On 13 May 2017 at 01:05, Kan Kaili <kankaili@gmail.com> wrote:

Besides all the suggestions for fund usage, I would suggest another way to "use" the money. That is, to REFUND all the applicants who paid for applying new gTLDs.

The original price was set by policy of cost-recovery, at the price that it was because there was no precedent and that ICANN needed to build-in contingencies for legal challenges and recoup previously-spent expenses to design the gTLD program.

ICANN has never calculated the actual cost of delivering the program, and until it does the amount of a refund can not be known. I think that the result of such research would be surprising, that the gap between actual cost and anticipated cost is far less than might be dreamed by the domain industry.

Remember that the issue under debate is not the disposal of excess funds from the gTLD application fees over real costs, but of auction proceeds gained well in excess of those fees by applicants willing to pay an even higher premium to get specific strings.

If I remember correctly, ICANN collected USD $175K per application, and recognized as a hefty price to pay even by ICANN itself. This could be a threshold that prevented some or many potential applications.

Perhaps a lower fee for future rounds based on the experience of previous wounds would address this situation, but a retroactive refund would not.

- Evan