In Kenya this week, several of you met Harry Hare, publisher of CIO Magazine for East Africa. Thanks to all your conversations, Harry posted several stories on the ICANN meeting, including this one at http://www.cio.co.ke ICANN Board withdraws EOI The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) has today withdrawn the Expression of interest for proposals for entities interested in applying for new gTLDs. The expression of interest was published last December for public consideration and was one of the substantive agendas in the Nairobi meeting. The EOI required entities interested in participating in the first round of the new gTLD Program to submit basic information about the participating entity and the requested top-level domain, also referred to as "string". The model was a direct result of community recommendations for such an undertaking. The Board directed that a draft model be constructed based on public comment for additional discussion. A decision on whether and how to proceed with the EOI was to be taken in Nairobi, after considering the public discussion. According to the Board, the withdrawal was due to lack of certainty about the date when the overarching issues would be resolved to the satisfaction of the Board and the consequential difficulty of synchronizing the launch of the new gTLDs Program with the proposed EOI, and preferring to focus ICANN staff resources on resolving the remaining issues. Through out the meeting speakers expressed concern on EOI process with some asserting that its complex and time consuming. "We need to move forward with the implementation of the new gTLDs, a process that has already taken too long already," said one delegate who sort anonymity. Other speakers who were opposed to the EOI complained at the lack of communication and awareness of the EOI process especially in developing counties. According to the EOI, those interested in participating in participating in the first round were required to put up a deposit of US$ 55,000 out of the total US$ 185,000 evaluation fee. Steve DelBianco of NetChoice says, ³the EOI was an interesting idea but became a distraction from the work remaining to ensure that new top level domains will minimize online fraud while helping people around the world to access Internet domains using their own language and script." Bruce Tonkin, one of the Board members said that there was confusion about purpose of EOI which would have otherwise provided data on number and nature of strings. "Would have informed applicants to improve their applications," he said. -- Steve DelBianco Executive Director NetChoice http://www.NetChoice.org and http://blog.netchoice.org +1.202.420.7482