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September 9, 2008, New York - Today I received the following scoping information about auctions and comparative evaluations from the ICANN:

You first asked­ whether there were papers in preparation on other allocation methods for new gTLD strings. You also asked about the process.

The Economic Case paper only describes the case for auctions as a tie-breaking mechanism for resolving contention among competing generic TLD applications (but not for community-based applications if at least one community-based applicant in a contention set opts for comparative evaluation). The paper does not describe the proposed auction model. This is the subject of a paper soon to be released in advance of the considerable work in preparing a draft RFP for community review prior to the ICANN meeting in Cairo. A number of other papers are being prepared, including descriptions of contention set handling and comparative evalu­ation processes. I think once you, and other commenters, have an opportunity to review these papers, you will have a better understanding of the proposed process.

As other commenters on the forum have noted, many applicants applying for a gTLD may never have to go through the proposed auction process, if their application is not in contention with any other proposed string, or because they represent a particular community and opt for comparative evaluation.

I look forward to reviewing these papers upon their publication. 

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­September 8, 2008, New York - We never received a response to our requests for context information on the Economic Case for Auctions in New gTLDs paper ICANN posted on August 6 despite our Point of Information post, emails, and phone calls. The paper, written by ICANN staff and its “auctions partner” PowerAuctions LLC, concluded that an auction, not comparative evaluation, was the best means for allocating a contested city TLD.

The prevailing view has been that a comparative evaluation would discern a winner between  contesting applicants for a city TLD. And while there’s been no indication of a formal shift in ICANN policy, without an indication from the ICANN as to the paper’s purpose or status, we thought it prudent to post our thoughts on the issue prior to the September 7 posting deadline. The post presented a bleak assessment of the result of an auction between a community focused, slow growth applicant (Connecting.nyc Inc.) and a financial value bidder:

My concern is absolutely fundamental. For if the recipient of
the .nyc TLD is to be decided by auction, we will loose. And
our hope of finally having the opportunity to put the full
capabilities of the Internet - and that includes the DNS - to
address the cities current needs and future growth opportunities,
will be lost.

I concluded my comments with the following suggestions:

What the ICANN needs to do is acknowledge that there are entities
called cities. That the DNS's historic neglect of these
environmentally efficient locals, where more than ½ the earth's
population now live, must end. The ICANN needs to recognize that
cities have special needs that can be addressed by TLDs. And the
ICANN needs to establish criteria and processes for judging the
best application for this important civic resource.

This is a critical issue. And while it’s difficult to imagine that a shift of this magnitude would happen without public input - I’m still hoping the ICANN’s apparent lean toward auctions is just a vacation time, slip-through-the-cracks oversight by staff - we may need to send some enlightenment mojo to ICANN on this. So keep alert. (Commons photo courtesy of Jeremy Becker.)

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August 9, 2008, New York - Several days ago in our “Update” post, I portrayed us as 95% of the way toward creating a landscape that will allow us to apply for the .nyc TLD. Last night I received an email from ICANN entitled “Updates to New gTLD Program Implementation” that leads me to think that last 5% might not be as easy to achieve as I’d expected.

The email linked to a paper prepared by ICANN and its “auction design consultant” and discusses the options for selecting TLD developers in situations where there’s more than one interested party. The paper, Economic Case for Auctions in New gTLDs, written by PowerAuctions LLC, an auction manager, purports to make the economic case for auctions as the preferred tie-breaking mechanism for resolving contention among identical or confusingly similar applications for new TLDs. I use the word “purports” because of the seeming self-interest of an auction company providing an “authoritative” paper on the efficacy of its core business. I’ve contacted ICANN to determine the status of the paper, whether there will be others reviewing such alternatives as comparative analysis and the lottery methodologies. See my Point of Information message to ICANN.

Whatever the status of this “Auctions” paper, this is an enormously important issue to us for two reasons: The first is the impact it might have on our ability to acquire the .nyc TLD. The paper begins with the premise that names should go to those who can generate the most income from their operation - more is better. And when there is a name dispute between Apple Computer, Apple Records, and the Apple Pie Bakers Association for the .apple TLD, perhaps more is better.

But with the basis for cities acquiring TLDs being their capacity to help deal with far deeper needs - including the social, economic and cultural life of the cities and their people - it becomes apparent that the Economic Case for Auctions’ fundamental premise does not apply in all instances. But we’ll withhold judgment until we hear from ICANN on our Point of Information request .

The second reason the issues discussed in the paper are important to us is that we too need to develop conflict solutions. In our case it’s about second level names: Who gets potentially important names such as astoria, finance, news, and sports .nyc?

We’ve placed resources for examining this issue on our Domain Name Allocation Plan page and look forward to hearing from New Yorkers on the issue. This Fall, as part of our Names for a Livable City project, we’ll be visiting the city’s community boards to gain a greater public perspective on this question. You’ll see a post on this here soon. (Commons photo courtesy of vernhart.)

Learn more about The Campaign on our wiki pages.