[soac-newgtldapsup-wg] questions and comments in Brussels

[Olof Nordling <olof.nordling@xxxxxxxxx>]

Dear all,
For good measure, please find the questions and answers from Brussels session 
attached.
All the best
Olof

ICANN Brussels
Reducing Barriers to New gTLD Creation in Developing Regions
Wednesday, 23 June 2010

questiona and comments from the audience

>>KARLA VALENTE:  So the first question comes from Danny Younger.

Director Touray, I am aware of a registry operator that handles a
limited amount of registrations that does not charge any fee for
registrations and that uses no registrar services.  Their
organization's contract is up for rebid next year, and we all know
that the prospect of competition often inspires new innovative
solutions.

This registry operator, Diana, can provide such registry services for
IGOs by the way for INT.  Is there any particular reason why it
couldn't be cajoled into providing equivalent registry services for
NGOs in the developing world, perhaps a similar dot NGO TLD?



>>KATIM TOURAY:   Good afternoon, everyone.  And thanks very much,
Evan, for that, your very kind, and I daresay overblown presentation.

I don't think it's quite accurate to say that I was responsible for
the resolution that resulted, in effect, in this Joint Working Group.
I'd like to see it as everything that ICANN does as a joint effort
that really saw the involvement of each and every one of us.

And it's for this reason that I promised Avri and also Olof that I was
going to try to do my best to come and join you here, even if briefly.

We have an ongoing board workshop right now, but I had to pull myself
out of that, because it's important, I think, to come and be with you
and express my gratitude to you for the wonderful job, especially the
Joint Working Group has been doing.

The work that you're doing is very important.  As I was telling the
African group yesterday, it must also be seen in the context of the
fact that it's work that you are doing not only for your own benefit
and the benefit of developing world, but also for the benefit of ICANN
itself.

You will recall that the board resolution that we passed, board
resolution number 20 in Nairobi, specifically mentioned that to do
this would be very much in service of ICANN's objectives of being an
inclusive organization.

So to the extent that you are helping move the objectives of the
resolution forward, you are also helping ICANN achieve its objectives.
I really want to thank you again very -- thank you again for the
wonderful work that you're doing, that you have been doing, and also
encourage you to get as much information as is possible, as many
perspectives as is possible.  Because as I always keep saying, none of
us is as smart or smarter than all of us.  And so that's why it's
particularly important that we move this multistakeholder approach,
the grass roots-driven approach by ensuring that we have as much input
into these deliberations as is possible.

We certainly are looking forward to the recommendations that are going
to emanate from the wonderful work that you are doing, and hopefully
we'll come away with something that's going to be to the mutual
satisfaction of all of us.

Again, thank you very much.  I'm sorry I came in late, and I'm
especially sorry that I have to leave to go and join the board back
again in our workshop.

Again, thanks very much and all the best wishes of success in your
deliberations.

Thanks.


>> Okay.  Thank you.  I hope it's the right place to pose a question.

(inaudible) what will happen long term IDN language-wise competition.
One has the domain name burnout.com.  Now will come maybe a domain
name in Swahili, burnout.africa.  Both are TLDs.  They will be
translated by search engines.  So in three years' time, what name will
win the page ranking competition internationally?

And I already experienced that my Farsi name for caviar is being
translated in --

>>EVAN LEIBOVITCH:   I'm sorry.  I hate -- I hate to cut you off, but
I really don't think that's relevant to what -- we're talking here
about cost reduction.



>>EVAN LEIBOVITCH:   Okay.  Good question.  Wrong place.  Sorry.

>>STEVE DELBIANCO:   Steve Delbianco for Net Choice Coalition.
Carlos, you said your focus on who was all about people.  I feel as if
talking about just applicants as people, you missed the fact that 56%
of the people on the planet don't use the Latin script as their
primary language.  And until this year, they've had zero capability to
do a URL, domain name, or e-mail address.  So I have a question, if
the who is the people, we aren't really serving them today with
anything but a couple of IDN ccTLDs.  And what I'm hearing this week,
it would be one or two years before the gTLD IDNs can serve these
people.  So I saw a little bit of a clash, if the who we're serving
are the people, it may be necessary to give incentives to companies to
launch their gTLDs in versions of other languages that are IDNs or
they're just not going to do it.  They're not going to spend 2- to
$400,000 to serve those people.  So how does that clash between the
first group that said we wouldn't serve, say, a commercial applicant,
even though we know they're serving the people that need it most?



>>KARLA VALENTE:   The question comes from Mary and's a segue from
what Elaine just said.

