[EURO-Discuss] Proposed Euralo statement on the gTLD Applicant's guide

[Patrick Vande Walle]

Dear colleagues,

Please find below and as an attachment, a draft Euralo statement on the
gTLD Applicant's guide

Regarding the process: the public comments period is over. However, the
ALAC is able to make comments directly to the board. The Euralo comments
could be an appendix to the overall ALAC statement.

I have also included a draft ALAC statement. While the ALAC text may
still change a bit in wording, I expect the main ideas to remain. Hence,
I drafted the Euralo text to mention only the things that do not appear
in the ALAC statement.

Please comment to the list,

Patrick



Euralo additional  Statement regarding the First Draft of the Applicant
Guidebook and Associated Document

The European At-Large Regional Organization supports the general ALAC
statement below. Additionally, we nevertheless wish to insist on several
aspects.

The EURALO does not support recent calls for a delay to the new gTLD
process, we are particularly concerned about any delay to the
introduction of IDN TLDs, both generic and country code and strongly
oppose any further barriers to their introduction.

We also note that the process is conducted largely in English, and the
complex and lengthy documentation that must be understood before making
an application introduces a strong bias toward English speaking
applicants. International competition will not be enhanced through
processes that disadvantage the non-English speaking world.

Further, a rigid registry/registrar separation really does not fit into
the reality of smaller applicants, especially non-profit. In these
cases, the burden of having to cope with ICANN-accredited registrars
might simply kill the registry, while registrars might have little
interest in reselling or promoting the TLD.

Also, for TLDs aimed at specific geographically-defined communities,
especially if the TLD is an IDN, there might be a serious scarcity of
ICANN-accredited registrars offering services in that part of the globe,
or there might even be none. We suggest that registries should be forced
to use registrars only when their size goes beyond certain thresholds
(e.g. 50k-100k domains).

The Euralo is also asking to have a different approval process for the
geographical, community bounded, non-commercial, not-for-profit gTLD's.
They should have the opportunity to enter their proposals with a low
entry fee, which should be proportional to the intended size of the TLD
(registry would pay extra fees once they grow and move from one size
group to the following one).


ALAC Statement to the Board of ICANN on the First Draft of the Applicant
Guidebook and Associated Documents - V1.

Firstly, the ALAC wishes to make clear that the At-Large community as a
whole is not of one view with respect to many elements of the New gTLD
programme.
There are a number of members of our community who are sceptical of the
need for new gTLDs at all – conversely, there are others who believe
that new TLDs are a great thing and that the existing process has gone
on much too long and should be expedited; between these views are
various intermediary views.

However, with respect to the specifics in the Applicant Guidebook and
associated documents, the community does have a number of strong views
that are generally shared. They are as follows:

Firstly, with respect to the fee for a new TLD application, and the
yearly fee for retaining the delegation, we find that the rationale is
at best tenuous (for example, why is it that ICANN needs to recoup costs
expensed in previous years for the new gTLD programme if it really
doesn’t wish to profit from the new TLD process?). More fundamentally,
the one-size-fits all fee structure skews the entire programme in favour
of developed world, for-profit TLDs and constitutes a major barrier to
entry for community-based TLDs and developing world applications. This
is not acceptable. The fee structure should encourage new types of TLDs
and not just those wishing to try and create the “next .com”.

Secondly, while ICANN’s compliance processes are improving slowly, they
are far from robust for the existing handful of TLDs; they are certainly
inadequate for the hundreds of new TLDs that the applicant guidebook
estimates will result from the first application round. We do not see
that the new TLD process has learnt any lessons from past problems with
respect to ongoing TLD operations – this must be remedied in a way that
the ICANN community as a whole finds persuasive and comprehensive.

Thirdly, we do not find evidence that ICANN understands that new TLDs
should be of benefit not just to the operator, but also to the public at
large. The objective of ICANN is not simply to grow an ever-larger
market for domain names – it is to provide a venue for administration of
a global critical resource for the benefit of the global public. This
concept is almost entirely absent from the current process. Where are
the mechanisms to help ensure that unscrupulous or criminal elements
cannot almost effortlessly continue the abuses of the TLD space in new
TLDs that they have been doing in existing TLDs – abuses that are a
continuing and growing concern worldwide?

Fourthly, the ALAC has made very clear our strong objections to
so-called “morality and public order” objections being any part of the
new TLD process. ICANN is not an appropriate body to have any view on
such matters, whether directly or indirectly. We find that the
incomplete elements related to this are entirely insufficient and we
call upon ICANN to make public all details related to its investigations
to date with respect to this objection. It is very clear that what is in
the guidebook is only a tiny part of what ICANN actually knows.
Additionally, we find the idea that the International Chamber of
Commerce would act as arbiter of these objections absurd. Until the
entire process related to this objection is made clear, it is entirely
inappropriate and irresponsible to be choosing a dispute resolution
provider to handle them.

ALAC also believes that allowing a first TLD round to have hundreds of
applications is completely irresponsible.  This is a major new area of
work for ICANN; the first round should be reserved for those applicants
who can demonstrate that they have been working on their applications
for a considerable time (of which there are quite a few). After that
round is completed, the process can then be fine-tuned to implement the
lessons learned so that subsequent rounds can allow many more applicants
to be handled expeditiously and transparently.

Finally, we have seen no evidence whatever that ICANN has a plan to
handle the massive amount of new work that this programme will create.
Considering the problem that the organisation has executing on its
existing responsibilities, we believe that a comprehensive resourcing
plan for the New GTLD programme must be a part of the consultation
process on the application processes themselves.

In closing, we wish to make clear that as an Advisory Committee to the
Board, we expect not only to receive confirmation that the Board has
received this Advisory, but to see evidence that the board has actually
discussed the advice we have provided and a written response to make
clear the Board’s thinking on this issue. Indeed we believe that this is
how advice from all Advisory Committees should be treated. 

We thank you in advance for your thoughts on this communication and we
are at your service if you have any questions regarding it.


-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: ALAC-Comments-gTLD Guide.odt
Type: application/vnd.oasis.opendocument.text
Size: 16611 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://atlarge-lists.icann.org/pipermail/euro-discuss_atlarge-lists.icann.org/attachments/20090125/6a8ae09f/attachment-0001.odt>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: ALAC-Comments-gTLD Guide.doc
Type: application/msword
Size: 23040 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://atlarge-lists.icann.org/pipermail/euro-discuss_atlarge-lists.icann.org/attachments/20090125/6a8ae09f/attachment-0001.doc>