RE: [soac-newgtldapsup-wg] Re: soac-newgtldapsup-wg@xxxxxxxxx

[Krista Papac <Krista.Papac@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Eric,

This is a tough one to solve and I appreciate your efforts to do so. 

On one hand, we don't want candidates needing support to be limited to 'ugly' 
and 'unlikely' strings -- yet we also want the funds and non-financial services 
to go to a TLD that have a likelihood of being awarded. We also won't know what 
'pretty' and 'likely' strings will actually be applied for until it's too late, 
nor how many candidates will apply for support.

I, unfortunately, don't have any suggestions for solving this problem but I do 
feel we should afford support qualified candidates a chance at applying for 
their TLD. Maybe the thing to do is build in a process to "avoid wasting 
support resources on applications certain to fail" only if the number of 
support qualified candidates exceeds a certain threshold. We also need to be 
ensure candidates are educated about the risks associated with 'pretty' and 
'likely' strings (i.e., auction) so they are selecting their string(s) 
carefully and with their eyes open. I would really hate for a support qualified 
candidate to walk away feeling they were set up to fail because they applied 
for .POPULAR-STRING. One way this could be accomplished is to require 
candidates to demonstrate understanding of the New gTLD Program as part of the 
qualification process. 

Krista Papac
Chief Strategy Officer
AusRegistry Group Pty Ltd
Email: krista.papac@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Web: www.ausregistry.com
-----Original Message-----
From: owner-soac-newgtldapsup-wg@xxxxxxxxx 
[mailto:owner-soac-newgtldapsup-wg@xxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of 
ebw@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Wednesday, August 10, 2011 10:58 AM
To: soac-newgtldapsup-wg@xxxxxxxxx
Subject: [soac-newgtldapsup-wg] Re: soac-newgtldapsup-wg@xxxxxxxxx


Colleagues,

Following up on yesterday's note, staff has maintained that applications
in a contention set may find alternatives, meaning that cash and equity
swaps may reduce a contention set from N to 1 prior to any auction. The
assumption appears to be that each of the N applicants don't know at what
point in a rising auction the N - 1 other applicants will exit the auction
and from this lack of knowledge will prefer to bargin to set an agreed on
"price" for each applicant's equity opportunity in the auction.

However, if one of the N applicants is is a supported applicant, than the
other N - 1 applicants do know the point at which the supported applicant
will exist the auction, and so the equity opportunity of the supported
applicant is zero, and the fair price to "buy out" the supported applicant
is also zero.

So, unlike non-supported applicants, supported applicants which do not
have auction dispositive status (community type with 14/16 proven or made
by on on behalf of some public administration for the common name of the
associated territorial jurisdiction), who's application is determined to
be in a contention set with at least one other non-supported application,
can neither benefit in auction outcomes, nor can they benefit in auction
avoidance outcomes.

We could, in order to avoid wasting support resources on applications
certain to fail:

        o condition support on the applied for string being unlikely
          to fall in a contention set, e.g., more than 10 Latin, Cyrillic
          or Arabic script characters, more than 4 Han characters, and
          not one of the first thousand google-ranked keywords in the
          script. Support is limited to the ugly and unlikely.
or
        o order, or eliminate, support for applications which lack one
          of the auction dispositive status characteristics, or which
          meet the prior criteria of being ugly or unlikely. Support is
          limited to the above plus 14/16 scoring (which we actually can
          not know in advance) Community Based applications and those
          made by or on behalf of public administrations for the associated
          common name.
or
        o inform the Board that a mechanism is required to be added to
          those identified in the DAG to allow supported applicants to
          obtain one or more strings also sought by unsupported applicants.

I still don't have a best answer, I'm thinking and writing, comments are
sought.

Eric