Global Awareness Campaign

["Ron Andruff" <randruff@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

4-month Global Awareness Campaign (not referenced in the Applicant
Guidebook)

 

The original timeline provided by ICANN staff (at the June 2008 Paris
meeting) underscored ICANN's intention to spend multiple millions of dollars
on a global, four month new TLD application awareness campaign.  While the
new timeline (published with the draft RFP) denotes an on-going
communications campaign, which started at the Paris meeting and continues
past the anticipated application launch period, it is unclear as to why
ICANN is not initiating the intended 4-month global awareness campaign right
after the New Year, e.g., January 2009.  Running this campaign in parallel
with the RFP development, rather than in serial, would allow new potential
applicants to not only comment on the draft RFP, but, more importantly,
enable them to get started on development of their proposed new TLD now.

 

Clearly, an "awareness campaign" is already well-underway so what is the
rationale behind what appears to be a suspension of all new TLD activity on
the part of applicants for four months AFTER the final RFP has been
published?  Putting everything and everyone on hold for 120-days while the
global promotion goes on serves little purpose.  To the contrary, forcing
the applicants who have diligently prepared their applications in good faith
to sit on their hands for a four month period BEFORE they can submit their
applications puts additional, undue financial burden on them for no good
reason.

 

To put a sharper point on it, no entity that sincerely wishes to operate a
registry can develop and prepare a new TLD application in four months.  A
minimum of one year of preparatory work is necessary.  Therefore, the notion
that a new potential applicant can learn about this new application process
through ICANN's awareness campaign and then 16-weeks later deliver a
well-thought-through application has zero merit.

 

The ICANN board needs to instruct staff to initiate the awareness campaign
in January 2009 to avoid needlessly holding up applicants that are prepared
and ready to submit their applications on the given day in Q2 2009, as
anticipated in the timeline. 

 

Sincerely,

 

Ronald N. Andruff

 

 

 

RNA Partners, Inc.

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