locate in Geneva (Crocker, Shaw, Maher, Tramposch, etc) are certainly American. > You have only yourselves to blame if CORE gets dissolved. These comments are interesting set against reports that IANA, ISOC, the POC, and CORE are intent on ignoring the US government and are raising a $10 million war chest to fight expected lawsuits. -- Jim Dixon VBCnet GB Ltd http://www.vbc.net tel +44 117 929 1316 fax +44 117 927 2015 -------- Logged at Sat Jan 24 23:02:22 MET 1998 ---------
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