Dear WG Members, Many of you will have already received the news alert below, but I wanted to make sure you are all aware that the Competition, Consumer Trust and Consumer Choice Review Team (CCT-RT) Draft Report was published for public comment on 7 March 2017. Links to the announcement and materials are in the message below. Best, Steve From: ICANN News Alert <no-reply@external.icann.org> Reply-To: "no-reply@external.icann.org" <no-reply@external.icann.org> Date: Tuesday, March 7, 2017 at 4:56 PM To: Steve Chan <steve.chan@icann.org> Subject: [Ext] ICANN News Alert -- Competition, Consumer Trust and Consumer Choice Review Team Draft Report of Recommendations For New gTLDs Available for Public Comment [icann.org] News Alert https://www.icann.org/news/announcement-2-2017-03-07-en[icann.org] Competition, Consumer Trust and Consumer Choice Review Team Draft Report of Recommendations For New gTLDs Available for Public Comment 7 March 2017 LOS ANGELES – 7 March 2017 – The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) today announced the publication of the Draft Report from the Competition, Consumer Trust and Consumer Choice (CCT) Review Team with its recommendations for the New gTLD Program. Executive summary[icann.org]. [PDF, 71 KB] Summary of Recommendations[icann.org]. [PDF, 1.34 MB] Read the report[icann.org]. [PDF, 3.91 MB] The report examines the extent to which the introduction of new generic top-level domains (gTLDs) has promoted competition, consumer trust and consumer choice in the domain name system. It also assesses the effectiveness of the safeguards ICANN has implemented to mitigate issues related to the introduction of new gTLDs. The report is available for public comment through 27 April 2017. Feedback will be incorporated into a Final Report. Comment on the report[icann.org]. The review team findings include the following: New gTLDs currently account for about 9 percent of registrations in all gTLDs, which suggests that registrants are making use of a broader range of gTLDs. More than half of new registrations of gTLDs have been in new gTLD strings. If ccTLDs are included, registrations are divided roughly into thirds among new gTLDs, legacy gTLDs and ccTLDs. ICANN contractual compliance has reported that 96 percent of registries are performing the analysis that is required to determine if they are being used to perpetrate security threats. At present, there is no mechanism in place to ensure that voluntary public interest commitments do not negatively impact the public interest prior to going into effect. Therefore, it is important for voluntary PICs to be made available to the community during the public comment period of the application process. Outreach programs that were put in place to facilitate and encourage applications from the Global South were thought to be both poorly monitored and largely ineffective. To learn more about the report findings and recommendations, read the blog[icann.org]. More Information The CCT Review Team will meet at ICANN58 and brief the community on its findings and recommendations at their consultation session on 12 March – 9 AM CET in Hall A3. The CCT Review Team work and detailed ICANN58 Program can also be followed via their dedicated wikipage[community.icann.org]. Background The Competition, Consumer Trust and Consumer Choice Review Team was convened in 2015 under the Affirmation of Commitments. Under ICANN's new Bylaws, the review is now referred to as a "Specific Review". Specific Reviews[icann.org] are mandated by ICANN Bylaws and are crucial to the legitimacy and accountability of ICANN. Specific Reviews serve as ICANN's progress report to the world. The reviews demonstrate how ICANN delivers on its commitments and identify areas where ICANN can improve. Specific Reviews are conducted by members of the stakeholder community who look at past processes, actions and outcomes in order to make recommendations to improve future performance. About ICANN ICANN's mission is to help ensure a stable, secure and unified global Internet. To reach another person on the Internet, you have to type an address into your computer - a name or a number. That address has to be unique so computers know where to find each other. ICANN helps coordinate and support these unique identifiers across the world. ICANN was formed in 1998 as a not-for-profit public-benefit corporation and a community with participants from all over the world. ICANN and its community help keep the Internet secure, stable and interoperable. It also promotes competition and develops policy for the top-level of the Internet's naming system and facilitates the use of other unique Internet identifiers. For more information please visit: www.icann.org[icann.org]. This message was sent to steve.chan@icann.org from:ICANN News Alert | no-reply@external.icann.org | ICANN | 12025 Waterfront Drive Suite 300 | Los Angeles, CA 90094-2536Email Marketing by [icontact.com] Manage Your Subscription [app.icontact.com]