Dear Work Track members, Please see below the notes from the meeting today. These high-level notes are designed to help WG members navigate through the content of the call and are not a substitute for the recording or transcript. See the chat transcript and recording at: https://community.icann.org/x/VAtyB. Slides are attached for reference. Kind regards, Emily --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Notes/Action Items: 1. Welcome & Agenda Overview 2. SOIs - No updates 3. Review of Timeline - Dec 2017: Work on completing deliberations and begin review of WT recommendations - Jan-Feb 2018: Complete review of recommendations - March 2018: Take WT recommendations to the Full WG 4. Review of potential recommendations for Application Guide Book - Overview and review of questions and concerns, rationale for policy development - Proposed recommendations to date have focused on implementation guidance -- Remove background and rationale, move to Appendices. -- Suggestions: AGB should be less historical, less of a policy approach, create a practical guide with improved table of contents and index, step-by-step guide possibly by type of application - Feedback on subdividing the AGV by audience-driven sections - No harm in audience-driven sections - There should be an online and searchable version. There should be a complete document available. If directing people to specific audience driven sections, could get ICANN into hot water. From the chat: Jeff Neuman: So, if you are a back end operator, here are the sections you need to pay attention to Jeff Neuman: kind of an enhanced index Maxim Alzoba (FAITID): This approach would require re-writing multiple parts of the document in case of similar changes Jeff Neuman: Thats a recommendation as well - have a non-pdf online searchable AGB Justine Chew: Or consider inserting tags for different category of audience by type of applicant? Maxim Alzoba (FAITID): and online version can be changed - There will be a lot of sections that are generic that apply to all types of applicants and other sections that will apply to certain specific audiences. We seem to be stuck in a print mentality. Ultimately, the omnibus should be the entirety for search purposes. All sections should be accessible to all people, but specific sections should be tagged so that people can find the parts that are most useful to them. - You don't want to have totally different versions of the AGB for different audiences. Anywhere you replicate content you risk making errors in replicating. From the chat: Jeff Neuman: PDFs can be changed as well Maxim Alzoba (FAITID): @Jeff, the offline copy will be the same (and the checksum of the file) Maxim Alzoba (FAITID): and as I understand the AGB should be stable between releases Alexander Schubert BackUp: As long as we have ONE version that simply bears some "labels": great! But we should avoid a balcanization of the AGB that results in hard forks.... Donna Austin, Neustar: One AGB with a readers guide perhaps. I agree with Greg this is fairly administrative. Greg Shatan: There's no need to replicate the "generic" parts of the AGB. Maxim Alzoba (FAITID): could we suggest tags : like <ALL>, <GEO>, <Community> e.t.c. for pages? Justine Chew: We should not specifically discourage applicants' attention to the entire AGB -- applicants ought to read the entire AGB to determine for themselves what is relevant to them and what is not -- but tagging different sections to relevant categories of applicants would be useful to make the AGB more user-friendly. Maxim Alzoba (FAITID): so it would be both understandable in printed version and would allow to filter by tag Donna Austin, Neustar: Fully agree Justine Cheryl Langdon-Orr (CLO - PDP Co-Chair): "choose your own adventure book" is a great analogy 😀 - Agree to have one complete version, but to encourage greater participation, we should encourage and support tools to improve accessibility of the AGB, especially for those who are not insiders. Part of this could be a guide for specific audiences. From the chat: Maxim Alzoba (FAITID): to make an initial choice of the application type, one needs to see the whole book Trang Nguyen: @Jeff, that's a great recommendation that we can work with. The details can be figured out during implementation. Greg Shatan: I don't mind talking about it., and I think that navigability and UX (user experience) cannot be overestimated. Maxim Alzoba (FAITID): last AGB would be better with "Read it at least 5 times" on the first page :) Donna Austin, Neustar: To Jeff's point perhaps the recommendation is along the lines of "the AGB should be accessible to the non-insiders" with some examples of how that ocould be done 5. Review of potential recommendations for Application Support - review of history of the topic (slides 9-13) From the chat: Jeff Neuman: Since we dont know what the fees will be for the next round, $47,000 represents just about 25% of the application fee of $185,000. I cant remember if that is how we got the $47k Jeff Neuman: If it was, and we agree that applicants should be able to support 1/4 of the application fee themselves, should it be reworded to reflect that? Jeff Neuman: So, for illustrative purposes only, would it mean that if the application fee were $100k, we would expect applicants to be able to fund $25k themselves? Maxim Alzoba (FAITID): +1 for "1/4 of the usual app fee" - Policy recommendations: -- Provide a process to transition to the "regular" application track (slide 14) From the chat: Justine Chew: p14 -- what criteria would be applied to deem an applicant as "gaming the system"? -- Implementation recommendation - improve promotional efforts (slide 15) - Find suitable partners with relevant global reach to deliver the message to the appropriate audiences, implement appropriate training programs for developing locally situalted registries/registrars (slide 16) - Compare volume of users of domain names registered in regional TLDs, identify the number of domain names registered in region new gTLDs (slide 16) -- Implementation