JacksonHeights.nyc - The Application

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Jackson Heights map for .nyc application 1aAugust 19, 2016 - Connecting.nyc Inc. today announced that it had submitted its application to the city of New York for the license to develop the JacksonHeights.nyc domain name. Accompanying the application were over 30 affidavits of support from neighborhood businesses, civic organizations, and residents. The application may be viewed here.

The application and affidavits were the result of a weeks long outreach effort aimed at informing neighborhood residents about the organization’s Jackson Heights Project and incorporating their ideas in the application.

In submitting its application Connecting.nyc explained its decision to support the project:

After extensive contact with residents and organizations of our neighborhood and careful consideration of our capabilities, we have concluded that developing a neighborhood domain name provides us with a spectacular opportunity to advance our education mission and improve the quality of life here in Jackson Heights.

Tom Lowenhaupt, founder of Connecting.nyc Inc., noted that while the comment period for the application has ended, the design for JacksonHeights.nyc will be an ongoing, open, and transparent process to which all neighborhood residents were welcome.

NOTE: Our application was approved and we’ve acquired the right to develop the JacksonHeights.nyc domain. We will hold public meetings on the development process beginning in January 2017, expecting to transition to active use in mid-2017 (The current info on the site is placeholder info entered by the city and does not reflect our plans.) Should you have questions, ideas, or an interest in engaging with the endeavor, contact [email protected]

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Neighborhood Name License, part 1 - CAUTION: “Without Cause”

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Jackson Heights, New York, February 2, 2016 - The deBlasio Administration’s licensing initiative for the neighborhood domain names is currently accepting applications. So if you’re a neighborhood activist or budding media mogul, and want to activate Astoria.nyc, ConeyIsland.nyc, GreenwichVillage.nyc, Harlem.nyc or any of the 380 other reserved neighborhood domain names, submit your applications now. (Here’s the application.) Successful applicants will be notified on February 12.

While we’re extremely supportive of the initiative, there’s a clause in the draft Licensing Agreement that diminishes the likelihood of serious parties investing the necessary resources, a “without cause” clause in Section 3.b of the draft Agreement which states:

Either party may terminate this License Agreement without cause (effective immediately);

We wrote the mayor’s office about our concerns (this one and a few others that we’ll post on soon) and were told they were reviewed “with the Law Department and while we are unable to amend the terms per your request, we have certainly noted your requests.” So seemingly, while the version of the Licensing Agreement shared with us says “DRAFT—NON-FINAL & DELIBERATIVE,” so far it seems changes will come from the city sans consultation with residents.

As we stated above, we love the “dotNeighborhoods” and see them providing a fantastic opportunity to improve engagement and provide a civic toolbox that will facilitate innovation and improve the quality of life. (See our Adding Internet Mojo To Neighborhoods pages.) Indeed, we gave serious thought to applying for the JacksonHeights.nyc domain, but the “without cause” clause forced us to hold off. How could we approach investors and garner the necessary resources without the city providing a serious commitment?

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UPDATE, February 5, 2016

This past December we contacted several elected officials about the “Without Cause” clause and the hardship it would impose on an entity seeking to garner the resources to undertake the development of a dotNeighborhood in a serious manner. We heard back from one recently, who informed us that in checking with their office’s attorneys, they were told that this was a standard clause in all city contracts. We checked the city’s agreement with Neustar Inc., the holder of the contract to operate the .nyc TLD for the city, and found no such reference. (See the city’s contracts with Neustar here.) When told of our finding a representative from the same city official said their office had received complaints from others about the situation and would be looking into it.

We don’t doubt that eager city lawyers try to impose a ‘Without Cause” clause whenever they can. And perhaps they sometimes impose it. But if the administration is serious about adding the Internet’s capabilities to improving the economic and social quality of life in our city’s neighborhoods, this clause has got to be removed “Without Delay.”

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.London Premium Domain Name Auctions Start

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New York, July 15, 2015 - While New York City officials consider ways to issue the city-shaping and valuable Premium Domain Names - hotels.nyc, sports.nyc, news.nyc - London has settled on a plan for allocating its Premium Names. According to a story in today’s London Evening Standard:

Fifty of the most prized “dot London” website domain names are being auctioned from today to raise tens of thousands of pounds for the Standard’s charitable Dispossessed Fund.

Generic names such as cars.london, cinema.london, coffee.london, food.london and shoes.london were open to bids at noon at the domainauctions.london online sales room.

It is the latest phase of the roll-out of the new dot London website addresses with 64,000 already registered since launch in April 2014.

Up to a quarter of the proceeds from the auction, which closes at midday on July 30, will go to charities supported by the Dispossessed Fund subject to a cap of £50,000.

How much might the auction raise overall? Take a look at the early results here. With two weeks to go before this first auction concludes, rooms.london has a bid of £5,100 (about $8,000), with west.london in second place with a £2,501. So it would seem the Standard’s Disposessed Fund will max out with a £50,000 contribution.

The article mentions nothing about public interest commitments so our guess is that there are none, and that the Disposessed Fund is a fig leaf for the public interest.

Here in New York we’ve recommended that important Premium Names have public interest commitments attached. (Note: The city has set aside 3,069 names for consideration as premium names, some of which have little baring on the civic good such as 777.nyc and zero.nyc. We support auctioning these names.)

Public Interest Commitments will vary, perhaps requiring that hotels.nyc fairly present all the city’s hotels and that news.nyc and sports.nyc be based on local content. The New York Internet Society and Connecting.nyc Inc. organized a panel last December that suggested a PIC Oversight Board to delve into the intricacies of the allocation process.

