Hi, Some of the questions/comments I have received passed on without attribution. I asked people to send them in directly if they wished. But just so the points aren't missed.
/IG F/
Was community contention resolution efficient? What improvements could be made to improve efficiency for all parties? Impacts on efficiency included: CPE could only begin once all contention set applications had cleared initial and/or extended evaluation (this was later changed). CO was extremely expensive and in Euros. CPE took up to six months. Nearly all community applications resulted in some form of Ombudsman/DIDP/RfR/CEP/IRP action.
/IG H /
What alternative processes – e.g. qualitative assessments – apart from or in tandem with a points or scoring system for assessing the existence of a community and the community relationship with applicant could yield more fulsome and accurate results?
Could community experts, e.g. sociologists, anthropologists, economists, etc. be engaged in the development and implementation of this recommendation?
Were the goals & intent of the community priority process clearly communicated to prospective applicants? Could clearer communication result in better quality applications (i.e. non-election by parties likely to fail and increased election by parties likely to prevail).
/IG P /
Are these the correct criterion for assessing the existence of a community?
Are they based on research?
Could they have been peer-reviewed by a panel of academic and community experts?
What other approaches for verifying community could exist?
and
GENERAL THOUGHT ON GTLD NEW ROUND
1. Put a ceiling to the applications submitted by a single group (group and not company, because we have seen Afilias and M & M using subsidiaries or other signposts...
This because the slate applications create war machines where the economy of scale makes irrelevant if not convenient to use all degrees of possibles claims just to filibustering competitors;
2. Create for community based applications some simple rules as was made for geo names. The clarity and simplicity of the rules for geo names, discourage the vultures (not all of them) to apply for geo names when the appropriate legal entities applied. The unclarity of the rules for the other non-geo communities pushed many gTLD to defy community based similar strings. In most of the case they were right in doing so.
For instance for sector where exist associations recognized at regional level (such as .bank, insurance, lawyers, etc.) this give a legitimacy as a community, even if such associations don't exist in all continents.
For "political" and "civil liberties" associations the criteria of geographic coverage need to be lifted and adapted to existing situation. Asking. Gay to be supported in countries where still homosexuality is a crime is an evident nonsense.
3. Clear criteria to create positive discrimination for developing countries and poorer regions of the world .
Any application that is expression or get support from LDC and underdeveloped regions need to receive an incentive and a priority. If this will not happen, even the next round will be characterized by a predominance of the western applicants. Of course the support have to be expressed by real and existing bodies, not from mirror entities of multinationals or local offices of Western companies….
4. Clear rules against filibustering
Norms need to be issued to prevent the abuse of dominant position. Those that make opposition without solid ground and multiple opposition to any competitor and that loose the claims need to be penalized. For instance imposing a growing deposits of sums in case of multiple oppositions that will be lost in case of defeat.
At the moment to go into RfR, CEP, IRP cost a fortune only to those that don’t have a permanent staff of lawyers under contract. For these latter, at a marginal cost, they could blackmail everybody oppose them.
5. Protections for the weaker subjects in case of dispute
Because of the disparity of forces, it is absolutely unfair to have disputes opposing self-funded voluntary based organization (such as .gay) to DOT.companies. ICANN needs to set aside a fund or a group of experts to assists the weaker subjects when they have to oppose this kind of adversary. A sort of asymmetric treatment need be established: lesser fees, no deposit, and other measure to ensure equality of chances also to the poorer and farer from Californians beaches…
6. Clear rules to preserve democracy within ICANN
Having accepted that 3 companies specialized in DOT.economy could apply for hundreds of TLDs risk to have a longlasting effects on the democratic process within ICANN. How to prevent that the Big 3 or 5 take over the whole gNSO constituency (achieving a practical possibility of veto of any decisions of ICANN they dislike or that could hamper their interests ?
SPECIFIC CONSIDERATION ON CPE
A. The attribution of the points is very much questionable and too much left to the discretion of the evaluators;
B. The selection of the body in charge of the CPE needs to be made taking in account the specificity of the scope. Ask the EIU to judge about community is like asking a carnivore to judge about the best vegetarian dish.
If the scope is to evaluate communities, then ICANN has to ask to association on NGOS or of Charity funds or to UN bodies in charge of humanitarian issues, because they can understand the representativity of the applicants, its relations with the territorial entities, and so on;
C. the minimum score of 14 points out of sixteen is a total nonsense. There is no reason to have such a high score to be recognized as a community. The natural suspect is that the bar has been put so high to boycott the community applicants and to keep them out of the door.
D. The decisions about the future TLD’s round concerning communities need to be established in partnership with the community TLDs. Their interest cannot be represented by RySG that is mainly populated by people that pursue a totally different scope: to make money out of it
E. The impossibility to contact the evaluator has left grey areas where mistakes could happen. We had no possibility to verify who (among the supporting organizations) has been called and who was not. There was no way to communicate changes of names (the responsible people change within democratically elected bodies) of the person to contact within the supporting organizations. ICANN has to create a special task force that could act as go between the future EIU and the applicants
F. Has to be made clear if the evaluator has to verify EACH letter of support (as it seems from the guidelines) or if it can go only checking some samplers…
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