Dear fellow members,
Attached is the final draft for posting to
the ICANN public comments regarding the BC position on the 2nd JAS
Milestone Report.
Thanks to Jon Nevett, Mike Rodenbaugh and
Steve DelBianco for your comments. It is clear that the BC does not want
to see any applicant have a ‘leg up’ on another irrespective of whether
one has had a reduced cost to apply or not, as evidenced in the dialogue.
I have tried to find a fair way forward – recognizing that the final AG
will assuredly go through some revisions prior to the next application round –
to expresses those concerns.
Steve provided me with the following
guidance from previous BC postings on this topic, as follows. (I have
included this so that members will see the consistency in these comments as
well.)
Here are our
comments on the Final Guidebook:
Since
2009, the BC has encouraged ICANN to make it easier for gTLD applicants to
offer multiple variations of their TLD string, so long as the variations are
legitimate translations or transliterations of the applied-for string.
The Joint Applicant Support WG recommended “Support for Build-out in
Underserved Languages and Scripts” intheir Milestone Report.
ICANNshould
design incentive mechanisms to encourage the build-out of IDNs and underserved
language-script communities.
One
incentive mechanism could be a reduction of the standard application fee for
additional IDN versions and translations of the applied-for string. For
example, the applicant for .museum should be allowed to pay one application fee
for .museum, plus a reduced application fee for ".museo".
The applicant could also pay incremental reduced fees for translations or
transliterations in Korean, Arabic, etc.
Here is from our
scorecard comments:
The
BC has made previous comments about the importance of understanding the
characteristics of users and registrants, and of how the Internet distribution
is changing, both in geographical diversity and language diversity. In
agreement with the GAC Scorecard point to support “applications in
languages whose presence on the web is limited”, the BC believes
that gTLD applicants should be given fee reductions to offer additional
versions of their applied-for string in IDN scripts and other languages.
Barring
any vialoent opposition to this document, Steve will post the attached on our
behalf.
Kind
regards,
RA
Ronald N. Andruff
President
RNA Partners, Inc.
220
+ 1 212 481 2820 ext. 11
From:
owner-bc-gnso@icann.org [mailto:owner-bc-gnso@icann.org] On Behalf Of Ron Andruff
Sent: Wednesday, July 27, 2011
10:33 AM
To: icann@rodenbaugh.com;
'bc-GNSO@icann.org GNSO list'
Subject: RE: [bc-gnso] For review:
BC Comments on 2nd JAS Milestone Report
Indeed, Mike, there is a typo.
Missing the word “it”, as noted below. Good catch.
"if the JAS WG’s
recommendation serves to give one applicant an advantage over another by
providing discounts for various parts of the review process it is antithetical to ICANN’s
impartiality.
Thanks,
RA
Ronald N. Andruff
President
RNA Partners, Inc.
220 Fifth Avenue
New York, New York 10001
+ 1 212 481 2820 ext. 11
From:
owner-bc-gnso@icann.org [mailto:owner-bc-gnso@icann.org] On Behalf Of Mike Rodenbaugh
Sent: Wednesday, July 27, 2011
10:05 AM
To: 'bc-GNSO@icann.org GNSO list'
Subject: RE: [bc-gnso] For review:
BC Comments on 2nd JAS Milestone Report
The first sentence
of that principle does not make sense, there must be a typo somewhere, and so
needs to be clarified. The second sentence is consistent with what I am
thinking… the discount only applies up front for the application fees,
and then the processes and costs are the same for everyone.
From:
owner-bc-gnso@icann.org [mailto:owner-bc-gnso@icann.org] On Behalf Of Jon Nevett
Sent: Wednesday, July 27, 2011
5:57 AM
To: icann@rodenbaugh.com
Cc: 'bc-GNSO@icann.org GNSO list'
Subject: Re: [bc-gnso] For review:
BC Comments on 2nd JAS Milestone Report
Mike:
Below is the BC principle at issue. I support it. Not sure
if you do or not. Sorry if I did not answer any of your questions to your
satisfaction.
Best,
Jon
"if the JAS WG’s recommendation
serves to give one applicant an advantage over another by providing discounts
for various parts of the review process is antithetical to ICANN’s
impartiality. Once an application is submitted, each and every
applicant must face the same processes and costs established in the AG to
ensure a fair and equitable procedure."
