Business Constituency (BC) comment on Proposed New GNSO Policy Development Process

[Steve DelBianco <sdelbianco@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Below are comments of the Business Constituency (BC) regarding the
Proposed New GNSO Policy Development Process.

General Comments:
At 109 pages the report is thorough but overly long.

It is a report of a team with recommendations but not yet a guide for 
prospective participants in a PDP.  As noted in recommendation 3 this work 
needs to be turned into a short practical manual on the PDP without references 
to the working team or recommendation number ## or extraneous points of 
discussion. The start of such a document in section 5 is good but seems overly 
long at around 15 pages. A rigorous edit is required.

The flow charts are useful but overly complex. A simplified one for council 
initiated work only is needed. A flowchart showing timelines would be useful.

The complexity of the PDP report points to a larger problem,  It is 
increasingly difficult for people new to ICANN to easily engage and, therefore, 
contribute to the community.  The proposal laudably intends to reset the 
process for all, but it would be improved if there were a summary -- visual or 
executive -- that could serve as a roadmap.

Comments on specific recommendations:

10 and 11. The BC is concerned that the “preliminary issues report” is being 
over engineered. This report is intended to be short and factual outlining the 
issue raised NOT solving it or adding opinion on its merit. Therefore an 
additional public comment period at this stage is both redundant and will waste 
time.

12. Whereas certain issues will indeed benefit from a workshop, making this a 
mandatory procedure is short sighted.

13. A possible impact analysis before a vote to start a PDP is an option that 
will be gamed by parties wishing to delay a new PDP.

16. Codifying a practice to delay seems a dangerous precedent. If done the 
wording needs to be clear that this is not a cumulative right potentially 
delaying a decision to launch a PDP by six Council meetings.

Voting thresholds. There is a lot of discussion about Council voting 
thresholds. The BC recommends further changes to these should simplify not add 
complexity to an already overly complex structure.

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Philip Sheppard was Rapporteur for the BC on these comments.

These comments were approved by BC members in accordance with our charter.

Steve DelBianco
vice chair for policy coordination
ICANN Business Constituency
http://Www.bizconst.org