Hi Tijani and all,

I fully agree with Tijani's position. It is very important to understand that potential conflicts of interest, especially when members of the decision making or evaluation committees have direct or indirect links with the applicant organisations, can seriously jeopardise the integrity of the process. If you think that there is a conflict of interest, even if you're not sure about it, it can lead to people not trusting the results.

This is even more true for new gTLDs because their allocation can have major economic and strategic consequences. In a market where there's a lot of competition and you have to be careful, if you think that somebody is being favoured or treated differently, it can lead to legal problems, people will lose confidence and people will question whether ICANN is being ethical.

I think it is fundamental for ICANN to remain vigilant on conflict of interest issues and to increase transparency at all levels of the process to ensure sound and ethical governance. This will ensure a fair and trustworthy environment for the global Internet community.

Yours sincerely.


Le lun. 5 mai 2025 à 20:25, avri--- via At-Large <at-large@icann.org> a écrit :

Hi,

Are you saying that no one on the gARG should be involved in any way with any new gTLD application in the round?

I think this is a really good idea.


avri



On 2025-05-05 13:18, Tijani via At-Large wrote:

Dear OFB and ALAC members,

 

On the ALAC Small team for the ALAC Objection (new gTLD applications), we reached a pretty good consensus about the procedure that the team leader (Dev) and Alan shared with you.

But there was a point on which we disagreed, and Alan wrote a remark about it that I want to clarify for you to take the final decision:

 

    I'm concerned about the option for a conflicted gARG member to recuse him/her self from a specific application(s) instead of resigning. 

I feels that being the only part of the ICANN community that has the privilege to be funded to object, ALAC shouldn't allow recusal instead of mandate resignation because this may impact our credibility and lessen the strength of our objections.

 

I do believe that the gARG should be fully free of any conflict with ALL applications. If that is not the case, the applicant may use this to attempt to undermine our standing. 

For the record, in this very "ALAC Procedure for Filing Comments and Objections in the Next Roundwe are providing, it's clearly mentioned that the main criterion of eligibility for the gARG membership is that members must be free from any actual or perceived conflicts of interest (see gARG membership paragraph).

 

I also think that none is absolutely needed for At Large to make comments, objections or appeals; the gARG is composed of 15 members, and it may work perfectly with 14 when the conflicted member resigns: the ability of the gARG to respond to an application and/or an appeal wouldn't be affected.

 

This is for our credibility and for avoiding any risk to see our objection rejected because a member of the group (in charge ofidentifying concernsDrafting ALAC commentsMonitoring responses to ALAC comments and recommend whether to escalate to a formal objection, Drafting ALAC objection statements, Monitoring responses to ALAC objection and if dismissed, recommend whether to appeal; and Drafting ALAC Appeal statement) has a conflict of interest.

In case there are many gARG members with a COI, the situation would be worse. Their resignation is more than necessary to keep the group (and ALAC) credible; they may be replaced.  

 

Now that I made my point clearly, it's up to you to take the right decision thereupon.

 

Tijani

 

 


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