Response to Question on Economic Case paper

[Patrick Jones <patrick.jones@xxxxxxxxx>]

Thomas,

This is in response to your two comments posted on the Economic Case for 
Auctions comment forum (http://www.icann.org/en/public-comment/#gtld-auctions). 
I apologize for the delay in responding to you.

You first asked whether there were papers in preparation on other allocation 
methods for new gTLD strings. You also asked about the process.

The Economic Case paper only describes the case for auctions as a tie-breaking 
mechanism for resolving contention among competing generic TLD applications 
(but not for community-based applications if at least one community-based 
applicant in a contention set opts for comparative evaluation). The paper does 
not describe the proposed auction model. This is the subject of a paper soon to 
be released in advance of the considerable work in preparing a draft RFP for 
community review prior to the ICANN meeting in Cairo. A number of other papers 
are being prepared, including descriptions of contention set handling and 
comparative evaluation processes. I think once you, and other commenters, have 
an opportunity to review these papers, you will have a better understanding of 
the proposed process.

As other commenters on the forum have noted, many applicants applying for a 
gTLD may never have to go through the proposed auction process, if their 
application is not in contention with any other proposed string, or because 
they represent a particular community and opt for comparative evaluation.

I am not aware that you have made any phone calls to ICANN that have gone 
unanswered. Feel free to contact me if you have questions.

Best regards,

Patrick

--
Patrick L. Jones
Registry Liaison Manager &
Coordinator, ICANN Nominating Committee
Internet Corporation for Assigned Names & Numbers
4676 Admiralty Way, Suite 330
Marina del Rey, CA 90292
Tel: +1 310 301 3861
Fax: +1 310 823 8649
patrick.jones@xxxxxxxxx