To: THE RECONSIDERATION COMMITTEE and THE ICANN BOARDFrom: THE
.TV CORPORATION
Dear Reconsideration Committee and ICANN Board Members,
I refer
to the request for reconsideration dated December 15, 2000 submitted by The .TV Corporation
("dotTV") on behalf of the dotNOM and dotPRO Consortiums respectively, which has
been posted and identified on the ICANN reconsideration website as "Reconsideration
Request 00-12" (the "Submission").
As detailed in the Submission, dotTV
seeks reconsideration of the denial of its applications for the .nom and .pro TLDs
and asserts that the ICANN staff failed to consider, or improperly disregarded, considerable
evidence demonstrating that the dotNOM and dotPRO Consortiums were suitably qualified
applicants for the new TLDs. dotTV further asserts that the compressed timeframe
in which the TLD selection process took place gave rise to considerable errors and
failed to afford the applicants an adequate opportunity to respond to ICANN staff
concerns.
Despite the enormous importance of the proposed introduction of
new gTLDs which will forever change the face of the Internet, we noted with considerable
surprise and concern that the selection process did not establish any appeal or review
mechanism dedicated to the process. Submitting a request for reconsideration
pursuant to the ICANN Bylaws was therefore the only avenue of recourse within ICANN's
framework open to aggrieved gTLD applicants. Approximately ten of the gTLD
applicants have filed such a request.
We note that the Reconsideration Policy
provides that the Reconsideration Committee will endeavor to submit its recommendation
within 30 days of filing, however nearly 11 weeks have passed since the filing of
the Submission and we have not yet received any substantive response, nor does it
appear that any of the requests for reconsideration filed by other applicants have
yet been addressed. We are now extremely troubled to note that, notwithstanding
these many pending requests for reconsideration, ICANN has announced that it is close
to concluding agreements with selected applicants and indicated that these agreements
may be presented to the Board for ratification at the Melbourne meeting on March
13, 2001.
It is our firm view that unless and until all related requests for reconsideration
have been fully and fairly addressed it is entirely inappropriate for ICANN to proceed
toward concluding or ratifying any agreements with the provisionally selected applicants.
To do otherwise would constitute a further denial of due process which we regret
has been lacking throughout the gTLD selection process overseen by ICANN.
Sincerely
James
Ross
VP Business Affairs
The .tv Corporation
Phone (310) 481 3747
Fax
(310) 481 3888
e-mail: james@www.tv
Website www.tv