Summary of Public Comments

[Craig Schwartz <craig.schwartz@xxxxxxxxx>]

Summary of public comments for:
Proposed .AERO Sponsorship Agreement

20 January 2009


BACKGROUND

The public comment period was created to solicit feedback from the Internet 
community on the proposed .AERO Sponsorship Agreement.


SUMMARY

The public comment period was open from 19 December 2008 through 19 January 
2009. Three comments were received and one of them was spam and unrelated to 
the proposed renewal agreement.

The comments below are listed in the order they were received.

George Kirikos' comments addressed the terms of the proposed agreement and not 
SITA, sponsor of the .AERO TLD or their management of the registry. Mr. Kirikos 
commented that, "They appear to have done an excellent job running their 
sponsored gTLD." Mr. Kirikos objects to the 10-year term outlined in the 
registry agreement and stated it is "much longer than other gTLD contracts and 
that 4 or 5 years would be more appropriate."  Mr. Kirikos also objects to the 
renewal clause outlined in Section 4.2 of the proposed agreement. He stated 
that, "We oppose presumptive renewal on principle. The operation of all gTLD 
registries should be available for public tender, with the contract awarded to 
the lowest bidder, as per other government and business contracts. At the end 
of the fixed term of the contract, another tender would take place. This 
maximizes benefits to consumers, namely domain registrants in the .aero 
namespace."

Edward Hasbrouck's comments concern how the sponsorship agreement and prior 
extension amendments were negotiated. He stated, "This secrecy in negotiating 
the sponsorship, extension, and renewal are in flagrant violation of ICANN's 
Bylaws on transparency, which require that, "ICANN and its constituent bodies 
shall operate to the maximum extent feasible in an open and transparent manner 
and consistent with procedures designed to ensure fairness. Any decision based 
on these secret meetings or secret documents would also be in violation of the 
transparency Bylaw.""






CONCLUSION



This summary is not a full and complete recitation of the two relevant comments 
received. It is an attempt to capture in broad terms the nature and scope of 
the comments.  This summary has been prepared in an effort to highlight key 
elements of these submissions in an abbreviated format, not to replace them.  
Every effort has been made to avoid mischaracterizations and to present fairly 
the views provided.  Any failure to do so is unintentional. The comments may be 
viewed in their entirety at http://forum.icann.org/lists/aero-renewal-2008/.



NEXT STEPS

This summary of public comments will be used to inform the ICANN Board of 
Directors in their consideration of the proposed renewal sponsorship agreement.




Craig Schwartz
Chief gTLD Registry Liaison
ICANN
1875 I Street, NW, 5th floor
Washington, DC 20006