Ubuntu we must have, real Ubuntu that does not seek to manipulate under the table, Ubuntu that will ensure that every single cent trickles back to the source which is unmistakably African Populace. Unless past mistakes can be sorted out and the pertinent issues surrounding the .Africa issues can be addressed, am afraid but also confident, Dotconnectafrica has done enough ground work don't you think?

Dear Mr. McTim, From your comments to this particular Blog Note, it is clear that your posturing is so vehemently opposed to DCA. This is rather unfortunate, and reveals a sinister under-current that should concern every serious DotAfrica stakeholder. Your expressed sentiments point to the troubles ahead. In your posted comments, you have made statements such as: “All it takes is one or two countries objecting under the DAG rules and .africa will be put off to the next round.” Is this a veiled threat that the DotAfrica process will be frustrated based on needless objections? What would be the bases of such an objection? Would people simply object to DCA’s DotAfrica application simply for the sake of objection? Again, you have expressed the opinion: “I see the AU involvement as vital to the success of .africa”. DCA believes that the AU is simply to endorse DotAfrica as a stakeholder but not be involved in it. At this time, the ‘involvement’ of the AU is not helping DotAfrica. Why should the AU be involved? The AU is an intergovernmental organization that is not in the Internet Domain Name business, and does not have to be involved in DotAfrica to serve a presumed ‘African Interest’. Regarding the issue of ‘Africa’ as a geographic name, any bid for DotAfrica will of course go through a Geographic Names Panel Evaluation according to the ICANN gTLD Applicant’s Guidebook, and this is where the AU is important, but this requirement for Geographic Names Evaluation does not imply that AU should take full ownership of the process, and use this as a criteria to fail or pass gTLD applications that are being evaluated at ICANN. Again you have also used another phrase which reveals your evident bias against DCA: “I see this as a real show-stopper for DCA's bid.” It is really obvious that you expect DCA’s show to be stopped one way or the other. Would that be based on due process grounded on transparency and accountability or based on arms-twisting, blackmail, sabotage, illegality, or to use one of your own words “reprehensible” conduct? Again your statement: “I'm all for a .africa managed by an African registry that also uses an African back-end provider. As far as I know, there is only one potential bidder that has committed to this ideal. Can DCA make the same commitment?” shows that you an open supporter of ARC. What type of commitment do you expect DCA to make? Sell-out to a Cabal or maintain its independence and remain loyal to the ICANN process in the face of unnecessary pressures and being forced against its will it to participate in murky relationships with people that are openly antagonistic to its initiative? Is “an African registry that also uses an African back-end operator” an ICANN new gTLD requirement or an extra-ordinary conditionality that is now being imposed by those who seek to take secret control of the process by issuing edicts and decrees left right and centre! Is this free competition? Why not let ICANN decide based on the Guidebook and other gTLD application evaluation criteria? If ARC’s interest on DotAfrica is simply for the registry operations, why should whatever ARC believes is useful in marketing itself as a business enterprise be used as a criteria to decide who should apply for DotAfrica?

Hi Gideon, I will try to answer your queries in order below: My “opposition” to DCA, if you can call it that, is based on the attacks DCA has made on multiple stakeholders over the last several years. The espoused “All’s Fair in Love and War” attitude is not the way that Internet governance has been done over the last 40 years. Instead, we rely on collaboration, cooperation and communication. There is nothing sinister about evidence based decision making, that’s all I am trying to do in this case. I wasn’t making any threats, veiled or not, in fact, I am assuming that the objection would come from a government or government friendly to DCA. I am assuming from the aggressive attitude of the organisation, that DCA would try and block any competitors bid via government interference. I fear that if a competitor is successful in the ICANN round, regardless of the AU outcome, DCA would ask a friendly government to object. I would be happy if you were to assert that my fears are unfounded. I think I explained earlier that the AU is the governmental body most closely aligned with the name of the continent, that’s why I think they are vital to the process in terms of arranging non-objections from governments. I wouldn’t encourage them to become the Supporting Organisation for a .africa bid, which would be inappropriate IMHO. I expect the “showstopper” to come from the accountable, transparent ICANN process. ICANN will employ a background checking service, which I expect, will turn up the DCA content that I find objectionable and include it in their report. I expect that the ICANN Board members would not grant a TLD to an organisation that uses such aggressive tactics. That is just my well-informed political analysis of the situation, which is why I said that YMMV. The terms ”arms-twisting, blackmail, sabotage, illegality” are all very heavily loaded. If you are going to accuse people of breaking the law, you’d better cite which laws were broken and how. AFAIK, there are zero laws regulating TLD processes, so no other stakeholder can be acting “illegally”. There is a saying that “you can catch more flies with honey than with vinegar”, in other words, DCA’s hyper-aggressive attitude is winning it few friends inside the ICANN community. This is why I think that ultimately DCA will not succeed. I think you’ve destroyed your chances before the bidding has even begun. Feel free to reject my political analysis and insert your own. I support the idea that we can run our own TLD using a local registry provider, whether that is ARC or another African registry operator makes no difference to me, as I have no financial interest in the outcome, nor do I expect to have any going forward. If you can’t commit to using a local registry operator, then those monies will go abroad. The whole idea of .africa is to reduce our dependence on .com/.net/.org, thereby reducing that fight of capital. The commitment that I expect DCA to make is to act appropriately in terms of the content they publish and to uphold your ideals being pro-African. The condition of using an African back-end is mine and mine alone, not the AU’s or ICANN’s. I expect that ICANN will decide based on their own published criteria.

