Chuck and all: If I may elaborate on Denise's email, "the establishment of new gTLD program office" is shorthand for the implementation of new gTLD policy currently being developed. After the policy development is completed, the RFPs are written, application processes are fleshed out, fees are calculated, pro forma agreements are posted, independent panels are populated, and processes are in execution -- the program office will be left to "run" the TLD process on an ongoing basis, it is the entity resulting from the close-out of the New gTLD Project. Having said that, this does not imply the creation a big ol' program office: the word 'program' connotes the on-going nature of the entity (as opposed to 'project' which connotes an effort with a foreseeable end). The allocation for the program office will be part of the public ICANN operating planning and budgeting discussion. Regarding the second issue, I think there is universal understanding that the working group was launched for reasons described by the posting: http://www.gnso.icann.org/announcements/ announcement-18nov06.htm. The writing in the Annual Plan you describe predates the working group document - it is still a question that may be considered by the working group as a subset of the issues described in the working group posting. Hope this is helpful. Kurt Kurt Pritz ICANN 4676 Admiralty Way, #330 Marina del Rey. CA 90292 +1.310.301.5809 (office) +1.310.400.4184 (mobile) On Jan 28, 2007, at 7:14 AM, Gomes, Chuck wrote:
The second sentence of the 5th paragraph of Paul Twomey's message in ICANN's Annual Report (p.9) says, "GNSO and staff are working together for the establishment and operation of a new generic top level domain (gTLD) program office, to realise the work of the Whois Task Force, and to provide input in the development of Internationalised Domain Names (IDNs)."
Can anyone tell what is meant by a gTLD program office? Has the GNSO been working with staff in this regard?
Also, on page 25 in the Policy Support section, the 4th paragraph starts out with this sentence: "To consider pre-registration of IDN gTLD labels in the first round for new TLDs, the GNSO recently launched an IDN Working Group . . ." Is this a misstatement or is it true that the IDN working group was launched "to consider pre- registration of IDN gTLD labels"?
Chuck