CircleID

Adolescents were fascinated by the book and film called "Hunger Games". The plot is about a government forcing people to watch, and forcing some to play, a cruel game for life and death.

ICANN's own Hunger Games, the so-called "digital archery" or "batching" process, is not lethal to people, but shares all other features: it is forced upon the participants, it is destructive, unfair and unnecessary.

Most importantly, it is a travesty of governance. It is a disgrace for the "private-sector-led, bottom-up, multi-stakeholder process" that keeps talking about "accountability" and "transparency". Is there any accountability? Only by avoiding anything to account for. Is there transparency? Only by being so transparent as to be invisible.

ICANN staff and the ICANN Board have been misled by three fallacies:

"No harm". Digital archery appears innocent at first sight. It is not. It is harmful to all stakeholders, applicants and end-users at large — except to those who misuse the new gTLD process. A community-based, public-interest project delayed by another 2-4 years suffers great damage. A brand holder suffers damage if a direct competitor in the same industry sector gets two years lead time in deploying a TLD. This is even true for brand owners who do now yet know what to do with their TLD. It is enough for the competitor's use of a TLD provides a competitive advantage.

"No alternative". According to ICANN staff, it is impossible to evaluate much more than 500 applications at the time. This figure was announced as if it did not depend on what applications have been submitted. It is abundantly clear, even before the "great reveal", that the majority of applications are for exclusive-use TLDs. Evaluating a TLD that does not pretend to serve anyone else than the applicant itself is less than a day's work. So batching is unnecessary. A separate track for exclusive-use TLDs does the job. If a large number of third-party-use TLDs have been applied for, simple rules of priority suffice (applications with support from pubic authorities, community-based applications, IDN applications, throttling of bulk applicants).

"Not a lottery". ICANN committed to avoiding a lottery. By pretending that the outcome depends on the applicant, ICANN believes that it has avoided randomness. But if the outcome depends on the applicant, a party with more to TLDs to test its archery skills will prevail over one with one or few TLDs. If on the other hand the process contains safeguards against this, these safeguards are necessarily based on randomness.

Digital archery cannot be the basis for public policy priorities. If it was, then governments and courts of law would be replaced by it. If ICANN does rely on it and evades its mandate, it not only ceases to have any purpose, it is itself harmful.

Many have been asking "is ICANN a casino?" The answer is no. Casinos do not force people to play.

By Werner Staub

Related topics: Domain Names, ICANN, Internet Governance, Policy & Regulation, Top-Level Domains