REGARDING EOIs and making progress

["Anthony Harris" <harris@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

We would like to express our support for
the EOIs process, inasmuch as it serves
to respond to an ICANN Board initiative.

Our preference would have been to be able
to initiate the applications period, complete
the evaluations and/or dispute proceedings,
and then line up for final delegation, in sync
with the resolution of the "overarching issues",
and the resulting methodology. This could be
done in parallel with the work on the overarching
issues, thus avoiding another year/plus of delays
for the new gTLD applicants.

Thus the application process could advance as
far as the contractual line, and halt there if the
overarching issues resolution has not been
fully completed. Applicants could sign a statement
of admission to abide by any such delays should
they occur, concurrent with the submission of 
their application.

We also fully concur with comments in this thread,
which correctly point out that everything in the Internet
is in constant expansion (I would also add the IP address
space with IPv6), and it would seem appropriate that
the domain name space not be excluded from this
positive trend.

The ICANN Board may be faced with a complex issue
as regards to advancing towards opening the application
window, since the last minute emergence of the
overarching issues. May the Board in it's wisdom find 
a way to move this forward and avoid further delays.

Regards,

Anthony Harris
Executive Director
eCOM-LAC 
Latin America and Caribbean Federation
of Internet and Electronic Commerce
www.ecom-lac.org