Premium Names are a cornerstone of a successful city-TLD design plan. London seems to have taken its lead from General Motors’ chief Charles Erwin Wilson, saying (excuse our paraphrase) “What’s good for domain name sales is good for our city”. We await Mayor de Blasio’s plan.

 

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2015 - The Year of the dotNeighborhoods

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Jackson Hts., New York, January 18, 2015 - One of the unheralded achievements of the de Blasio administration’s first year was saving the neighborhood domain names - Astoria.nyc, Bensonhurst.nyc, Chelsea.nyc, etc. from the auction block. Under Bloomberg, these historic names were slotted to be sold off during the Landrush period to whoever had the biggest bank account. But under the guidance of Mayor de Blasio’s Sr. Adviser Jeff Merritt, the names were reserved:

The City of New York has reserved roughly 400 neighborhood names for use by community groups to develop new online hubs for civic engagement, online organizing and information-sharing. Neighborhood names will be available beginning in Fall 2014 and will be licensed to community groups through a competitive application process.

In order to be eligible for a .nyc neighborhood name, the lead organization must meet the following minimum qualifications: (a) registered as a not-for-profit, public benefit corporation or local development corporation, and (b) located within the neighborhood for which a .nyc domain name is sought.

Neighborhoods have been a long-time focus of ours. (See our dotNeighborhood wiki pages.) We’ve imagined vast unrealized social and civic potential, hamstrung by inadequate communication. Our most noticeable involvements with them was a collaboration with the New York Internet Society and Wikimedia-NY that explored the potential of neighborhood wikis. (See NYCwiki.org). So we were delighted by this development.

Over the next year a considerable part of our efforts will focus on making the most of these dotNeighborhoods. We hope to plan a pilot project with the following components:

  • Organizing - Write an on the ground plan for ways to engage local residents and organizations to support the venture. This will include ways to determine local training needs and integration with existing entities - digital and traditional.
  • Technology - Create a system with five components:
    • Centrally gathered neighborhood data: demographics, maps, economic info, government programs and grant information. Here we will look to collaborate with the city administration and entities such as Beta-NY.
    • A host system that includes a wiki component enabling everyone to record and publish a neighborhood’s memory. (For example, see Davis Wiki.)
    • Features that support discussion, decision making, and organizing.
    • An app for engagement while roaming the streets, with 311, service reviews, and peer connections.
    • A business model.
  • Best Practices - Establish a process for sharing ideas with other neighborhoods.

We invite the many who’ve indicated supported for our dotNeighborhoods initiative to limber up their minds and/or fingers and get ready for a most exciting year. Those who do not receive our dotNeighborhood notices should sign-up using the form at the lower left below.

NOTE 1: A paper on city neighborhood names was presented at a November 2015 “The City As A Commons” conference in Bologna, Italy by Connecting.nyc Inc.’s Thomas Lowenhaupt. See it here.

Note 2: We’ve published a series of pags on dotNeighborhoods. See them here.

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Report: Public Interest Commitments & Premium .nyc Domain Names

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Jackson Hts., New York, January 3, 2014 - The New York Internet Society and Connecting.nyc Inc. convened a panel on December 18 to explore the prospect and impact of requiring Public Interest Commitments (PICs) for some of the unallocated .nyc domain names - names such as news.nyc, sports.nyc, and hotels.nyc.

Internet thought leader Avri Doria kicked off the panel with a most informative and reflective history on the origin of ICANN’s new TLD program and the evolving role of PICs. She expressed a mixed viewpoint on the role of PICs, but was dubious about domain names being considered “magic words” - leaning toward the “there’s always a viable alternative” viewpoint.

Avri was followed by Thomas Lowenhaupt, founding director of Connecting.nyc Inc., who suggested that unallocated .nyc domain names be mined for those that might be shaped to benefit the public interest; and that those names have PICs attached to their development rights. (See list of 3,069 premium names.) To achieve this goal he suggested city hall establish a PIC Oversight Board to facilitate the identification and development of names that might benefit the public interest.

  • The Board should create guidelines for identifying public interest names and administer a process for their selection. That process should maximize opportunities for public engagement.
  • The Board should identify PIC features that might aide the development of markets and quality of life: maps, searchable alpha and geographic listings, public rankings, comments, reviews, etc. Names should be assigned appropriate PICs.
  • The Board should devise policies that maximize opportunities for the creative development of public interest names. These policies should enable for a broad spectrum of society to avail themselves of the opportunities provides by this new resource (not just current market leaders). These might include innovation credits, subsidies, stretched payment schedules, and other incentives.
  • The Board should advise on suitable means of distributing PIC names: high-bid auction, request for proposals, or other processes.
  • On an ongoing basis the Board should monitor the efficacy of the PIC program.

Finally, Gabriel Levitt, commenting on the .pharmacy TLD, provided insight into the role domain names can play in shaping a market and the public’s interest. Timothy McGinnis provided additional commentary on that topic. A full report on the presentations, a Q&A, and links to panelist videos and slides can be found on the meeting report page.

[Subsequent to the panel, member Thomas Lowenhaupt noted that he’d neglected to mention an important policy consideration relating to premium names and PICs - equity. His concern is that with high-bid auctions the sole criteria determining premium name allocation, new New Yorkers with new visions but slim bank accounts will find it difficult to participate in the .nyc marketplace. He requested that the equity issue be noted here for inclusion in the ongoing conversation.]

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