Robin, Karen et al.  Regarding Section 1.9 dealing with Community applications, what is missing is the concern I expressed several times regarding the trend in Work Track 3 to venture into assessments about the “goals and purposes” of community applications.    The 2012 round specifically included numerous “types” of communities, including economic communities.  On more than one call, I mentioned that we need to respect applicant freedom of speech and association in the realm of community evaluations in the same manner that we urge in relation to considering Objections.  The Applicant’s Freedom of Speech Principle should apply across the Board to the program.  The language from the draft below tends toward an assessment of the content of community applications and extends beyond ICANN’s mission.  As I mentioned several times, IC ANN should not be making content-based value judgments about the purpose of a Community TLD.  The question of the definition of “community” should not be determined by whether someone within ICANN believes that the purpose of a certain community application is a good purpose or not.

 

Some of the draft Initial Report language that needs to be examined  in this regard is:

 

If the ICANN community still desires to have community-based applications receive priority over other applications for the same string, there is general agreement that a clearer definition of the term “community” is needed, though it has proven difficult in coming up with a mutually acceptable definition. In determining how to define “community” applicants, the Work Track has considered the overall purpose and goal of the “community” concept in the TLD process (i.e., what are we trying to achieve by giving certain groups preferential treatment in the TLD process?). By asking "what public interest goal are we intending to achieve?", we can begin to understand how to define “community” in a way that guides its application in the TLD process.

 

One suggestion is that protecting minority or disadvantaged communities' “identity” and their ability to self-identify, self-associate, and organize in the domain name system is among the goals of the “community” process. The Work Track developed a draft definition that has been discussed with the wider community, but it received minimal support.^[1] As a next step towards establishing a definition, the WT will take input from the community to better understand the purpose and goal of having community-based applications in the New gTLD Program.

 

It is true that the above considerations were discussed in the Work Track at length based on the agenda provided by the Work Track Leadership.  However, it was also carefully noted that this suggestion is a content and purpose-based evaluation rather than a content-neutral definition of “Community” in the application process.    You may also recall that I cited to the EU Commission Report on Community Applications, which identified one PURPOSE of Community Applications as FREEDOM OF ASSOCIATION.  This form of freedom of expression should not be subject to value judgments from the ICANN community about what sort of freedom of association should be supported in the TLD environment.  Such value judgments may be appropriate to Applicant Support programs, but are not appropriate to evaluation of community applications. 

 

The other thing that is odd about this is that while we “pooh-pooh” GAC Advice in an earlier section, we laud the comments made by some GAC members on this topic even though it was not GAC Consensus Advice.  Why do we lay so much emphasis on GAC observations here and insist their advice should not be sought on individual strings?

 

I will be happy to propose various edits after the discussion on the call.

 

Anne

 

 

 

Dear WG Members,

 

Below, please find the proposed agenda for the New gTLD Subsequent Procedures WG meeting scheduled for 14 June 2018 at 20:00 UTC, for 90 minutes.

 

1. Agenda Review
2. Roll Call/SOIs
3. Review of the Initial Report (continued). * The purpose of this review is to ensure that preliminary outcomes and deliberations are accurately captured and written in an understandable manner. The WG Co-Chairs have sought to make clear that this exercise is not intended to re-open substantive discussions, which is better served by the submission of public comments and subsequently when reviewing public comments received. Please submit your comments about these sections to the Working Group mailing list (gnso-newgtld-wg@icann.org) in advance of the meeting.
   1. Review of Section 1.8 (Objections; Accountability Mechanisms)
   2. Review of Section 1.9 (Community Applications)
4. Next Steps
5. AOB

 

For Item 3, the relevant documents are attached. As a reminder, please note that a resource page has been set up on the Wiki to track the distribution of Initial Report sections, which you can find here: https://community.icann.org/x/NwUhB. With the release of section 1.9 and as you can see in the link, all preliminary draft sections have now been released.

  

Those signed up as Members to this PDP WG should have received meeting information from the SOAC Support team. If you did not receive these participation details or if you would like to send your apologies, please contact the SOAC Support team (gnso-secs@icann.org).

 

Best,

Steve

 

 

Steven Chan


Policy Director, GNSO Support

 

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