Comments - European Commission

[<Maciej.TOMASZEWSKI@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Dear Sir/Madam,
Please find below comments from the European Commission.


The European Commission thanks ICANN for submitting the report on 
implementation of the new gTLD programme. It is extremely important for us that 
concrete data be provided on all aspects of the implementation of the existing 
new gTLD programme, as well as a full analysts of its impact, before any 
further policies are developed for any new round of gTLDs.

The data and analysis must also take into consideration the Competition, 
Consumer Trust and Consumer Choice (CCT) review and the Rights Mechanisms 
Review. The ICANN community should contribute to the assessment of the 
challenges faced in rolling out the new gTLDs.

The report on the implementation of new gTLDs provides a useful overview. At 
the same time, we would like to see greater focus on objective data that 
reflect the challenges encountered in the new gTLD programme.

There appears to be a presumption that the new gTLD round could not be 
implemented according to its estimated timeline because the GAC did not act 
according to rules in AGB (See "Addressing GAC Advice" on page 99 and "3.1.5 
Conclusion" on page 99) .  The report does not mention that GAC was 
consistently expressing in its different Communiqués that the implementation of 
new gTLDs would create challenges related to public policy issues. Therefore, 
GAC has been exercising its role of public policy advisory body according to 
existing rules.

Moreover, the report seems to contain a presumption that whenever possible, 
ICANN has implemented GAC advice on new gTLDs. However, the assessment of the 
implementation of different GAC Communiqués, including the ones on new gTLD 
safeguards, is currently ongoing. It is not clear at the moment how that GAC 
advice has been treated and therefore, it would important to make sure that the 
report on the implementation of new gTLDs remains neutral in this respect.
In addition, the report does not mention explicitly that there are still some 
problems related to the implementation of new gTLDs. For instance, the 
Community Priority Evaluation is subject to the ongoing discussions within the 
ICANN community and GAC had addressed this issue in its Communiqués. Also, the 
introduction of Internationalised Domain Names (IDNs) created challenges 
related to public policy objectives. The assessment of particular IDNs was 
particularly long with certain applications (like Greek version of 
dot.eu<http://dot.eu>) still pending.

MACIEJ TOMASZEWSKI
Policy officer – International
Internet Governance Task Force

[cid:image001.gif@01D130E2.71587620]
European Commission
DG CONNECT
Unit D1

BU25 6/41
B-1049 Brussels/Belgium
Tel. +32 229 52 440
Mob. +32 460 752 440
maciej.tomaszewski@xxxxxxxxxxxx<mailto:maciej.tomaszewski@xxxxxxxxxxxx>

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