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Jackson Hts., New York, March 23, 2012 - Below are the rough notes from my visit to DoITT’s office yesterday, March 22, 2012. Apologies for the lack of detail, but I was not provided with a copy of the document and was forbidden by city officials from using any recording devices, e.g., taking a picture of the pages with my cell phone. See details on this here.

The city’s Department of Information Technology and Telecommunications (DoITT) held a “public hearing” on the proposed contract today. See my written statement here.

[Note: The city’s “transparency opportunity period” ended on March 23 and City Hall’s door has slammed shut without any meaningful public engagement on the TLD development process. And the city’s application for the .nyc TLD will be submitted on April 12 without having received any meaningful public review. This sad situation is reflected in an imagined response of ICANN CEO Rod Beckstrom upon learning of the lack of public review.]

My notes are from viewing the two contract sections made available to me, the basic Agreement and Appendix C.

Agreement

4.  Reserved names

a.  names not available to general public whether during the sunrise period, landrush period or general registration

ii Appendix

F.   Permanently reserved for city (not completed and therefore unavailable)

G.  Reserved for marketing and business development (not completed and therefore unavailable)

H.

I.  7 dirty words

c.  auction; RFP, development of websites for monetization through advertising and revenue of the revenue generating models (e.g. click through revenues), founders program or other such landrush process as mutually agreed by the parties (Reserved Premium Names) (Premium Names)

6. Nexus to the City of New York

A. City desires only individuals or entities with connections to city of New York

B. Registrants must be either

i. natural person with domicile in city of New York (Category 1)

ii. an entity with a bone fide presence in city (Category 2)

C.

D. Must remain in compliance during life cycle

E.

F.  To the extent permitted by ICANN NS shall require that Registrars Certify that they enforce Nexus

G. Registry is to check 50 registrations per week with registrars notified of violations of nexus

H. Compliant process

I.  30 day hold of non-compliant with GB (Nexus)

J. Canceled if non-compliant

Marketing Budget - 5 years 

1. $312,500

2. $312,500

3. $125,000

4. $125,000

5. $125,000

Appendix C

Section 4. (H) Launch Phase

i Phase 1

A. NeuStar within 60 days of IANA approval shall begin.

B. 45 days

C. These categories

1. Government Federal, State, City

2. City Based Non Profits

3. City Concessions

4. City Franchise

5. Retail Service Licensees

6. Food Service Licensees

7. NYC & Co Members

8. BIDS

9. City-Digital Start-ups as registered with NYC Digital

10. City Vendors

D. All of above are on a first come, first served basis

E. The city shall authenticate each registrant in each category of 4 (H) i. C.

F. After authentication they shall enter NeuStar process

ii Phase 2 (Sunrise)

A. within 6 months after delegation of .nyc

B. business, organization or legal entities that:

1. have a physical address in city

2. paid taxes within most recent fiscal year

C. NeuStar need not authenticate. Self certifications.

D. Begins a sunrise period for Trademark clearinghouse

1. Shall last for 30 days (minimum)

2. Just Trademark names

3. Auction for conflicts (note - Where does money go?)

E. Following sunrise, NeuStar to accept through landrush

(4)

A. Application will be received through Registrar channels

B. If only one, then allocated by Registrar

C. If more than one auction (money goes?)

iii Phase 3

A. General registration - for those who fulfill “applicable Nexus Policy”

B.

C. phase must begin within 1 year of delegation of the .nyc TLD by IANA

D.

Once again, apologies for the brevity of my notes. When the contract becomes public we’ll report on it in detail. (Image of  ICANN’s CEO Rod Beckstrom reacting to practices that enabled cities to enter the complex realm of the TLD sans guidance.)

Learn more about The Campaign for .nyc on our wiki pages.

Jackson Hts., New York, January 17, 2011 - Recall February 2009 and the huge awareness campaign surrounding the transition from traditional analog TV to the new digital TV. Shift Day will celebrate the switch from the first generation .com Internet to the more local, organized, intuitive city-friendly .nyc Internet. 

In preparation for that transition process, New Yorkers will need to be informed about the utility of .nyc and the advantages that will arise from our working together to develop and protect our good name. 

With a thoughtfully introduced .nyc TLD, Shift Day will generate awareness, civic pride, and a willingness to cooperate for the common good. Help us plan it from our Shift Day wiki page. And while there, read the sidebar story from an 1889 Harper’s Weekly on squatting during the Oklahoma Gold Rush, pictured above.

Learn more about our overall effort from our Wiki Pages

Jackson Hts., New York, June 1, 2009 - I attended the 59th Sidney Hillman Foundation awards ceremony honoring journalists, writers, and public figures whose work fosters social and economic justice last Wednesday. It was a most exhilarating evening, with the recipients having made significant contributions to our awareness of the world around us.

Reflecting the times, Bruce Raynor, president of the Hillman Foundation and the evening’s moderator, at one point bemoaned the seeming demise of our nation’s daily newspapers and asked “How will those communities exist without the ongoing contributions of those fine journalists?”

Living with about 100,000 other residents in the Jackson Heights neighborhood of New York City, where we’ve never known the luxury of a daily newspaper (nor a TV or radio station) focused on our problems and the opportunities before us, I can provide at least a partial answer to Mr. Raynor:

• All too often they’ll have to wait for a disaster to occur before anyone pays attention to a local problem.
  
• Local communication will be very slow and incomplete, with word of mouth assuming a more important role.
• Community memory will be short, incomplete, and inaccurate.
  
• Election processes will be ineffective as they’ll have few mechanisms for reporting on activities, issues, and assessing accountability. 
• Faith in government and the governance processes will diminish as will the quality of life.
  

With the rise of the Net and the broad demise of the traditional newspaper industry, it’s unlikely we’ll ever see a printed daily in Jackson Heights or in any of our city’s other neighborhoods. Perhaps there’s the germ of a new media in our  dotNeighborhoods and Issue-Communities efforts that might enable useful citizen reporting and accountability mechanisms. But for the moment, sans a new business model, the ability of either to conjure up quality journalism remains elusive.

However, Mr. Raynor did perhaps provide one part of the answer when he announced the Sidneys “a new monthly award for an outstanding piece of socially-conscious journalism from a newspaper, magazine, web site, or any broadcast outlet. The award citation will come with $500 and a bottle of union-made wine.”

We’ll be scheduling another meeting on dotNeighborhoods later this month where this issue will be on the agenda. (Commons photo courtesy johncarney.) 

Link to Connecting.nyc Inc.’s wiki pages.

June 10, 2008 - The New York Times published an informative article about the campaign in yesterday’s paper. The article was partially based on writer Jenny 8. Lee’s attendance at Connecting.nyc Inc.’s May 13th public meeting. Be sure to read the 25+ comments posted about the article.

June 5, 2008 - Great little story and link to the YouTube video from the May 21 presentation we made to the Internet Society. It’s entitled The Manhattan Grid of the Internet. GG’s focus is city news and policy.