On Jul 27, 2011, at 8:47 AM, Mike Rodenbaugh wrote:
Isn’t the
whole idea to try to ‘level the playing field’ to encourage
applications from some parties who would not otherwise be in the same position
to ‘compete’? I am trying to figure out a better way to deal
with the issue, but am not sure what the issue really is here. That is
why I asked a couple questions already, which you have ignored…
From: Jon Nevett [mailto:jon@nevett.net]
Sent: Wednesday, July 27, 2011 5:42 AM
To: icann@rodenbaugh.com
Cc: 'bc-GNSO@icann.org GNSO list'
Subject: Re: [bc-gnso] For review: BC Comments
on 2nd JAS Milestone Report
Thanks Mike. The fee reductions would be reversed only if the applicant
wanted to move forward with an auction -- need to do that to level the playing
field. The applicant always could withdraw and get a refund. That
kind of rule would prevent someone running to try to qualify for a discount for
a .sport application, for example, and not being on the same competitive level
as Ron. I don't think that kind of activity is really what we envisioned
for this program -- call it gaming or not. How else would you suggest
dealing with the issue? Best, Jon
On Jul 27, 2011, at 8:26 AM, Mike Rodenbaugh wrote:
Jon, I get your
general point here, but am not sure that the right answer is to completely
“reverse” the given support simply because their application meets
contention. First, they would not necessarily, or even likely, know they
were going to meet contention until after their application is filed and all
attendant costs incurred. Second, the word ‘gaming’ is
casually thrown in as the ICANN bogeyman, but there seem to be a bunch of
safeguards in the proposal to help ensure that only qualified applicants would
get any support. Do you have specific concerns about those safeguards,
and/or do you see particular ways the program could be gamed, which might be
more appropriate to address specifically?
From: owner-bc-gnso@icann.org [mailto:owner-bc-gnso@icann.org] On
Behalf Of Jon Nevett
Sent: Wednesday, July 27, 2011 5:00 AM
To: Caroline Greer
Cc: 'Ron Andruff'; 'Steve DelBianco'; 'bc-GNSO@icann.org GNSO list'
Subject: Re: [bc-gnso] For review: BC Comments
on 2nd JAS Milestone Report
Caroline:
I don't think that we need to add the "not" in the
sentence. To make it clearer, however, we could say "Any
fee reductions should be reversed if the applicant elects to proceed to a
competitive auction." Reversed
might be a better word than reapplied.
Thanks.
Jon
On Jul 27, 2011, at 4:00 AM, Caroline Greer wrote:
Jon / all,
I just wanted to check my understanding of the new
edit. Shouldn’t we instead be saying that “....any
fee reductions should not be
reapplied to the applicant in the case of string contention with a
non-qualified applicant”?
Many thanks
Caroline
From: owner-bc-gnso@icann.org [mailto:owner-bc-gnso@icann.org] On
Behalf Of Ron Andruff
Sent: 26 July 2011 17:41
To: 'Jon Nevett'; 'Steve DelBianco'
Cc: 'bc-GNSO@icann.org GNSO list'
Subject: RE: [bc-gnso] For review: BC Comments
on 2nd JAS Milestone Report
Thank you for your comments, Jon.
Any other members have strong feelings about Jon’s amendment? If
not, I will incorporate them into our next draft.
As a reminder to all, Steve will be
posting our final comment on this topic this Friday, July 29th – three days from today.
Kind regards,
RA
Ronald N. Andruff
President
RNA Partners, Inc.
220 Fifth
Avenue
New York, New York 10001
+ 1 212 481 2820 ext. 11
From: owner-bc-gnso@icann.org [mailto:owner-bc-gnso@icann.org] On
Behalf Of Jon Nevett
Sent: Tuesday, July 26, 2011 8:04 AM
To: Steve DelBianco
Cc: 'bc-GNSO@icann.org GNSO list'
Subject: Re: [bc-gnso] For review: BC Comments
on 2nd JAS Milestone Report
Steve:
I agree with the BC’s position
that "if the JAS WG’s recommendation serves to give one applicant an
advantage over another by providing discounts for various parts of the review
process is antithetical to ICANN’s impartiality. Once an
application is submitted, each and every applicant must face the same processes
and costs established in the AG to ensure a fair and equitable
procedure."
In the draft, we seem to deal with
this concern in certain circumstances, but not explicitly when considering
actual application fee reductions. An applicant that gets a fee reduction
shouldn't be able to use such "saved" funds in an auction against an
applicant who didn't get a fee reduction.
The benefits for applicants should
be limited to only qualified entities and only to support their applications,
not to give them an unfair competitive advantage against another applicant for
the same string. A system that gives one party a competitive advantage
over another is a big invitation to gaming.
I offer two changes to this effect in the attached.
Thanks.
Jon