Internet Society Calls For Hearings on .nyc Contract Renewal

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February 6, 2017, New York City - Last week the New York Internet Society passed a resolution that called for the city of New York to hold public hearings before renewing its contract with Neustar Inc. for the operation of the .nyc TLD. The resolution stated:

“The Internet Society’s New York Chapter urges the city of New York to provide robust outreach and engagement opportunities for the city’s Internet stakeholder community prior to renewing the contract that will guide the operation of the .nyc TLD registry for the next 5 years.”

The resolution was sent to Mayor Bill deBlasio and other city officials with oversight of the city’s digital resources. It cited 14 areas of concern (see page 2 of below letter) and called upon the city to undertake a three stage review before renewing the contract:

  1. The City institute a public comment process.
  2. The City convene a town hall event where all stakeholders may make their views known.
  3. That the City review these comments and, as it sees fit, make appropriate adjustments.

The Internet Society’s New York Chapter (ISOC-NY) is a NYS non-profit founded in 1997 with the mission “to assure the beneficial, open evolution of the global Internet, and to promote local initiatives, maximize the societal benefits which the Internet can bring to the New York area.” It has taken a keen interest in .nyc as a public resource and over the years promoted, webcast, (and, on occasion, hosted) all public events where the development of the .nyc TLD has been discussed.

Here’s the letter:

2017-02-06_isoc-ny_dotnyc

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Premier Presentation of JacksonHeights.nyc

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New York, January 4, 2017 - Connecting.nyc Inc.’s founding director Tom Lowenhaupt will present an overview of his organization’s development plans for the JacksonHeights.nyc domain on Thursday, January 12, at 8 PM. The presentation will be made at the Jackson Heights Jewish Center, 37-06 77th St. (map), a short walk from the Roosevelt Avenue - Jackson Heights subway stop on the E, F, M, and R trains, and the 7 train’s 74th Street station. The occasion will be the regular monthly meeting of the New Visions Democratic Club. All are welcome to this free event.

His presentation will begin with a description of the .nyc TLD and the city’s hopes for its neighborhood names licensing program. Then, after a project history and timeline, he’ll describe the system’s initial features - a neighborhood resource directory and common calendar - and the ways neighbors and organizations may join in developing and using them. He’ll then speak of the long term potential as social and civic features are developed and introduced.

He’ll conclude with a discussion of the ways existing neighborhood organizations might benefit, and of the plans to transition control of the endeavor from Connecting.nyc to neighborhood residents.

Mr. Lowenhaupt said the audience for this first public presentation was carefully chosen as the project’s success depends on engagement and support by the neighborhood’s civic, social, and business leadership, sectors strongly represented at New Visions.

A video of the event is now available.

 

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Maps.nyc

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Book of Old MapsNovember 30, 2016, New York City - This evening Connecting.nyc Inc.’s director, Thomas Lowenhaupt, addressed a meeting of the New York Map Society urging them to join the campaign to create the Maps.nyc domain. He explained that City Hall’s actions point toward an intuitive .nyc TLD, where the city we know as New Yorkers is mapped, name-for-name, to the Internet - more or less. He stated that the likes of libraries.nyc, schools.nyc, GreenwichVillage.nyc, Harlem.nyc, and maps.nyc will be activated in the coming years to create a more intuitive and accessible city.

Thomas explained the Maps.nyc opportunity by drawing an analogy to the city’s program for licensing neighborhood domain names. In that instance the city has reserved 385 traditional neighborhood names for licensing to local nonprofit organizations, GreenwichVillage.nyc, Harlem.nyc, etc., with the license agreement having some content guidelines and a 3 year review.

He explained that beyond the neighborhood names, the Mayor’s Office of Innovation, the entity overseeing the licensing of neighborhood names, has offered the Maps.nyc domain name to pilot a process for allocating a range of “city-reserved” domain names (see list here). The criteria for licensing Maps.nyc are flexible, with the public interest and a reasonable chance of success being the leading factors.

A Collaborative Approach

Thomas invited members of the Map Society to contribute their thoughts on developing Maps.nyc via a collaborative document Connecting.nyc maintains to facilitate the creation of an application for the domain. He called it a challenging task, requiring stakeholders to step up with ideas on ownership, governance, content, design, and a business model. Questions and suggestions should be sent to [email protected]

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High-Bid Auctions Deflate the .nyc TLD

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stoptheauctionsJackson Hts., New York, October 27, 2016 - Our hope for an intuitive and trusted .nyc TLD took a hit today when 20 domain names were sold to 10 bidders in city’s first high-bid auction. While the city refers to these as “premium” names, we think of them as heritage names. With our city-TLD’s success predicated on its utility and predictability, this first of perhaps 25 auctions bodes poorly on its chances. More on that in a bit, but first some details on the auction.

