Re: [council] Endorsement of final WG C work

["Philip Sheppard" <philip.sheppard@aim.be>]

Council,
In the NC statement on new gTLDs we made the reference:
"Recognizing the Working Group C has recently approved additional principles
and that Working Group B's formal report was provided to us yesterday, we
advise the Board that we will be providing supplemental recommendations in
the near future. "


Working group C considered a set of proposals based on an original draft
submitted by myself and Kathy Kleiman.  The principles are broad criteria
for choosing new TLDs. (Specific guidelines based on them will need to be
worked out in due course - they are a starting point.) They try to
encapsulate the concepts of fairness, competition and diversity that
underline many of the more specific options debated in the working groups.
WG C voted on these and achieved a consensus in support. I would therefore
like to propose the following statement is endorsed by the NC and sent to
the ICANN Board as supplemental recommendations.

Please indicate your support by a reply to the list.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
-----
DNSO Names Council Supplemental Statement on new TLDs

Further to its preliminary statement, the Names Council recommends to the
ICANN Board that it adopt criteria for assessing a TLD application or
proposal.
These criteria subject to current technical constraints and evolving
technical opportunities, should be based on all of the following principles:

1. Meaning: An application for a TLD should explain the significance of the
proposed TLD string, and how the applicant contemplates that the new TLD
will be perceived by the relevant population of net users.  The application
may contemplate that the proposed TLD string will have its primary semantic
meaning in a language other than English.

2. Enforcement: An application for a TLD should explain the mechanism for
charter enforcement where relevant and desired.

3. Differentiation: The selection of a TLD string should not confuse net
users, and so TLDs should be clearly differentiated by the string and/or by
the marketing and functionality associated with the string.

4. Diversity: New TLDs are important to meet the needs of an expanding
Internet community.  They should serve both commercial and non-commercial
goals.

5. Honesty: A TLD should not unnecessarily increase opportunities for
malicious or criminal elements who wish to defraud net users.

6. Competition: The authorization process for new TLDs should not be used
as a means of protecting existing service providers from competition.

--------------------------------------------------------