[npoc-voice] .health gTLD: NPOC Policy Committee Chair Activity Report

[Sam Lanfranco <lanfran@xxxxxxxx>]

*NPOC Policy Committee Chair Activity Report: gTLD .health*

As part of an expanded scope of activities by the NPOC Policy Committee 
the Chair will post activity reports to the NPOC community via the 
npoc-voice email list. Activity reports will be of two types. Some 
activity reports will be with regard to activities within ICANN that are 
of importance to the NPOC community. Some activity reports will be about 
concerns that originate within the NPOC community and are with regard to 
ICANN policy or actions that impact on the mission, vision, and work of 
NPOC community organizations. In some instances the activity report will 
deal with Internet governance and Internet ecosystem issues outside the 
scope of ICANN but will be explored as a contribution to NPOC community 
awareness and engagement in venues outside ICANN.
This first activity report is in response to concerns expressed by the 
global health community with regard to the ICANN plans to award the 
generic top level domain string (gTLD) .health to a private company, 
DOTHEALTH LLC.
See: 
https://gtldresult.icann.org/application-result/applicationstatus/applicationdetails/495
There has been a long history of constituency opposition to the issuance 
of a .health gTLD. Thus far the objections have been rejected, and much 
of the global health community feels that the objection process itself 
was flawed. At the current time there is evidence that ICANN's 
Goverenmental Advisory Committee (CAG) is also concerned about .health 
and possibly other health related gTLDs. Since both GAC deliberations, 
and ICANN's contracting process are confidential the global health 
community stakeholders are neither parties to the deliberations, nor 
information, about the status of GAC deliberations or the contracting 
process.
As a result the global health community is taking the initiative to 
national level and focusing their efforts on dialogue with their 
individual national members of GAC, and with their national organs of 
government that are associated with GAC. During the October ICANN51 
meetings in Los Angeles the global health community has circulated GAC 
contact information to its members. By various electronic means 
information has gone out to over 13,000 individuals and 2,300 
organizations across over 170 countries.
NPOC will assist in tracking the flow and distribution of global health 
care community contacts with its respective GAC members in an effort to 
measure and evaluate the extent of effort by this identified community 
as it deals with this ICANN DNS policy and implementation issue. A 
further activity report will be posted when the data warrants, or the 
issue is resolved.
Sam Lanfranco, Chair,
NPOC Policy Committee