The big winners (using their bidder names, the only ones available), were nameinvest and motionx with 4 properties each. Top dollar was spent by changejobs who purchased apartments.nyc, condos.nyc, and realestate.nyc laying out a total of $42,065. The bargain of the day went to hoofhearted who purchased roommates.nyc for $69. In total, more than $68,000 was bid. Here are the auction results:

  • Apartments.nyc
  • 58 bidders
  • winner: changejobs
  • $16,155
  • Construction.nyc
  • 28 bidders
  • winner: anasacebaruzzi
  • $500
  • Kitchen.nyc
  • 23 bidders
  • winner: motionx
  • $2,000
  • Renovation.nyc
  • 22 bidders
  • winner: nameinvest
  • $690
  • Brokers.nyc
  • 32 bidders
  • winner: nameinvest
  • $1,908
  • Furniture.nyc
  • 24 bidders
  • winner: motionx
  • $2,508
  • Lease.nyc
  • 24 bidders
  • winner; breadsticlk
  • $4,100
  • Roommates.nyc
  • 23 bidders
  • winner: hoofhearted
  • $69
  • Brownstones.nyc
  • 23 bidders
  • winner: luckbealady
  • $530
  • Garden.nyc
  • 22 bidders
  • winner:: motionx
  • $1,021
  • Living.nyc
  • 24 bidders
  • winner: greenappletree
  • $2,650
  • Rentals.nyc
  • 48 bidders
  • winner: guyg
  • $5,700
  • Condos.nyc
  • 41 bidders
  • winner: changejobs
  • $4,610
  • Homes.nyc
  • 37 bidders
  • winner: motionx
  • $3,200
  • Lofts.nyc
  • 29 bidders
  • winner: odash
  • $1,200
  • Studios.nyc
  • 27 bidders
  • winner: nameinvest
  • $1,008
  • CoOps.nyc
  • 23 bidders
  • winner: hoofhearted
  • $520
  • Interiors.nyc
  • 22 bidders
  • winner: nameinvest
  • $500
  • RealEstate.nyc
  • 60 bidders
  • winner: changejobs
  • $21,300
  • Sublet.nyc
  • 24 bidders
  • winner: guyg
  • $560

Using market metrics, the city can point to some positive results…

  • The auction winners now have the opportunity to develop these 20 domain names.
  • Someday soon some new websites might emerge and improve our lives. And if they are successful, add some jobs and taxes to our economy.
  • The city and several intermediaries will receive some revenue.

But the negative impacts are far more numerous and consequential…

Let’s explore this proposition by looking at this auction’s effects on a developer shopping for a domain name, and a typical New York internet user. From a developers perspective, with more than 1,000 TLDs to choose from, why choose one from the .nyc TLD? What makes it a better choice than a .com? Or selecting a descriptive TLD: a .lawyer for someone starting a law practice? And from a New Yorker’s perspective, what difference does it make if s/he receives predictable results from our city’s TLD?

The answer to all these questions is trust. While there are several factors that engender trust, to a large degree, it emerges organically from an intuitive TLD. Trust is engendered when one types a domain name and arrives at the expected resource. The simplest and quickest way for the .nyc TLD is to become trusted, is by setting standards that encourage an intuitive name space.

Let me detail the ways the high-bid auctions damage an intuitive and trusted TLD.

  • First, these are heritage names with a meaning that exists in the heads of New Yorkers. They should be providing the base for a more intuitive Internet both for New Yorkers and those seeking our resources. To the extent that they’re not part of an intuitive guidance system, they diminish the reliability of our city’s TLD.
  • Without public interest commitments guiding their use, city residents may utilize these names only at the whim and will of the auction winners.
  • Without public interest commitments, the winning bidders may use them for non-conforming use. The winner of Brownstones.nyc can use the name for a bar, a band, or whatever. If Brownstones.nyc doesn’t tell tourists about our brownstones, it reduces consistency and damages the TLD.
  • Without public interest commitments, selling development rights to our heritage names is like giving control of our street signs to an advertising agency.
  • Without public interest commitments, the winners may leave the names idle, or “parked” in industry parlance. More than 1/2 of .nyc names are currently parked or without content.

Having established public interest commitments for the neighborhood names, and benefited from its 200 year experience with street grids - predictability and ease of navigation - I find it disheartening that the city government has not chosen to follow the winning pattern.

If the auctions continue as is, they will discourage direct, intuitive (type-in) access, making New York’s resources less accessible - finding them will require a search engine. This will diminish our capacity to shape our city and shift it into the hands of Google-like entities.

Beyond its impact on the viability of our TLD, the de Blasio Administration is missing the opportunity to fulfill its commitment to foster opportunities for minorities and women. While the city has indicated a willingness to make some reserved names available for public interest uses, its resource commitment to advance the idea has been inadequate. Similarly, the promised 30 day notification for these heritage auctions doesn’t provide an adequate opportunity to organize hackathons and other networking events that might enable innovative ideas to emerge from our disparate communities.

#StopTheAuctions

This was the first of what might be 25 high-bid auctions for 500 heritage names. The city should stop the auctions and take steps to improve this phase of the name allocation process. Allocating 500 heritage names without associated Public Interest Commitments will cripple .nyc’s intuitive operation, diminish public trust, and reduce the utility and usage of our city’s TLD.

We’ve made several improvement recommendations in a previous post. Today we’re recommending that the city cancel the auctions, and negotiate a settlement with the contractor for its expected revenue. Auction #1 has provided a basis for estimating that settlement.

