All,
In respect of the CPWG 28 July 2021 call https://community.icann.org/x/rYQZCg, in particular, the agenda item "Proposed Renewal of the .AERO Registry Agreement" public comment for decision, my recommendation is that the ALAC does NOT need to submit a statement in response to this particular call for public comments.
I am reminded that the ALAC has had a practice of not commenting on RA renewals, unless the proposed renewal warrants such action and insofar as end-user interests are distinctly affected.
Thus, my recommendation no statement is premised on the mentioned practice, which is further supported as follows:-
- First and foremost, .AERO is a legacy sponsored community TLD which was initially approved in 2001 and introduced in 2002.
- Per the subsisting RA of 11 June 2009, which will expire on 10 September 2021, .AERO is at present, operated by SITA Information Networking Computing USA, Inc. (SITA) as the registry and sponsor.
- As a sponsored community TLD, .AERO is intended to serve the global aviation community, therefore second level domain name registrations are restricted according to the .AERO Charter
- The proposed RA renewal for another 10 years neither involves any change to the party contracting with ICANN nor change to the .AERO Charter, therefore the sponsored community TLD status remains intact
- What the proposed renewal does is to facilitate harmonization (i.e. updating) of the 2009 .AERO RA with the Base RA of 31 July 2017, but including necessary modifications to address certain SITA 'unique' operational aspects; which are as consistently summarized in the At-Large Workspace: Proposed Renewal of the .AERO Registry Agreement
In relation to a comment raised by John McCormac regarding "CZDS - Centralised Zone Data Service" at an earlier CPWG call, John has since clarified his comment bilaterally with me, and I believe with the harmonization against the Base RA, in particular, the adoption in the proposed renewal RA of the Base RA Specification 4 on Registration Data Publication Services (with an added provision of an RDAP Global Amendment), the concern in his original comment is resolved.