2009/11/10 Patrick Vande Walle <patrick@vande-walle.eu>
Thanks Brett,
This pretty well summarizes what I heard, too. I tend to disagree with your conclusions on whether this is a good idea or not.
I see several advantages for ICANN, the major one being the ability to clearly quantify the needed resources to process the applications.
I share Brett's concern. ICANN should have a better understanding of *why* it wants to collect preliminary expressions of interest before it actually implements the collection. Does ICANN want to: - be better prepared for the anticipated volume? - define a clear cutoff point for the next round? - determine if some non-controversial applications can be streamed more quickly through the process? - start collecting funds-in-advance to pay for the anticipated infrastructure? - bring all the prospective applicants out of hiding? - Effect a publicity stunt to demonstrate progress on new gTLDs while the DAG process is still churning? We can't really know what information/money needs to be collected until we know what combination of the above (and/or other) objectives are to be met through this objective. Collecting the data/money before knowing what to do with it seems both wasteful and less-than-honest, while offering applicants little more than a very minor milestone to show to their stakeholders/shareholders. Let's know why we want to do this before discussing how. This really ought to be more than a feel-good, panic driven need to do *anything* that looks like progress. - Evan. PS: Staff has now put out a formal request for feedback on the issue: http://www.icann.org/en/public-comment/public-comment-200912.htm#eoi-new-gtl...