Dear Nick, I politely wish to voice disagreement with this part of your statement: “There were good reasons for these categories being excluded from the 2012 round and we should maintain them.” Some might argue the opposite is true. It says right in the AGB that for future rounds a solution needs to be established. A multi-year CWG predictably came to no result. One of the reasons that this WT5 is existing in the first place results from the failure of the CWG (which I have been part of). There is absolutely NO REASON AT ALL not to delegate ISO 3166 Alpha-3 code element based gTLDs, or country names (or their short forms). If there is anybody out there that wishes to apply (and there is) – then it is the duty of ICANN and the relevant policy bodies to create policy that protects the citizens of that country and the general Internet user. Just an example: The good people of small Estonia (my neighbor) would like to operate .est (their Alpha-3 code element) for eGovernment and other purposes as trust based TLD. Spain, Israel, Greece or Turkey might want to operate their respective country name based TLDs as trusted namespace to promote tourism, investment and eGovernment. If they want to apply, or designate an entity that they trust with the application and operation of such a TLD: is it REALLY ICANN’s mandate to “protect them from themselves”? If we can’t find a solution for the next round then all we can do is POSTPONING such solution. But to close that door indefinitely is neither covered by the authority of WT5 nor by ICANN’s authority. In my mind. Please leave at least the door OPEN to engage in future discussions. Thanks, Alexander From: Gnso-newgtld-wg-wt5 [mailto:gnso-newgtld-wg-wt5-bounces@icann.org] On Behalf Of Nick Wenban-Smith Sent: Freitag, 10. August 2018 07:04 To: Emily Barabas <emily.barabas@icann.org>; gnso-newgtld-wg-wt5@icann.org Subject: Re: [Gnso-newgtld-wg-wt5] Additional Input Requested - "The ICANN community may want to consider. . ." For the record, I don’t agree to country and territory names being delegated as gTLDs under any form of subsequent procedures. There were good reasons for these categories being excluded from the 2012 round and we should maintain them. So we shouldn’t delete the draft recommendations in my view. From: Gnso-newgtld-wg-wt5 <gnso-newgtld-wg-wt5-bounces@icann.org <mailto:gnso-newgtld-wg-wt5-bounces@icann.org> > On Behalf Of Emily Barabas Sent: 09 August 2018 15:07 To: gnso-newgtld-wg-wt5@icann.org <mailto:gnso-newgtld-wg-wt5@icann.org> Subject: [Gnso-newgtld-wg-wt5] Additional Input Requested - "The ICANN community may want to consider. . ." Dear Work Track members, On yesterday’s call, there were a number of comments about the following suggested text in draft recommendations 2-8: “The ICANN community may want to consider whether a future process should be established to determine if, when, and how specific interested parties, such as relevant government authorities, may apply for country and territory names.” The purpose of this text was to acknowledge that some WT members expressed that there should be a way for country and territory names to be delegated, while also keeping in mind that others felt that this issue is not within the remit of Work Track 5 or the GNSO. Some support was expressed for deleting this sentence. One alternative to this sentence was proposed, by Carlos: “ICANN may consider applications by specific interested parties, such as relevant authorities, of strings that are not current or future countries or territories.” The Work Track leadership team would like to hear from the group if there are objections to deleting the text or if there are other edits that the group would like to suggest. Please reply on this thread. Kind regards, Emily Emily Barabas | Policy Manager ICANN | Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers Email: emily.barabas@icann.org <mailto:emily.barabas@icann.org> | Phone: +31 (0)6 84507976