To Whom it
May Concern,
The
following comments are made on behalf of AllGlobalNames, an ICANN-accredited
registrar in response to the consultation paper entitled "Criteria to Be Used in the Selection of New
Sponsored TLDs"
(the proposal). First, we would
like to express our appreciation for the opportunity to comment and also express
our support for the process of expanding the number of gTLDs. As requested we
restrict our comments to the proposal but we would like to take the opportunity
to strongly support that:
a) The DNS
be further expanded beyond the current proposal of adding a limited number of
sponsored TLDs, with sponsored as well as unsponsored TLDs; chartered as well as
unchartered TLDs; open as well as closed TLDs; generic as well as specific
TLDs.
b) For this
and the successive rounds of TLDs, the focus should be on the usefulness to a
given community of a given TLD, provided that it abides with ICANN policies and
does not destabilize the DNS. The proposal, in general, over stresses the risks
of non-complying names being
registered while overlooking the even more legitimate goal of providing
useful and meaningful TLDs and names for any given Internet community of
users.
c) More
concretely, applicants should not be required to ensure that some things will not happen, as such a proof is, in
itself, impossible. Reasonable
policies and sensible compliance mechanisms should be the focus, not the
impossibility of by-passing the mechanisms.
In
addition, we would like to present the following concrete comments on the
proposal:
1. In section 2(d) Commitment to ICANN
policies states that the “Proposing sponsor must indicate commitment to abide by
all applicable ICANN policies.”
Why assign 5
points if the proposed sponsor is required to indicate that it will abideand just
that??
2.
It appears that the evaluators will be assessing the same criteria in 2
different areas of the application.
The
first instance is in section 3a(ii) “Proposed name represents an endeavour or
activity that has importance across multiple geographic regions”
The
second instance is in section 4(b) Global reach and accessibility (8) “gTLDs are
intended to serve broad global communities. (i) Global distribution of
communities served”
Why evaluate
the same criteria twice? Isn’t this
double jeopardy?
3. In section 4, How can you prove community support? What
should be provided to prove “Evidence of community support for the proposed
sTLD”
4.
Section 5(a) Ensure that only charter-compliant persons may obtain
registrations, states “Operators of sponsored TLDs are expected to implement
safeguards to ensure that non-compliant applicants can not register domain
names.
(i)
Mechanisms to filter non-compliant applications
(ii)
Actions to be taken if non-compliant registrations occur”
Are both (i)
and (ii) required? In other words: Shouldn’t applicants get the chance to opt
for ex-ante and/or ex-post compliance
mechanisms?
5.
Section 6 Provide complete and
well-structured proposal (20) states that “Proposals must be complete in
responding to the criteria requirements and in providing other required
information. Proposals must also be well-structured to allow for ease of
evaluation.”
How do you
define “well structured” to allow for ease of evaluation? In addition, how do you define “not well
structured”?
6. We understand that the applicant will
have an opportunity to respond to the evaluators.
How
will this be structured? How much time will be allotted? Will applicants be able
to clarify evaluator questions? What kind of dialog can applicants
expect?
7. In section 2
(b) it is stated that "the sTLD sponsoring organization should be a
not-for-profit membership organization, with a clear charter that defines permissible registrants and provides
for appropriate participation of the affected community which may be broader
than the class of potential registrants in the formulation of policies for the
sTLD."
In
our view, the focus should be on a not-for-profit organization that is
controlled with clear mechanisms by the relevant community of users to which the TLD is offered in general, and with defined
participation of the registrants in particular. Ability to elect and control the
managing bodies, the budget and active participation in establishing the
policies should be the driving point. The legal form should be less relevant.
For instance, a foundation is not technically a membership organization, as it
cannot have statutory members, but seems to be a perfectly appropriate legal
form for the sponsoring organisation. This is particularly true in certain legal
orders where it is difficult to set up associations, or other membership
organisations, combining both legal and natural persons in the same
structure.
Kind Regards,
George Nagel
AllGlobalNames
gnagel@cyberegistro.com