Recent Thunks

Jackson Hts., New York, April 13, 2015 - I attended the ICANN’s June 2008 board of directors meeting in Paris which passed the fundamental resolution for its New TLD Program.

Now, 7 years later, with New York City actively issuing domain names, I’ve come to wonder why it’s not functioning as I’d imagined. A recent thought on that might be worth civic or scholarly consideration and is presented here.

Let me first note that the mismatch between dream and reality is not for lack of interest or competence within the bureaucracy. My encounters with the city administration have uniformly been with highly intelligent and caring people.

The challenge originates with the lack of preparation for the idea’s arrival. With a bureaucracy crafted from hundreds of years of bad experiences, city government is a multi-layered, lumbering, behemoth. And sometimes a new idea is thrust upon it without proper awareness as to its appropriate location. In the instance of the .nyc TLD, we advocated for its being part of the city planning department. But responsibility seems to be scattered through several departments.

While there’s a booster club that likes to say New York City’s government is innovative, we see it being the “seal of approval” city. Generally, when New York adopts a new process or service, it’s been thoroughly vetted elsewhere, e.g., Paris’ Velibe paving a path for Citibike. The city’s philosophy in Broadway-speak might be expressed as “Work out the kinks in New Haven” (ref.). With New York among the first cities to adopt a TLD, that New Haven stop was skipped, and we’re playing the role and price of pioneer. (Commons image courtesy of Wikimedia.)