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Thomas Lowenhaupt is the founding director of Connecting.nyc Inc., a NYS nonprofit education organization advancing the operation of the .nyc TLD as a public interest resource. His 2001 Internet Empowerment Resolution sparked the city’s acquisition of the .nyc TLD. Two years ago the Internet Society of New York and Connecting.nyc sponsored a panel on the allocation of these “premium” domain names. See a report on that meeting here.

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#StopTheAuctions

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stoptheauctionsJackson Hts., New York, October 5, 2016 -  There were highs and lows in city hall’s rollout of the .nyc TLD last month. Early on we were cheered when we received notification that our application for the JacksonHeights.nyc domain name had been approved. And with the de Blasio Administration committed to putting the city’s 350+ neighborhood domain names under the control of local residents, we began to imagine that our decade-old vision of an “intuitive” city Internet might materialize; where one would find informative presentations of our city’s art galleries at artgalleries.nyc, find banks at banks.nyc, and locate a church at churches.nyc. And with each such directory a bonus would arrive: the opportunity for a New Yorker to form a new small business.

But our confidence plummeted when the city’s contractor announced that a high-bid auction was to be held on October 24 for 20 domain names:

  • Apartments.nyc
  • Construction.nyc
  • Kitchen.nyc
  • Renovation.nyc
  • Brokers.nyc
  • Furniture.nyc
  • Lease.nyc
  • Roommates.nyc
  • Brownstones.nyc
  • Garden.nyc
  • Living.nyc
  • Rentals.nyc
  • Condos.nyc
  • Homes.nyc
  • Lofts.nyc
  • Studios.nyc
  • CoOps.nyc
  • Interiors.nyc
  • RealEstate.nyc
  • Sublet.nyc

These are the first of what might ultimately be 3,000 auctioned names, many of which are vital to the realization of that intuitive city and the utility of the TLD.

The basis of our disappointment is epitomized by the hotels.nyc domain name. It’s reasonable to assume that, in a high-bid auction, an entity such as the Hilton Corporation, with deep pockets and 30 hotels in or near the city, will win. When this occurs two associated outcomes can be predicted with reasonable certainty: a traveler looking to hotels.nyc for a city hotel would assuredly be provided with a highly skewed view of the city’s 250+ hotels (a Hilton perhaps?). And a comprehensive listing of hotels, perhaps creatively mixed to include an AirBnB-like listing, fashioned by a local entrepreneur will never materialize.

With our being awarded the license for JacksonHeights.nyc, we have a big stake in this development: If people come to believe that hotels.nyc and other such civic infrastructure names are in essence offering “biased directories,” what hope is there that they will come to trust that JacksonHeights.nyc presents the considered and collaborative intelligence of its neighborhood namesake?

To summarize, the city has established a workable model to guide the allocation of the neighborhood names, requiring detailed public interest commitments (PICs) from those interested in the rights to their development. Further, those awarded neighborhood name must return every three years to demonstrate they’ve met their PICs. In contrast, the plan for auctioning hundreds, perhaps thousands of these civicly important names does not require any PICs from the auction winners. And there’s no review process whatsoever, with the names issued virtually forever.

#StopTheAuctions

If the city sticks with the high-bid auction (a holdover from the Bloomberg Administration), several negatives will result.

  • Our opportunity to establish .nyc as a managed and trusted TLD, a safe port if you will, will be severely diminished.
  • We’ll loose the opportunity to provide access to these new resources to capital starved entities. The local flavor and creativity will suffer.
  • We’ll loose an opportunity to bolster our digital self reliance. We’ll remain dependent on distant search engines to filter and present our digital resources.

The city should stop the auctions and follow these steps to improve the name allocation process.

  • City Hall should establish a public policy that facilitates the identification and development of civicly valuable domain names.
  • Considering the economic and aggregation benefits that arise with a well managed and trusted digital resource, it should categorize the 3,000 names: those that can be auctioned immediately, names for negotiated allocation (like the neighborhood names), and names that have PICs and are destined for high-bid auction. (Here’s a start.)
  • The city’s Department of Small Business Services should do outreach to small and minority businesses and empower them to participate in these auctions by sponsoring hackathons, networking events, loans, credits…

The city should begin governing the .nyc TLD as a common that belongs to all New Yorkers. While Mayor de Blasio has taken some commendable steps, e.g., the neighborhood names and a nexus policy that restricts ownership to New Yorkers, success requires an investment. The city should immediately re-establish its .NYC Community Advisory Board and enable meaningful public engagement in the auctions, and deal with issues such as abandoned names, idle names, WHOIS, rates, and consumer protections.

Longer term, the city charter needs to be revised to reflect the Internet’s existence.

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Thomas Lowenhaupt is the founding director of Connecting.nyc Inc., a NYS nonprofit education organization advancing the operation of the .nyc TLD as a public interest resource. His 2001 Internet Empowerment Resolution sparked the city’s acquisition of the .nyc TLD. Two years ago the Internet Society of New York and Connecting.nyc sponsored a panel on the allocation of these “premium” domain names. See a report on that meeting here.

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