Draft Statement of Work for Funnel Review

2. The first sentence of the last paragraph in the Summary of the draft SoW says, "The review of the operation of the RSEP will allow ICANN to ensure the process is meeting intended goals efficiently and effectively." It is my opinion that the problem with the RSEP is not the process but rather implementation of the process that is not "meeting intended goals efficiently and effectively". The three recent examples I would cite are single character second level domain name services proposed by DotCoop, DotMobi and VeriSign.

3. In the section of the draft SoW titled Evaluation of Registry Services Proposals, the fourth paragraph reads, "Once ICANN determines that the request as submitted is complete, ICANN will notify the requesting registry operator or sponsoring organization that the 15-calendar day review process has commenced. ICANN will conduct within 15 days a preliminary determination on whether the proposed service raises significant security or stability issues or competition issues." It is my opinion that this this not occur with VeriSign's single character second level domain registry service proposal submitted in June 2008. If ICANN Staff believe that they were in compliance with this provision, then it would be helpful to receive an explanation of why they believe so.

4. In the section of the draft SoW titled Tasks to be Undertaken, item 2 says, "Deliver a report with observations and recommendations to ICANN for consideration by ICANN, gTLD registries and the GNSO Council. Those observations are expected to include:

o whether the RSEP is meeting its intended purpose

o whether RSEP is consistent with the approved policy and implementation plan

o whether the process is timely, efficient and open in implementation

o whether there is sufficient opportunity for and realization of public input or comment on proposed registry service requests

o whether the process and outcomes are predictable

o whether there is overlap with the PDP process

o whether there is overlap between the Registry Services Technical Evaluation Panel (RSTEP) with the Security and Stability Advisory Committee (SSAC)"

This could be perceived as a way to work around the GNSO PDP. Most of these issues are policy issues. On a different note, what is meant by "overlap with the PDP process" and "overlap between the Registry Services Technical Evaluation Panel (RSTEP) with the Security and Stability Advisory Committee (SSAC)"?

Chuck Gomes