Would it make sense to consider revising the ASP Refund amount up to 100% though a very limited time once contention sets are known or some other clear milestone?  This would eliminate the cost risk for an ASP applicant of losing funds which was stated as a reason why some are still not willing to apply?

John

Dear all,

Per Elaine’s suggestion, I am share ICANN’s response to Edmon’s proposal, submitted as a public comment, below. Note, this is the same text as we shared in decks that are available on the SubPro wiki.

Best. Lars

 

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Thank you for your detailed and thoughtful suggestions. It is important to note that the SubPro Final Report rationale for Recommendation 17.15 and Implementation Guidance 17.16 and 17.17 did not reach consensus on supported applicants having “absolute priority”; only to “increase the chances of applicants qualified to receive Applicant Support winning at auction.” The SubPro Final Report states in the rationale for 17.15: “The Working Group agreed that applicants qualified for Applicant Support should receive some form of special treatment in contention sets with standard applicants”. 

The SubPro Final Report outputs did not provide an amount by which those chances should be increased, only that ICANN should conduct research to determine the mechanism and amount of support. Based on expert research and the parameters set forth in the SubPro Final Report, ICANN contracted a third-party auctions expert vendor to conduct research on the nature of the bid credit, multiplier, or other mechanism. The findings and options from that research were presented to the IRT. Based on this research and the SubPro Final Report rationale, ICANN proposed a bid credit and conducted research on other auction mechanisms with bid credits, in order to determine an appropriate level for the credit. This research was presented to the IRT. Based on research, the maximum bid credit amount provided in other auction examples was 35%, which is the percentage proposed to the IRT and outlined in the AGB, with a phased-out approach to prevent gaming. 

Regarding your proposal with regard to the replacement string. ICANN notes that this is a new idea that was not brought up during the community consultation in August 2024, nor during any IRT discussions or the previous public comment that included the current replacement string process. 

While it may be worth discussing whether giving ASP applicants the opportunity to get a ‘free shot’ after the replacement from a policy perspective, operational planning and system builds will be impacted by such a change at this late stage of the implementation process. Since the Board resolved on the implementation of the SubPro policy recommendations, ICANN has been working towards opening the next round in April 2026.

In an ideal world, we would start operational planning and system builds only after the AGB is finalized. However, due to the timing requirements, these plannings and builds have to take (and are taking) place in parallel to the AGB drafting. We spoke about this explicitly with our contractors who confirmed that your proposed change could not be absorbed into ongoing implementation work whilst maintaining the goal to open the round in April 2026. 

Of course if your proposal were to become Board-adopted policy, ICANN will implement your proposal for future rounds. But for the next round we will not make this change to the replacement string process.