Comments on Proposed Final New gTLD Applicant Guidebook

["Bret Fausett" <bfausett@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I am an attorney in private practice currently working with applicants
intending to apply to operate a top-level domain registry. For the most
recent round of public comment, I have worked through the Evaluation
Questions and Criteria (Attachment to Module 2) as I would when submitting
an application. I would like to address three areas where I believe the
Evaluation Questions should be revised.

(1) On Question 46, Template 1 for the Financial Projections is written as
though the Applicant is building and operating the technical infrastructure
itself. Some Applicants will be using third-party registry operators as a
technical back-end to provide registration, DNS, and/or other related
services. While I appreciate that the purpose of Template 1 is "to provide
commonality among TLD applications and thereby facilitate the evaluation
process," I would like to recommend that ICANN adopt an second template,
optional for the Applicant, that would allow it to identify and bundle its
outsourced costs. Alternatively, a second Sample Financial Template, based
on an outsourced registry solution, that showed how the evaluators would
like to see the outsourced services inside Template 1 would be helpful. 

(2) The Application also should allow an Applicant to identify and link
additional, related applications. For example, if an Applicant intends to
submit applications for .EXAMPLE, .EXAMPLE-IDN1 and .EXAMPLE-IDN2, it should
be able to identify inside each application that it has submitted the
others. This also will allow explanatory notes inside the Financial
Projections about shared revenue and costs across all applications. 

(3) I endorse the comment submitted by David Maher on behalf of the
Registries Stakeholder Group on December 7, 2010 that the Continued Registry
Operations Instrument (Question 50) has the potential to tie up unnecessary
amounts of capital. If ICANN works with the Registry Stakeholder Group to
identify alternatives, as requested by Mr. Maher, I would like to contribute
to that effort. Alternatively, I recommend that ICANN allow applicants to
contract with registry services operators for continued registry operations
services, for the same period called for by the current Continued Registry
Operations Instrument, as a substitute for the instrument itself. 

Thank you for the opportunity to comment, and I would welcome the
opportunity to provide further feedback on these issues if ICANN needs
clarification or additional detail.

Very truly yours,

Bret A. Fausett
AlvaradoSmith, APC