RE: [council] Procedural concerns with gtld-com.

["Cade,Marilyn S - LGCRP" <mcade@att.com>]

Denise, can I ask you as staff, to do me a favor and post this to the ALAC list for me?

I wanted to respond to Thomas' emails to Council regarding the Council paper on structuring the names space for new gTLDs.

Of course, Council's response to the Board is not a substitute for a PDP. 

The Board asked for input. 
The Council has undertaken to respond. That is what the Council is discussing 5/22. It is appropriate to
present that response.  

Separately, should Council think the time is right to start a PDP process on this topic, then that should be the topic of discussion with Council, as well as the specific areas which would be put into an Issues Report. 

Now to the approach of the report and my own perspective:  I support providing an informed response which provides a documentation of the discussions and the summary prepared. It is responsive to a Board request. I would note that the Council needs to understand that it should take seriously its role in informing and advising the Board. One word responses are not responsive. I support presenting a document to Board which captures the various discussions of the Council relevant to the question which was referred to Council. I believe that the ALAC wants to have an effective and informed participatory role in Council.

BUT, no one should be suggesting that Council responding to the Board's request is  a substitute for a PDP. So, should a PDP be initiated, then of course, public comment processes would apply. I see no indication of any kind that PDP type questions are being usurped by the Council response. 

But, I also am a little confused about the attention that this is getting, when another opportunity for comment
went unnoticed, or perhaps I just didn't recognize the ALAC response.  ICANN just closed a comment period on the Draft Criteria for the Selection of new gTLDS. I was very rushed myself in getting BC comments so I do understand the challenges of getting comments developed. But I didn't see anything there from the ALAC... and given that this is really part of the fuller set of activities related to the introduction of new gTLDS, I would have thought it relevant?

I wonder if perhaps there is more confusion about the entire process -- and perhaps all have lost sight that the question sent to Council was only  part of the outreach of the board? 




..... MC



-----Original Message-----
From: Thomas Roessler [mailto:roessler@does-not-exist.org]
Sent: Sunday, May 18, 2003 9:13 AM
To: council@dnso.org
Subject: [council] Procedural concerns with gtld-com.


There are concerns, on the ALAC and elsewhere, about both
substantial and procedural questions with respect to the new gTLD
committee's draft final report.  Wendy has already elaborated on the
substantial concerns elsewhere; this message is focused on the
procedural side of our concerns.

Let me first note that the Council is to be commended for its aim to
broadly understand the issues at hand, by evaluating not just the
narrow question asked by the board, and giving an answer to this
question which seems backed by broad consensus, but by also
exploring surrounding policy areas.  However, risks occur when this
exploration gets near to the realm of actual policy-making -- for
this, the policy-development process defined in the bylaws should
(many would say: must) be applied.  This process in particular
guarantees the openness and transparency of the GNSO's
decision-making, by making both the issues and initial reports
available for public comment, to be submitted during two comment
periods of three weeks each.  It is hard to overemphasize the
importance of this particular aspect of the new policy-development
process.

(No comment process has taken place during gtld-com's work. The
outreach independently undertaken by the ALAC itself cannot replace
a formal GNSO public comment period.  While working hard on this,
the ALAC has not yet reached the excellence of the GNSO's outreach
mechanisms.)

I would respectfully suggest that the Council opt to transmit to the
Board only a brief answer to the question asked in resolution 2.151,
namely (in the words of the draft final report):

	Expansion of the gTLD namespace should be a bottom-up
	approach with names proposed by the interested parties to
	ICANN. There is no support for a pre-determined list of new
	names that putative registries would bid for. Expansion
	should be demand-driven.

The remaining questions addressed in the new gTLD committee's report
should be subject to the formal policy-development process specified
in the bylaws.  (Please note that this recommendation should not be
read as an Advisory Committee Initiation of a Policy-Development
Process, as described in Annex A, section 1.c of the new bylaws.)

Kind regards,
-- 
Thomas Roessler			  <roessler (at) does-not-exist.org>