Hi folks, In case you missed it, there was a nice article in The Register today that relates to GAC advice, see: "Amazon may still get .amazon despite govt opposition – thanks to a classic ICANN cockup" https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/07/19/dot_amazon_icann/ ---- quote ---- "An explanation of the NGPC's reasons for denying the applications was particularly important in this matter, given the absence of any rationale or reasons provided by the GAC for its advice and the fact that the record before the NGPC failed to substantially support the existence of a well-founded and merits-based public policy reason for denying Amazon's applications." Moreover, the panel noted that it was "unable to discern a well-founded public policy reason" for turning the application down and revealed that ICANN's New gTLD Program Committee had not even discussed, let alone relied on, the conclusions of an independent expert who had been hired to dig into the issue. ---- end of quote ---- This sounds quite familiar, just as the GAC issues 'advice' regarding our policy work and fails to support that advice with well-founded reasoning. We're obligated as a group to do the hard work, and not be influenced by surrounding "politics", otherwise we'd be repeating the mistakes made in this .AMAZON matter. As The Register stated, we should be firmly opposed to: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/07/19/dot_amazon_icann/?page=2 "Distorting their own processes to arrive at a pre-decided conclusion." Domain name registrants shouldn't be the pawns who are sacrificed in the political games being played by IGOs in their secret machinations with the GAC. Sincerely, George Kirikos 416-588-0269 http://www.leap.com/