Re: [soac-newgtldapsup-wg] Q&A - RyC and JAS WG - PLEASE REVIEW by Friday May 20

[Elaine Pruis <elaine@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Good point.

On May 19, 2011, at 8:13 PM, Eric Brunner-Williams wrote:

> Elaine,
>
> I was off-grid after reading your reminder (which pre-dates my  
> participation in the JAS, so it was more of a "minder" than a "re- 
> minder"), so I thought about it but didn't write a response.
> Now I'm back to where there are wires ...
>
> The approach you outline assumes no change in the fee itself, only  
> in the points in time at which portions of it fall due.
> As Michele Neylon pointed out, the schedule itself is advantageous  
> to applicants generally, something ICANN staff has attempted to  
> create through their refund schedule for withdrawals at similar  
> points in time.
> However, for an application which meets the JAS eligibility  
> criteria, that is, which is made by a community, or ... (our several  
> criteria)
> 	o does the cost of string contention bring any benefit to the  
> applicant?
> The SWORD algorithm creates, out of all the strings submitted, zero  
> or more classes of two or more strings that "are in contention".
> While the applicant qualification tests currently under  
> consideration by the Working Group do not specifically attempt to  
> determine if any community application meets the criteria which is  
> dispositive, 14 of 16 in the past several versions of the DAG, and  
> I'll check with Olaf Nordling (ICANN Staff) just to be sure this  
> hasn't changed, it is my understanding that an application meeting  
> the eligibility admissions criteria is likely to meet the current  
> string-contention dispositive criteria in the current DAG, or the  
> still someone nebulous but possibly better dispositive criteria the  
> GAC is in the process of proposing.
> I don't for a moment assume you or anyone personally agrees, but  
> suppose for this moment that JAS applicants are more likely to  
> prevail over the general applicants in string contention, because of  
> the application of the JAS eligibility criteria.
> Are the JAS qualified applicants "benefited" by the cost of the  
> SWORD algorithm?
> I think not. To pick an example we all know, the Comoros Islands  
> registry operator is happy with "cm". She or he is indifferent that  
> Verisign was awarded "com", as no substantive confusion exists in  
> the Comoros Island name space users population with "com".  
> Conversely, Verisign would like all strings "confusingly similar" to  
> "com" to be barred by the string contention process outcome, an  
> auction to the right to operate the unique string in the SWORD- 
> defined set of strings that contain "com" which is added to the IANA  
> root.
> A prospective users of a community or ... (our several criteria)  
> applicant are unlikely to be confused by other strings that are just  
> "close" in the SWORD algorithmic computational sense to the string  
> that user community chose. Like the .cm name space users, they are  
> not likely to be confused by the existence of a .com name space.
> This is a long way of offering the claim that applicants qualified  
> for support under the guidelines we have been entertaining for the  
> past year are benefited less than the general applicant by the cost  
> of string contention -- SWORD development costs and the cost of the  
> actual evaluation.
> My point being that I'm glad you brought up the staggered payment  
> schedule, I simply think that the JAS should be pushing ICANN staff  
> to look at the value the JAS-qualified applicants receive at each  
> step of the application process, when setting the base cost to the  
> applicant to progress to that step in the application process, and  
> before the Board makes whatever choices it makes to reduce, or not  
> reduce, the fee to advance its business and geo-political diversity  
> goals.
>
> Eric
Elaine Pruis
VP Client Services
elaine@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
+1 509 899 3161