Comments on DAG v3

[Roger Castillo <rcastillo@xxxxxx>]

Peter, Rod, Kurt
and all ICANN staff

Thank you very much for all the effort put on this version of the DAG.
We're very concerned about the no_timeline_update feature of the Seoul meeting, 
but also hopeful that all the parties involved in the remaining issues will 
work very hard to resolve them very soon.

This last no_timeline position really puts ICANN and all initiatives in a 
credibility crisis. We see a great potential for .LAT as Latin-America is 
moving forward, growing and gaining more attention every day, and we are very 
disappointed to see more delays and uncertainty on the new gTLDs program.

Here are some thoughts and comments on some of the documents published with the 
DAG v3. We hope you find them useful.

Module 1:
Section: 1.1.2.3 Initial Evaluation
Page: 1-4

The last paragraph says:

The Initial Evaluation is expected to be completed for all
applications in a period of approximately 5 months. If the
number of applications is a number in the range of 400, this
timeframe would increase by 1-3 months. In this event,
ICANN will construct a method for processing applications
in batches, which will extend the time frames involved. In
this event, ICANN will post updated process information
and an estimated timeline.

We have some questions and comments:

First: Are the proposals going to be evaluated in a particular order?
Second: It is very important that the evaluation criteria are the same for all 
applications and evaluation firms. If the criteria become more stable as the 
evaluators go through the proposals they must be sure that all have been 
evaluated on the same parameters. It would be logical to revise some of the 
first applications to check for uniformity of criteria.

Other thing that caught our attention is that the EOI call for evaluation teams 
includes interpretations rather than direct links to the DAG as reference 
criteria for evaluating applications. We must be sure that both applicants and 
evaluators have a common set of rules and criteria not biased by 
interpretations made by someone else.

Module 5:
Annex: Trademark Post-Delegation Dispute Resolution Procedure

We share most of the concerns already stated about this procedure.

It is clear that the burden of proof is very high on the complainant; 
nevertheless, the output of the procedure should always be a recommendation to 
ICANN. The decision to apply the proposed remedies should be ICANN's. 
Furthermore, the remedies should be only sought after a breach of the registry 
agreement has been demonstrated and ICANN should act in consequence, and only 
in the terms included in the Registry Agreement.

We hope you find this comments helpful.

We are looking forward for this round of new gTLDs, we have a lot of resources 
devoted to our new gTLD project, and hope that we have the final version of the 
Guidebook very soon.

Thanks.

Roger Castillo
NIC Mexico
.LAT initiative