Dear McTim, Let us begin by acknowledging that you have openly admitted that you are opposed to DCA. Therefore, no one expects you to be unbiased in your understanding and analysis of the issue. However you will not be forgiven if you arrive at any wrong conclusions that expose your ignorance or betray your confusion. Since you dabbled into ‘analysis’ it is assumed that you should give an educated ‘analysis’ based on a proper understanding of the issue at stake. For example you concluded your open animus against DCA by stating: “I expect that ICANN will decide based on their own published criteria.” However, before expressing this simple truth, you had gone about presenting your ‘ informed political analysis’ on a matter that is entirely legal, technical and financial to enable you arrive at your understanding that: “the ICANN Board members would not grant a TLD to an organization that uses such aggressive tactics.” O McTim! What are we expected to believe from you: a) that ICANN will act based on their own published criteria; or b) that ICANN will forget their objective published criteria and judge DCA subjectively on the basis of ‘aggression’ or ‘hyper-aggression’? As thinking people, we elect to believe that ICANN will act based on its objective criteria, and for this reason DCA remains confident that the ICANN process would yield an acceptable outcome for DCA simply because our faith in the ICANN process is based on ICANN’s commitment to the ideals of objectivity, transparency, and independence in the service of the global public interest of accountable Internet Governance. DCA will continue to count on ICANN’s integrity. However, even though we do not accept your ‘informed political analysis’ because of its confused outcome, DCA has every reason to suspect you of engaging in discussions with some ICANN Board Members to enable you come to the understanding that you presently have. Are you lobbying against DCA with any ICANN Board Members? Again, we think that your ‘informed political analysis’ is wrong since you have completely missed the point, not only regarding ICANN but also regarding the AU. Evidently there is a mismatch between what role you think the AU should play and what role the AU and members of the AU DotAfrica Task force expect the organization to play. You see the AU as “vital to the process in terms of arranging non-objections from governments”. If in your honest opinion you do not expect the AU to become the supporting organization for a DotAfrica bid, then you are closer to the reasoning of DCA than you think or care to admit. If you have read the AU Briefing note on DotAfrica, (http://www.dotconnectafrica.org/2011/05/dca-commentary-au-briefing-note-dotafrica/) published by its Infrastructure and Energy Division, you would have known that the AU intends to apply for DotAfrica and is seeking the support of African governments to enable it carry out this objective. A modified strategy that is being pushed by the AU DotAfrica Task Force is either; i) For prospective applicants to form a Consortium and sign agreements with the AU (that also includes the AU as a member of the consortium that will bid) to enable them apply to ICANN for DotAfrica); or ii) For the DotAfrica name string and similar strings such as DotAfrique and DotAfrikia to be reserved and made unavailable to enable the AU separately negotiate the delegation of DotAfrica gTLD outside the ICANN process. Therefore your ‘informed political analysis’ is simply based on naiveté and your understanding has nothing to do with the published intentions of the African Union Commission and what the organization is presently doing to take ownership and full control of the DotAfrica process. In any case, even though we believe that you are actually clueless about the AU’s intentions, it is still understandable why you really expect the AU to conveniently arrange non-objection from governments, since you expect DCA to rely on the help of a friendly government to object. The point is that you would rather the AU provides the form of protection that will be beneficial to your ‘friends’ so that a secret deal can be worked out to give the registry functions to your “African-based registry operator” that also uses an “African back-end provider”. It is clear that your ilk are actually more interested in what they expect to benefit by cooperating and collaborating with the AU Task Force members, whilst simply paying lip service to the ICANN process. What a crying shame! Finally, please be kindly informed that DCA does not make any false accusations against anybody or any organization. For example, DCA has evidence that some of its endorsements obtained independently, for example with the Corporate Council on Africa were sabotaged by its detractors. If the matter ever goes to litigation, then we shall provide the necessary evidence to support our claims in a competent court of Law. In conclusion, DCA does not think that it has any problems with ICANN or with the global ICANN community or ICANN Board Members. We believe that we can take our chances in a transparent ICANN new gTLD process, and it is only the detractors of DCA who are not confident of making a successful application to ICANN that are presently looking for other ways of gaining control of DotAfrica through opaque arrangements. We rest our case for now.

