[governance] Ad-Hoc Working Group now being formed

[Danny Younger]

There are many in the community that have issues with
some of the new gTLD recommendations put forward by
ICANN's GNSO Council.

An ad-hoc WG is being formed to aggregate these
concerns for presentation to the ICANN Board at the
upcoming session in Los Angeles.

Anyone may subscribe to this WG at 
http://atlarge-lists.icann.org/mailman/listinfo/gnso-liaison_atlarge-lists.icann.org

Details:

(1) Short timeframe - WG ends on Thursday, 25 October
(2) WG members will each draft comments on whatever
issues they might have with certain recommendations
(3) Initial comments due by 22 October
(4) First draft of Final Document (incorporating all
comments) by 23 October
(5) Final Document by 25 October
(6) ICANN's At-Large Advisory Committee (ALAC) will
review the WG effort in LA and will provide a
Statement to accompany the Final Document for
transmission to the ICANN board.


The GNSO new gTLD recommendations:

1.  ICANN must implement a process that allows the
introduction of new top-level domains.  The evaluation
and selection procedure for new gTLD registries should
respect the principles of fairness, transparency and
non-discrimination.  All applicants for a new gTLD
registry should therefore be evaluated against
transparent and predictable criteria, fully available
to the applicants prior to the initiation of the
process. Normally, therefore, no subsequent additional
selection criteria should be used in the selection
process.  

2.  Strings must not be confusingly similar to an
existing top-level domain or a Reserved Name.

3.  Strings must not infringe the existing legal
rights of others that are recognized or enforceable
under generally accepted and internationally
recognized principles of law.  Examples of these legal
rights that are internationally recognized include,
but are not limited to, rights defined in the Paris
Convention for the Protection of Industry Property (in
particular trademark rights), the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) and the
International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights
(ICCPR) (in particular freedom of expression rights).

4.  Strings must not cause any technical instability.

5.  Strings must not be a Reserved Word.
 
6.  Strings must not be contrary to generally accepted
legal norms relating to morality and public order that
are recognized under international principles of law.
Examples of such principles of law include, but are
not limited to, the Universal Declaration of Human
Rights (UDHR), the International Covenant on Civil and
Political Rights (ICCPR), the Convention on the
Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against
Women (CEDAW) and the International Convention on the
Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination,
intellectual property treaties administered by the
World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) and
the WTO Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of
Intellectual Property (TRIPS).   

7.  Applicants must be able to demonstrate their
technical capability to run a registry operation for
the purpose that the applicant sets out. 

8.  Applicants must be able to demonstrate their
financial and organisational operational capability.

9.  There must be a clear and pre-published
application process using objective and measurable
criteria. 
 
10.  There must be a base contract provided to
applicants at the beginning of the application
process. 
 
11. [Replaced with Recommendation 20 and
Implementation Guideline P and inserted into Term of
Reference 3 Allocation Methods section]
   
12. Dispute resolution and challenge processes must be
established prior to the start of the process. 
 
13. Applications must initially be assessed in rounds
until the scale of demand is clear. 
  
14.  The initial registry agreement term must be of a
commercially reasonable length.
 
15.  There must be renewal expectancy. 
 
16.  Registries must apply existing Consensus Policies
and adopt new Consensus Policies as they are approved.

17.  A clear compliance and sanctions process must be
set out in the base contract which could lead to
contract termination. 

18.  If an applicant offers an IDN service, then
ICANN's IDN guidelines must be followed.
 
19.  Registries must use only ICANN accredited
registrars in registering domain names and may not
discriminate among such accredited registrars.
 
20.  An application will be rejected if an expert
panel determines that there is substantial opposition
to it from a significant portion of the community to
which the string may be explicitly or implicitly
targeted. 

 
Links: 

Most recent Public Comments: 
http://forum.icann.org/lists/gtldfinalreport-2007/

Final Report:  Introduction of New Generic Top-Level
Domains --
http://gnso.icann.org/issues/new-gtlds/pdp-dec05-fr-parta-08aug07.htm

The summary of the report on the Introduction of new
Top Level Domains --
http://ttcsweb.pbwiki.com/f/New+gtlds+workshop+document.pdf

Input received on the policy development process on
new gTLDs --
http://gnso.icann.org/issues/new-gtlds/new-gtld-pdp-input.htm



       
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