[gtld-council] Additional applicant criteria relating to communities associated with a string

["Bruce Tonkin" <Bruce.Tonkin@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hello All,

Consistent with the discussion around string contention (option 3A), the 
committee discussed an addition to the applicant criteria as below.


Applicant criteria:

1. Applicants should be able to demonstrate their technical capability

2. Applicants should be able to demonstrate their organisational capability

3.  Where the meaning of strings relate to a community where there are 
established institutions (5 years), there should be no significant, widespread, 
and bona-fide opposition from a significant portion (e.g from community members 
or organisations representing more than 25% of the affected community) of the 
community of users relating to that string, regarding the suitability of that 
applicant for that string.


The intent of criteria 3 above, is not to require an applicant to provide 
material, or staff to evaluate that material in the initial evaluation process. 
 The intent is to allow a community to raise objections through the public 
comment process, and if these objections appear to be significant, than the 
applicant would then be subject to extended evaluation in this area.   The onus 
will be on the community group raising objections to show that their objections 
are significant.   The ICANN staff would need to check whether the objections 
raised are bona-fide (e.g not produced via a computer virus).   The aim is to 
avoid a few disaffected members of a community or potential competitors being 
able to prevent the introduction of a new gTLD.

The wording of 3 will require careful drafting to reflect the intent of the 
committee and prevent gaming.

It will also be important to indicate that this does not relate to language or 
script of the string as it would be displayed on user equipment, but to the 
meaning of the string.     Ie If the string "bank" was rendered in Chinese via 
an "xn--" label - "银行" , the affected institutions could be banks within 
countries where the Chinese language is widely used, or the string "banque" 
would relate to banking institutions in French speaking communities.  In 
contrast  if the string "red" was rendered in Chinese via an "xn--" label - 
"红色" or in French as "rouge", then there are no established institutions that 
relate to colour and this would not apply.    [Note I apologise in advance if I 
have got the Chinese characters wrong - they are supposed to be based on 
simplified chinese]


Regards,
Bruce Tonkin