[At-Large] gTLD Review Group decisions regarding the comments by IT for Change, India

[Olivier MJ Crepin-Leblond]

Dear Parminder,

I join my colleagues in thanking you for forwarding your organization's
comments and I thank Dev Anand Teelucksingh and his group for their work
and Avri Doria for her very clear answer.
It would be premature for me to speculate on the resolve of the ALAC
regarding this matter. I have heard views in support of blocking
applications of generic names as privatised domains but others also
think differently. There are also several other initiatives in other
parts of ICANN with letters being sent to the Board and various other
parties objecting to these applications.

Once the comment period is past, there opens a full period of formal
objections. I suspect this is where we might see objections coming from
various sources. But the mandate that the ALAC has to process and send
formal objections is very tight indeed. It might indeed be that an
objection through the ICANN Independent Objector or via the GAC has a
wider scope. The ALAC could make a wider comment directly to the Board
-- and there are several months ahead of us to do that.

What I do deplore, though, is that when ICANN has implemented a process
of public objections spanning several months and is being extra careful
in proceeding forward in a step by step approach to comments,
objections, early warnings and the like from all of ICANN's stakeholder
communities, the risk is sensationalized by leading the wider press
readership having no knowledge of the process, to the conclusion that
ICANN does not care nor take any precautions in the way it is handling
the subject. In reality, ICANN is doing exactly the opposite.

I am concerned that such criticism could be utilized by unseen parties
for political means to advance their own agenda -- one in which no
Internet end user will ever be asked its point of view in a bottom-up
fashion, but instead be told pay, pay, pay, shut up, shut up, shut up.
What a grim prospect for the Internet of the future.

Kind regards,

Olivier

On 25/09/2012 14:58, Avri Doria wrote:
> Known:
> The ALAC can give advice to the ICANN Board on anything related to ICANN.
> The ANgWG can recommend to ALAC anything that is within our charter.
> Roll out issues for the new gTLD program are in our charter.
>
> Probable:
> Since the charter includes roll out issues and there seems to be agreement that this issue is in scope as a roll out issue, we can make a recommendation on it to ALAC. 
>
> Unknowns:
> What recommendation the group might make, if any.
> Whether the ALAC accepts our recommendation.
> What the Board does with any advice the ALAC might give based on our recommendation, if any.

-- 
Olivier MJ Crépin-Leblond, PhD
http://www.gih.com/ocl.html