Colleagues may recall that this writer was part of the original At-Large panel constituted to evaluate and determine whether the ALAC would exercise standing and file community objections to a gTLD application. You will also recall that after some time engaging and several evaluations, I withdrew from the process, principally because I was challenged to reconcile my disquiet regarding the bases used to identify the offended community in context and the expandable and sometimes indeterminate attributes available for defining a community with standing to raise an objection. So now, the evaluator hired by the ICC to evaluate the objections filed has issued his ruling. See it here: http://newgtlds.icann.org/sites/default/files/drsp/17jan14/determination-1-1... . Here's the key understanding, as he sees it, of what obtains.. "*The formal objection process was created to allow a f**ull and fair consideration of objections based on certain l**imited grounds outside ICANN’s evaluation of applications on t**heir merits*" - Para 54, Page 29 He, too, has his troubles settling on a meaning of the term 'community' in context. His take... "*......**The word “community” refers not to a place, but to an abstraction: the convergence of a sense of involvement with common interests....Communities of persons united by their interests in how they earn their living may be especially strong, whether they form permanent organisations (like professional associations) or not (like the entire **population segment of retirees).*" Para 49, Page 27 inter alia He continues, bemoaning his inability to cleanly define a community with standing.....and in the process, pimp slaps the prevailing or predominant At-Large tenet of community.... "*.....Communities do not necessarily create institutions. They do not necessarily function as a polity, in the sense of identifying officials formally authorized to act in **their name, represent their interests, or formulate their policies. They may exist without structures of self-governance, such as membership committees which admit **or exclude individuals by reference to more or less well-articulated standards of qualification or conduct**........It follows that communities may include individuals who are more or less **concerned with the welfare of the group as a whole; it may contain cynics as well as * *idealists, speculators as well as altruists. Naturally it may include subgroups or even **individuals whose opinions and preferences are sharply at odds with those of the **majority of the community. Unless the community has in some constitutional sense **defined itself as excluding undesirable individuals, or at least limited their capacity to **make claims to speak as members of the group, someone looking at a community **from the outside, and armed only with this broad understanding of what a **“community” may be, has no rules-based criteria for evaluating who does or does not **belong to the community. *" Paras 50 & 51, Page 26-27, inter alia Here's where he ends up.... "*....The determination I am now charged with effecting deals.... – with “global Internet communities”. That expression has not, however, been given further specific definition. One must therefore proceed on the basis of (i) discerning what the relevant rules do not say about “communities” and (ii) being attentive to implied constraints derived from principles developed by ICANN.*" Para 52, Page 28, inter alia He elides a lot of stuff from the foregoing to the six (6) principles upon which the new GTLD program is predicated in Para 55 then delivered this [considered] opinion.... "*To the extent that abstract or aspirational principles are defined, they are those of a free market (“competition”, “consumer choice”, “differentiation” and “diversity”) and freedom of expression, rather than regulatory constraints arising from a protective (or authoritarian) desire to filter “wrong” or “unsound” views, or otherwise restrict access s**o as to reserve it to those who are vetted by some type of official bodies...I see no reflection here of* *ALAC’s undisguised bias **against “commercial applicants” who “cannot be trusted to self-police the .health domain space and are “more than likely” to place “commercial interests before public **welfare interests”*.......*The Objector’s animadversions against the Applicant miss the target;* *profit-seekers **may apply; the public interest is evidently intended to be protected by protocols imposed by ICANN in a manner akin to that of regulators whose supervision constrains the conduct of for-profit providers of public services generally...*" Paras 56 & 57, Page 31 inter alia Reasonable men and women may well agree to disagree, agreeably or not. I willingly acknowledge the arguments posited by this evaluator are indeed cogent. All in all, this was a bravura performance, worthy of acknowledgement. For in one fell swoop, this gentleman tells the ALAC to piss off - politely, in an 'Englishy' kind of way -, gives a left-handed thumbs up to the regulatory role of ICANN, fingers the PICs as I have always intimated they were .......and comes up roses. He hears the voice of Jacob. But smart fella knows it is the hand of Esau he feels. -Carlton ============================== Carlton A Samuels Mobile: 876-818-1799 *Strategy, Planning, Governance, Assessment & Turnaround* =============================