I see from a quick google that you are "Newsletter Editor [email protected]" so nice, that's the "Hi, I am thomas kamanzi" part handled. Now - I dont know about true or false accusations, but every single DCA press release, blog post, circleid post in this thread etc that I see starts out in an attacking mood, with words like "abuse of power", "sabotaged" etc. And I see that you folks dont even bother to declare who you are before you start accusing people of everything except possibly farting in church. So - why should you be taken seriously when you attack other people who are much more regular contributors on circleid? I haven't heard of your initiative before this thread but I can assure you that it is set for failure if you set out to do everything that's not recommended in "how to win friends and influence people"

http://www.dotconnectafrica.org/yes-campaign/vote-no/ Vote no to Nii Quaynor Vote no to Pierre Dandjinou Vote no to .. etc etc

Dear McTim, Thanks for taking the time to clarify any perceived misunderstandings, and thanks also for not being opposed to DCA, and for your often stated public admiration for DCA’s outreach and publicity work done for DotAfrica. We wish other people were as objective and understanding for DCA’s committed efforts. However, we have no intention of nitpicking on statements, since we only expect more objectivity and sympathy for DCA. The point is that the No Campaigns are simply a protest against perceived victimization and injustice since DCA has been shut out and sidelined, without any channels for recourse. Therefore, we repeat that we do not make false accusations against anybody. >Everything we have stated in our “No Campaigns” can be substantiated and defended. Moreover, on the contrary, it is not DCA that puts the entire Internet community in Africa in a bad light. For example, we have always insisted that the AU Task Force on DotAfrica should have been more careful in dragging the esteemed African Union Commission into the ‘politics’ of DotAfrica since the AU never had the intention of applying directly for DotAfrica. It is the so-called leaders of the African Internet Community who have advocated for community ownership of DotAfrica, but even so, insist that the AU should own and keep DotAfrica in trust, meanwhile the same African Internet Community leaders have vested interests in DotAfrica, since they have also floated different proposals and aligned themselves with various prospective applicants. Therefore against such open ‘conflict of interest’ DCA could not put its fate in the hands of those who are firmly opposed to DCA. That our endorsements have been sabotaged is common knowledge. It is such underarm tactics that puts the Internet community in bad light. DCA has only acted in self-defense. Accordingly, DCA’s firm position is that everyone should follow ICANN’s due process, and if the leaders of the African Internet community are interested in applying for DotAfrica, they should not use the AU to achieve their purpose by using the political influence and diplomatic powers of a respected Pan-Africana organization. They can do it on their own by applying directly at ICANN, and also allow DCA to apply based on its existing endorsements from the AU, and let ICANN evaluate independently, and everyone should accept the final outcome. We hope this clarifies. We thank you again for helping to clear the air. Thomas Kamanzi, DCA Public Communications

Thomas, You've gotten your letter from the AU. Now, your competitors would like the same. The ICANN process calls for it. Let them get the same endorsement (or non-objection) and you all go to ICANN on the same level. Sounds like fair competition to me. I guess we will have to agree to disagree on the "Vote No" campaigns, as one man's scurrilous, indefensible attacks seem to be another man's self-defense.

Quite frankly, its easy to try and compare scenarios when it comes to projects that are endeared to serve the future, the dotAfrica gTLD particularly as case on point, as i see from most of your articles they try to warn or perhaps give predictions of the process as well as the future of the gTLD's expected come 2012. My very honest view is that trying to compare the .Asia and the .Africa cases may only serve to create a fear vacuum. To further call it a waste of money and effort is trying to pre-suppose, and that totally goes against the spirit of bringing Africa particularly at par with the rest . Nothing that has ever been successful has been achieved by comparisons, and if that was the case competition would cease, i believe that this would stand as the chance Africa has in fact i like to call it a watershed moment for Africa to get its unique self online and with the rising broadband speeds we consider Africa to be the next big thing, therefore why not go for .Africa , why not risk to find a better place online ?

Yes the African Union exists, but "Africa" as an identity people will want to pay money to get a domain on is about as likely as "Asia" say. Even .us isn't as popular as .com .. and the only continent TLD that's making money is .. .au (which of course is a single country as well). So yes I agree with John that it is largely going to be a pipe dream. I also support the points McTim has been making - that the aggressive tactics being displayed (even in this thread) are not going to help your case over much. In other words, you need to decide whether this is as valuable and useful a proposition as you think it is, that you are ready to accuse anybody at all who disagrees with it using loaded language of the sort you've used.

I don't disagree that capacity building in Africa is a good idea. But it's absurd to waste half a million dollars on a vanity TLD. How about spending that money on community web sites, the local infrastructure so community members can build and use them? Verisign, Neustar, and Afilias are not my favorite organizations, but the familiar TLDs are cheap and reliable, and as I keep pointing out, it's a fantasy to imagine that yet more vanity TLDs will accomplish anything other than enrich the people who hold the keys to the TLD.

eg: you might want to add a line to that article like "I work for Wananchi, and my CEO is on the board of DotConnectAfrica" for example.

Then why have a bidding process at all? And what does this boil down to - the AU, you fear, favoring another set of commercial interests over the commercial interests of your organization / the organizations of your principals? And is that grounds for a high decibel and hostile campaign? Do consider that your negative tactics are guaranteed to cause negative reactions. You are making every effort to alienate stakeholders here. And, it looks like, your efforts are meeting with the expected success.