[ALAC] Fwd: ICANN News Alert -- New gTLD Batching Announcement

Thu Jun 7 10:51:02 UTC 2012

Hello all,

please find below, more information about the Digital Archery which will
be used to batch new gTLD applications into batches of probably 500
applications at a time. With a possible 2000 applications to process,
some applications might only be processed much later than others and
this "game" of Digital Archery will set applicants apart.
Already several firms run by close ICANN insiders are proposing a paying
service to "win" the Digital Archery using their automation service
which they claim will ensure their client's applications are considered
first. This means more sources of profit, but this also means that
applications which were made possible by thanks to all of the work the
community did to have Applicant Support, might be discriminated against
since they will not be able to afford the automated digital archery
winning service.

Also, looking closely at the terms and conditions of "digital archery",
(see video on
http://newgtlds.icann.org/en/announcements-and-media/video/batching-demo
at Time 2:37 mark) , applicants using the Digital Archery system agree
legally that this is a contest of skill rather than a contest of chance.
Clearly, with the Internet's differing delays depending on where you are
located, and since digital archery system will be accurate to 100th
second (as seen on the demo), it is *impossible* for anyone to display
any kind of skill except by being physically at the data center itself.
I remind you that delays on the Internet range from 3ms to 700ms or
more, depending on where you are, since any satellite link will
automatically induce between 300 to 700ms -- it is a physical
propagation time needed. And these delays are jittery too.

Is Digital Archery therefore allegedly a game of chance, not controlled
by any kind of legal structure associated with games of chance, with
open opportunities for cheating?

There have been calls to the Board by some members in the ccNSO for
Digital Archery *not* to be used and an alternative process to be
followed, which may also involve *not* having any batching altogether.
Others in the GNSO Council have also written to the Board about this,
with similar findings or other alternative propositions.
Should we support those comments?

Alas, the Board correspondence page has its last entry on 21 May 2012
and the correspondence which I have been CC'ed into was sent on June 4th
and on June 6th but I have asked if those have already been published.

With Digital Archery starting on June 8th, should the ALAC issue a
statement on this ASAP?

I'd be interested in your points of view.

Kind regards,

Olivier
(the above message includes some of my own points of view)

-------- Message original --------
Sujet: 	ICANN News Alert -- New gTLD Batching Announcement
Date : 	Wed, 06 Jun 2012 22:35:29 -0400
De : 	ICANN News Alert <communications at icann.org>
Pour : 	<ocl at gih.com>

ICANN <http://www.icann.org/>

    News Alert

http://www.icann.org/en/news/announcements/announcement-06jun12-en.htm

------------------------------------------------------------------------

    New gTLD Batching Announcement

6 June 2012

Given the large number of new generic top-level domain (gTLD)
applications, we will divide and evaluate them in batches. The batching
system is targeted to open at 00:01 UTC on 8 June 2012, and will close
at 23:59 UTC on 28 June 2012. The target date for posting the batching
order is 11 July 2012.

The batching process will be used to determine which applications will
be processed in the first batch, the second batch and so on. It will be
done by: assignment of a timestamp, and the formation of batches.

/Timestamp assignments/ will be done using the TLD Application System
(TAS). All applicants must use their TAS credentials to log in, read and
accept the batching rules, indicate their batching preference, and
select their target date and time. Once these steps are completed
applicants should log back into TAS to hit the target time and generate
a secondary timestamp. Users will have access to a testing feature to
gauge the secondary timestamp system's response time.

/Batching formation/ considers an applicant's: (1) batching preference,
(2) geographic region and secondary timestamp; and (3) contention among
identical and "similar" applications.

    (1) Applicants stating a preference for "opting-out" will be placed
    last.

    (2) Geographic diversity is important in bringing more competition
    and choice into the domain name market. Applicants who opted in will
    be ranked within their geographic region (Africa, Asia-Pacific,
    Europe, Latin America/Caribbean and North America) by their
    secondary timestamp score. Then applications will be selected from
    each ICANN region using a "round robin" approach. This approach
    selects the best timestamp score from each region, one region at a
    time, on a rotating basis. If a region runs out of opted-in
    applications, the "round robin" continues across the remaining
    regions. This process continues until the batch is formed, with the
    opted-out applications last.

    (3) ICANN will then make preliminary determinations of contention
    sets based upon exact match. All applications in a single contention
    set are placed into the batch where the earliest application in the
    contention set is placed. Once the string similarity panel
    establishes complete contention sets, "similar" strings might be
    reassigned to an earlier batch. No applications will be demoted as a
    result of the promotion of others. This could result in a batch
    larger than 500.

ICANN has taken care to provide a secure and stable platform for the
batching system. Users will connect to the Citrix XenApp
high-availability cluster and will then log into the batching system.
Applicants will be required to agree to a set of Batching Rules,
including an agreement that "ICANN reserves the right to delay an
application to the last batch or to reject an application entirely if
ICANN reasonably determines that the applicant abused the batching
system or intentionally interfered with the performance of the system or
any other applicant's use of the system."

Along with this announcement ICANN is posting several additional
resources to inform applicants about the batching process. These include
a: set of frequently asked questions (FAQs), video demonstration, user
guide, batching details and rules, and a batching basics fact sheet,
which all can be found on the Batching information webpage at
http://newgtlds.icann.org/en/applicants/tas/batching/. Information on
security, infrastructure, and operations is also available in these
materials.

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