CircleID

Further muddlement of the TLD namespace thanks to the ever inept (but always money-hungry) ICANN. .eu is finally slouching towards Brussels waiting to be born, and now we (may) have .asia, which isn't on the ISO 3166-1 alpha 2 list, or (like .eu) the reserved list, or even the ISO 3166-3 list. What's next, .noram for North America? Just more end user confusion. -g

Before jumping to conclusions, I urge everybody to visit our website at www.dotasia.org to take a look at our materials including our well-thought out proposal to ICANN and have a sense of the level and variety of support that we have obtained from our community (see http://www.dotasia.org/about/members.html & http://www.dotasia.org/about/initialboard.html)

Maybe let me give you a little bit of background information of our .ASIA initiative first.  Prof. Kilnam Chon of Korea (one of the Internet pioneers in Asia) initiated the idea of .AP several years ago, laying the seeds of the initiative already.  From early 2003, the current team adjusted the idea to .ASIA as a Sponsored gTLD based on a bottom-up approach.  Initial responses were very positive and when ICANN issued the RFP for sTLDs in December 2003, the initiative began to formalize and take shape.

When the proposal was submitted to ICANN in mid March 2004, 7 ccTLDs (.CN, .ID, .JP, .MO, .NU, .TW and .VN) as well as APNIC and APNG already participated as members.  Since then, recruitment of members continued, and as of now, there are already 20 participating ccTLDs (including .KZ, .TJ & .UZ from Central Asia, .AF, .BT, .IN & .IR from South Asia, .KH, .PH & .SG from South-East Asia, .KR & .MN from East Asia and .NZ from Pacific) plus APNIC, APNG and PAN/IDRC.  The initiative will continue to welcome and recruit members even after it obtains approval from ICANN, and eligible organisations in the region can join at their own pace and become equal members. 

Upon the establishment of the initial board and initial advisory council by well-respected individuals from different areas of our community (see http://www.dotasia.org/about/initialboard.html), all are actively updated and involved, along with members and potential members, in the activities of .ASIA.

It is worth to note that Afilias’ involvement as a registry services and technology provider is well defined and well understood, and it does not and will not interfere with policy formulation functions of the .ASIA registry.

Our members and supporters share the dream of having our own Asia-focus TLD.  And, we want to leverage and bring together the collaborative spirit of the Internet community in Asia to further the continued growth in and around the region.  So, .ASIA is indeed an initiative of our community.

I hope that it is much clearer to everybody now.

Thanks a lot.

Che-Hoo CHENG

For and on behalf of
Initial Board and Initial Advisory Council
DotAsia Organisation Limited

Che-Hoo, why not tell the rest of the story too?

Like who spoke to you back in the late 2003 to get you to start working on this? Or who paid for all the trip to all the one-on-one meeting with the NICs? Or who has always been on your side for every meeting on .ASIA?

As I said, .ASIA? By all means - but do it really from Asia and don't play games. Don't play manuipulation tricks to get support and most importantly, dont make use of the communtiy good-will and hide a commercial operation behind it. That's what irks me most.

A good corp. governance means you don't pick operators first, then put the community around it. You do it the other way, form the communty and call for a public tender to invite all others who might be able to give you the service on a best-value-of-money. You already started off in the wrong foot.

Che-Hoo, maybe you cant answer those behind-the-scene question so let me asked you a few open one:

1. Have you spoken to any other alt. registry operators? Say Neustar or Verisign? Have you check with them what they offering? Have any evaluation been done to ensure you are getting the best value for money for the communty?

If not, why not, and if so is that appropriate? If yes, what's the conclusion to give it to Afilias, and if so, whats their role in the formation of .ASIA?

2. Have you spoken to any governments in the region? Have you gotten any endorsement from any government agency other then NICs who are part/wholly government?

If not, why not, and if so is that apppropriate? If yes, whats their response, and if so, why have you not reveal it to public?