recommendation - utilize partnerships to maximize outreach (slide 17) -- Recommendation - provide support beyond reduced application fees (slide 18) -- Recommendation - Understand obstacles and provide assistance accordingly (slide 19) From the chat: Maxim Alzoba (FAITID): page 19. a. Which kind of tech support do we reffer to? Jeff Neuman: @Maxim - outsourced registry operations, consulting services to understand technical requirements, etc. Maxim Alzoba (FAITID): I think it could be written as "technical expertise inhouse or outsourced is highly recommended" - Question: Who should Applicant Support be available to? - Some concern limiting to least developed economies without looking at the individual circumstances of the applicant. Fellowship program was once only available to applicants from specific countries. Now it is available to individuals in any country as long as personal circumstances match the objectives of the program. This disadvantages those are less advantaged individuals in more affluent countries, such as those from indigenous communities. From the chat: Donna Austin, Neustar: I agree with Greg, eligibility should not be largely based on where you come from. Jeff Neuman: So Greg - To restate - qualification on who qualifies for Applicant Support should be focused on the needs of the applicant as opposed to being focused on where they reside? - Do not want to limit to least developed countries. Means needs to be considered. Location may be relevant, but shouldn't be the main factor. - Is reducing the application fee going to be sufficient? Is it just the applicant that is disadvantaged or potentially also those using the TLD? - Where did the 2 million dollars come from? If we reduce the fees, does someone else pay more than their share? From the chat: Jim Prendergast: Who at ICANN makes the determination on the means test? Jim Prendergast: ICANN tries to avoid making decisions like that Jeff Neuman: @Jim - There was a panel that was formed to make those decisions and the panel was made up of members of community and "experts" I believe Greg Shatan: Jeff -- In a word, yes. Although, I don't think it is "binary" (i.e., "as opposed to" is not the way I'd like to look at it -- it could be more nuanced than that). Jim Prendergast: Thats my recollection as well - but it probably came out of the "historical development costs" Maxim Alzoba (FAITID): what happens when supported applicant goes through the aquisition process (bought by some other company)? Jon Nevett: Historical costs are being charged back to applicant fees Maxim Alzoba (FAITID): historical costs for the last round are still not stable (more and more added) Maxim Alzoba (FAITID): for example IANA transition was added (according to the letter about Excess fees) Justine Chew: @Maxim, M&A are normal business transactions which we can neither foresee nor interfere with. Maxim Alzoba (FAITID): I mean that the support should not be used for gaming (so the M&A is not the way to save 3/4 of the application fee) Donna Austin, Neustar: I would also note that the 'string' would be an important consideration and it would need to have some relevance to the region or whatever. - If there is a limited fund available for support, how do we decide between candidates that meet the criteria if we don't use geography as a factor? We still need a mechanism to choose between applicants. - Important consideration is whether you are going to have a viable market in some of these areas. Could you approach it differently? Identify five projects to participate free and clear of fees, but they have to make a business case for why it would work, and they would work with partnerships initially, with the goal of building expertise and becoming self sufficient within a year. - Among things to consider - the CCT-RT report: https://www.icann.org/en/system/files/files/cct-rt-draft-report-07mar17-en.pdf[icann.org]<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__www.icann.org_en_system_files_files_cct-2Drt-2Ddraft-2Dreport-2D07mar17-2Den.pdf&d=DwMFaQ&c=FmY1u3PJp6wrcrwll3mSVzgfkbPSS6sJms7xcl4I5cM&r=mBQzlSaM6eYCHFBU-v48zs-QSrjHB0aWmHuE4X4drzI&m=c4xQCwX8cfS3WfQrtnHHcnVwKV0fuSaJPkoIo01_dTc&s=xG-g-8IeSEPcB3lwTkPZPY7sY5dLPaFRk1scJ-h5Aoo&e=> - One of the things mentioned in this report is the global south and defining this term. This could be one of the factors used in selection criteria. - Location needs to be looked at in a more nuanced way. Remote area of Alaska or South Bronx are within the US, but are less resourced communities. - Consider incubator or accelerator model. From the chat: Donna Austin, Neustar: TLDs will have varying ideas of success Justine Chew: @Greg, sure, understood, for that matter should we look at public national Internet accessibility / infrastructure (ala ITU) as a criteria? Donna Austin, Neustar: I think some of this is outside ICANN's remit. Donna Austin, Neustar: Unless tICANN becomes some kind of philanthropist organisation because of Auction Funds. Maxim Alzoba (FAITID): @Justine, it should not be just national, but since requirements for Registry require good connectivity ... then international connectivity is a must (purely Antarctic TLD is not possible) - Does the group want to introduce success criteria? From the chat: Greg Shatan: @Jeff, I think a "scorecard" is needed, but geography (coarse and fine) should only be one aspect. - This is an area where we can punt in the preliminary report. Once we have a better sense of what the program will look like, we will be better able to design metrics around the success of the program. Trang Nguyen: I might have missed this, but have the objectives of the Applicant Support Program been defined? - In preliminary report, ask the community for suggestions for measuring the success of meeting those goals. - Some suggestions for metrics: those who have considered applying, those who have applied, and number of successful applicants Greg Shatan: Business plan, financial sustainabiity, sources of funds, all need to be part of a scorecard. AOB: None