[gtld-council] Comments on GNSO PDP Dec 05: Report

["GNSO.SECRETARIAT@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx" <gnso.secretariat@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Date: Thu, 15 Jun 2006 08:41:57 -0400
From: Ken Stubbs <kstubbs@xxxxxxxxxxxx>

comments on this report  from some of our constituency members


Term of Reference 2:  Recommendations, Item 4 says, ". . . It was clear
from discussions that provision of a sound business plan which
demonstrated an ability to comply with ICANN policy (where appropriate)
and meet minimum technical standards was important. . . "   It is not
clear to me that this was all that clear.  W do not necessarily agree
that there was
support for ensuring that enough info is given to demonstrate ability to
comply with ICANN policies and meet minimum technical standards but it
seems to me that no clear agreement was reached in terms of a "sound
business plan".


Term of Reference 2:  Recommendations, Item 8 refers to, ". . . a
pre-published set of criteria against which applications would be
evaluated."  This is probably a minor point because 'objectivity' is
mentioned several other places in the report, but it seems to us that it
would be good to insert the word "objective" in front of "criteria".

Term of Reference 3:  Recommendations, item 4 reads, ". . . There was
strong support for the first come, first served process with either an
auction  or lottery to deal with competing applications that had already
met the other baseline criteria of technical competence and the
provision of sufficient evidence of operational and financial capacity."
I am not sure that there was strong support for an auction or lottery in
cases of contention for a TLD.  Those options were certainly mentioned
as possible ways of dealing with contention but we don't recall there
specifically being strong support for either approach.  Do you?  If so,
should we point this out?

Term of Reference 3:  Recommendations, item 6 concludes, ". . . It was
clear that comparative evaluations were still a necessary part of any
new TLD application process particularly where there were limited
resources to deal with any application round and where applicants had
proposed similar strings with similar purposes for similar communities
of interest."  we cannot recall this..  Did the
committee ever agree that 'comparative evaluations were still a
necessary part of any new TLD application process'?  we think item 8
contains a more accurate conclusion of what happened: "Where there was
contention for either the same string or limited staff resources to
process applications, there were two main alternatives proposed which
each had roughly equal support.  These were:
-  Objective (auction or lottery)
-  Subjective (comparative evaluations of the applications to identify
the best applications)."

Term of Reference 4:  Recommendations, item 11 says, "There should be
renewal expectancy.  Operators could expect renewal of their agreements
provided that they had not been in material breach of the contract or
repeatedly failed to perform to the standard required in the contract.
There should be mechanisms to terminate the contract if the operator has
been found in repeated breach of the contract. "  This in my opinion is
a very accurate conclusion from the session in Brussels.  we only
highlight it because it may be one that we need to discuss further with
all members of the RyC going down the road in this PDP.

Finally, item 4 under Next Steps reads, "Between the Marrakech meeting
and the December meeting in Brazil, the GNSO Council will complete its
Initial Report and release it for a formal Public Comment Period."  We
definitely did discuss schedule in Brussels, but the wording here seems
to leave the door open for the final report to be submitted for public
comment as late as December 2006 and I don't think that was what was
intended.  we would suggest the wording be changed to something like the
following: "As soon as possible after the Marrakech meeting and the end
of the public comment period on the final version of the Initial Report,
the ICANN Staff Manager will prepare the Final Report (PDP step 9.c),
the GNSO Council will deliberate on the Final Report (PDP step 10), and
the Staff Manager will prepare the Board Report (PDP step 11) so as to
allow sufficient time for the Board to take action not later than
December 2005."





--
Glen de Saint Géry
GNSO Secretariat - ICANN
gnso.secretariat[at]gnso.icann.org
http://gnso.icann.org