During the "reveal" Cherine made it clear that the archery process would proceed. But it was far from clear that the results would be used. He said that the Board had heard the discomfort in the community and would consider alternatives following discussions in Prague. I read this as saying they may be open to not using the results and using some other methodology to process the applications. Interestingly, one of the implications of the contention that the evaluation process will be far easier than expected due to the relatively small number of actually applicants (particularly after you exclude the .brand applications which are likely to breeze through) is that the price of $185k was an overestimate too. Alan At 18/06/2012 02:18 PM, Carlton Samuels wrote:

This new post justifies my original unease and adds to that evolved from the Kinderis letter.

But other than question the equity of the thing - not to mention the kinda dumb attempt to sell this DA as more than a lottery + the services being advertised to 'game' DA - I'm not sure the ALAC has much of a dog in this race.

Somebody will sue....

- Carlton

============================== Carlton A Samuels Mobile: 876-818-1799 Strategy, Planning, Governance, Assessment & Turnaround =============================

On Tue, Jun 12, 2012 at 10:30 PM, Alan Greenberg <<mailto:alan.greenberg@mcgill.ca>alan.greenberg@mcgill.ca> wrote: For those who haven't already read it, see Antony Van Couverings CircleID post from last Sunday - <http://www.circleid.com/posts/0120610_biggest_glitch_of_all_icanns_batching_program_for_new_gtlds/>http://www.circleid.com/posts/0120610_biggest_glitch_of_all_icanns_batching_program_for_new_gtlds/

At 07/06/2012 06:51 AM, Olivier MJ Crepin-Leblond wrote:

...

Hello all,

please find below, more information about the Digital Archery which will be used to batch new gTLD applications into batches of probably 500 applications at a time. With a possible 2000 applications to process, some applications might only be processed much later than others and this "game" of Digital Archery will set applicants apart. Already several firms run by close ICANN insiders are proposing a paying service to "win" the Digital Archery using their automation service which they claim will ensure their client's applications are considered first. This means more sources of profit, but this also means that applications which were made possible by thanks to all of the work the community did to have Applicant Support, might be discriminated against since they will not be able to afford the automated digital archery winning service.

Also, looking closely at the terms and conditions of "digital archery", (see video on <http://newgtlds.icann.org/en/announcements-and-media/video/batchin g-demo>http://newgtlds.icann.org/en/announcements-and-media/video/batching-demo at Time 2:37 mark) , applicants using the Digital Archery system agree legally that this is a contest of skill rather than a contest of chance. Clearly, with the Internet's differing delays depending on where you are located, and since digital archery system will be accurate to 100th second (as seen on the demo), it is *impossible* for anyone to display any kind of skill except by being physically at the data center itself. I remind you that delays on the Internet range from 3ms to 700ms or more, depending on where you are, since any satellite link will automatically induce between 300 to 700ms -- it is a physical propagation time needed. And these delays are jittery too.

Is Digital Archery therefore allegedly a game of chance, not controlled by any kind of legal structure associated with games of chance, with open opportunities for cheating?

There have been calls to the Board by some members in the ccNSO for Digital Archery *not* to be used and an alternative process to be followed, which may also involve *not* having any batching altogether. Others in the GNSO Council have also written to the Board about this, with similar findings or other alternative propositions. Should we support those comments?

Alas, the Board correspondence page has its last entry on 21 May 2012 and the correspondence which I have been CC'ed into was sent on June 4th and on June 6th but I have asked if those have already been published.

With Digital Archery starting on June 8th, should the ALAC issue a statement on this ASAP?

I'd be interested in your points of view.

Kind regards,

Olivier (the above message includes some of my own points of view)

-------- Message original -------- Sujet: ICANN News Alert -- New gTLD Batching Announcement Date : Wed, 06 Jun 2012 22:35:29 -0400 De : ICANN News Alert <<mailto:communications@icann.org>communications@icann.org> Pour : <<mailto:ocl@gih.com>ocl@gih.com>

ICANN <<http://www.icann.org/>http://www.icann.org/>

News Alert

<http://www.icann.org/en/news/announcements/announcement-06jun12-en .htm>http://www.icann.org/en/news/announcements/announcement-06jun12-en.htm

------------------------------------------------------------------------

New gTLD Batching Announcement

6 June 2012

Given the large number of new generic top-level domain (gTLD) applications, we will divide and evaluate them in batches. The batching system is targeted to open at 00:01 UTC on 8 June 2012, and will close at 23:59 UTC on 28 June 2012. The target date for posting the batching order is 11 July 2012.

The batching process will be used to determine which applications will be processed in the first batch, the second batch and so on. It will be done by: assignment of a timestamp, and the formation of batches.

/Timestamp assignments/ will be done using the TLD Application System (TAS). All applicants must use their TAS credentials to log in, read and accept the batching rules, indicate their batching preference, and select their target date and time. Once these steps are completed applicants should log back into TAS to hit the target time and generate a secondary timestamp. Users will have access to a testing feature to gauge the secondary timestamp system's response time.

/Batching formation/ considers an applicant's: (1) batching preference, (2) geographic region and secondary timestamp; and (3) contention among identical and "similar" applications.

(1) Applicants stating a preference for "opting-out" will be placed last.

(2) Geographic diversity is important in bringing more competition and choice into the domain name market. Applicants who opted in will be ranked within their geographic region (Africa, Asia-Pacific, Europe, Latin America/Caribbean and North America) by their secondary timestamp score. Then applications will be selected from each ICANN region using a "round robin" approach. This approach selects the best timestamp score from each region, one region at a time, on a rotating basis. If a region runs out of opted-in applications, the "round robin" continues across the remaining regions. This process continues until the batch is formed, with the opted-out applications last.

(3) ICANN will then make preliminary determinations of contention sets based upon exact match. All applications in a single contention set are placed into the batch where the earliest application in the contention set is placed. Once the string similarity panel establishes complete contention sets, "similar" strings might be reassigned to an earlier batch. No applications will be demoted as a result of the promotion of others. This could result in a batch larger than 500.

ICANN has taken care to provide a secure and stable platform for the batching system. Users will connect to the Citrix XenApp high-availability cluster and will then log into the batching system. Applicants will be required to agree to a set of Batching Rules, including an agreement that "ICANN reserves the right to delay an application to the last batch or to reject an application entirely if ICANN reasonably determines that the applicant abused the batching system or intentionally interfered with the performance of the system or any other applicant's use of the system."

Along with this announcement ICANN is posting several additional resources to inform applicants about the batching process. These include a: set of frequently asked questions (FAQs), video demonstration, user guide, batching details and rules, and a batching basics fact sheet, which all can be found on the Batching information webpage at <http://newgtlds.icann.org/en/applicants/tas/batching/>http://newgt lds.icann.org/en/applicants/tas/batching/. Information on security, infrastructure, and operations is also available in these materials.

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