Just to be clear, the basis or assumption is that support is only for
community-based TLD applicants, and the question was based on the
slide that says first round only for ethnic and linguistic
communities.  We clarified on the chat room that the support is not
limited to communities only.  That was just the way that the slide was
written.

So the other question from Mary is, to the extent that the first-round
recommendations are more likely to and more clearly be candidates from
community-based applicants, I wonder if the group considered the
requirements and dispute resolution sections of the Draft Applicant
Guidebook Version 4 as within its mandate.  For example, fair,
attainable by likely candidates.


>>CHUCK GOMES:   My name is Chuck Gomes.  I have a question with
regard to the bundling idea with regard to underserved language
communities.

New gTLD applicants as well as even existing registries who want to
offer IDN gTLDs are not in need of special support with regard to
financial support or like that, but they would be very unlikely to be
able to justify, from a business point of view, offering their
versions of their IDN TLDs and pay 185,000 fee, et cetera, to
underserved language community.

Is it the intent or even consideration, I know they are not definite
recommendations yet, of the working group to include that kind of
bundling opportunity in your recommendation?



>>ROBERT HUTCHINSON:   I am Bob Hutchinson from Dynamic Ventures.  We
specialize in helping entrepreneurs start new businesses.  And I was
wondering if you considered the lively idea of bundling.  I think it
makes a lot of sense.  I wonder if you looked at micro-capital kinds
of ways of funding the beginnings of these bundled businesses and so
on and so forth.  I'm curious if you did that.



>>KARLA VALENTE:   Hi, this is Karla on behalf of our remote
participants.  So you know we have around 28 remote participants
throughout this session.

This question comes from John McCormick.  Will local ccTLD's impact be
part of the evaluation process for community linguistic gTLD
proposals?  Basically the commercial impact of a community language
gTLD on a local ccTLD where most of the community language group is
based.



>> Hi, my name is Xing Hsao (phonetic).  I work for DotAsia registry,
but speaking on my own behalf.  Two questions.  First is I would like
to know how confidence is the group right now, for example, in the
next six months to incorporate the ideas into the real implementation
plan of the new gTLD program.  Speaking of which is that, for example,
I'm understanding the mission of cost cutdown for the applicant fee,
but there's still fees involved in additional cost.  For example, like
registry evaluation or even in the question of that 50 questions,
there will be requirement of a three-year -- I mean, their financial
deposit for the operation.

So that's one.

And actually the second is noticing that there's some exemptions of
the brands from the developing country may not be eligible for that.
I would like to take from a different perspective is that perhaps the
groups can also think about to help the brand owners in the developing
countries, like China, India, or Brazil, to make sure that they are
aware of the program, so their brands in the new gTLD rounds can be
more involved and be aware of what's happening in the trademark
clearinghouse area and so on and so forth.


>>NII QUAYNOR:   Yes, my name is Nii Quaynor.  I come from Ghana.com.
I am a registrar but I am speaking for myself.

I want to be clear that we are doing this for a better Internet, and I
want to ask publicly whether you do have a particular operate in mind
as you define the applicant support system.  And specifically to Alex,
you mentioned a dot Africa operator.  Does it exist?

Thank you.


>>NARESH AJWANI:  My name is Naresh Ajwani.  I am a president of Cyber
Caf Association of India.  We are an ecosystem of 180,000 cyber cafss,
70 ISPs, 49 government application, and 70 million Internet users.

I have a question.  I am sure the cost for the entry fee is very a
thought throughout approach of ICANN.  So when we are talking about
the cost reduction, from where this cost would be recovered is my
question, is my query?



>>NARESH AJWANI:  Shortly, it does.  But yes, I have a comment to
make.  It is a cross-subsidy.  There are no free lunches.

I think if a business model can be considered based on revenue share,
this particular challenge can be addressed.  Entry fees in all these
developing countries are now getting replaced by revenue share model.
For example, if a hundred dollars come into an organization, then a
percent from the gross revenue is taken by the licenser, government,
or anybody like ICANN.

So I'm sure that particular piece might have been considered by you to
not bring a cross-subsidy or a feeling of cutting the cost.  Revenue
share is only suggestion I think I can make at this juncture.

Thank you.


>>NARESH NAJWARI:  Suggestion would be kindly consider different
provision also that will really make not somebody to feel that he is
being benefited in different business model.

You have referred about India.  I must tell you, a few years back, the
biggest company in shampoo, P&G, was going back thinking shampoo can't
be sold in India.  So they changed the business model and they brought
sachets, small pouches.  Today every house, nook and corner of India
has got shampoo from P&G.  It's all about changing business models
instead of doing any cross-subsidy, reducing the cost.  If that
particular aspect can be considered, I am very confident it will be
accepted much faster.

Thank you.