[At-Large] Affecting ICANN policy on new gTLDs

[Evan Leibovitch]

Hello everyone.

ICANN has not yet started accepting applications for new gTLDs. To its
credit, at its meeting in Cartagena the ICANN Board has been convinced of
the seriousness of certain remaining issues enough to delay the launch of
the new round despite severe pressure from potential applicants and ICANN's
own contracted parties.

However, the onus is now back upon us and others who took issue with the
proposed creation procedures. We have made it clear what we did not like, in
issues such as the Independent Objector (IO), the Dispute Resolution Service
Provider (DRSP), and the regressive changes to in trademark-related takedown
notices. Now we need to propose what we *do* want, simply and directly.

This means, specifically, that we need to create specific wording changes to
the new TLD Applicant Guidebook. The goal is to offer to the Board a
ready-made set of changes that have:

   - Community approval as broad as possible
   - Wording that modifies the existing DAG as little as possible while
   still accomplishing our goals
   - Full consistency with existing GNSO policy and existing CWG consensus
   (on both Rec6 and applicant support)

If we are able to do this, we will have presented both a vision for our
approach to new gTLDs and a fully-charted method of execution. Doing so will
enable us to take initiative, providing a constructive way forward for the
Board to speed TLD introduction.

This is a significant task. Without enough people to share the load this
can't happen ... and if it doesn't, we will have nobody to blame but
ourselves for missing this opportunity to get our policy goals across.

If you are interested in helping with the background research or the
'wordsmithing' of changes to the Applicant Guidebook, please let me know as
soon as possible.

--
Evan Leibovitch
Chair, At-Large gTLD Working Group