[ga] FYI: .pro and .coop change plans, .museum and .aero proceed

[Alexander Svensson <alexander@svensson.de>]

ICANN Montevideo Meeting Topic: New TLD Agreements
Posted: 5 September 2001
http://www.icann.org/montevideo/new-tld-topic.htm

Excerpts:
 Sponsored TLDs. A basic form of sTLD agreement has been developed
 and all three sTLDs have indicated they find it acceptable. This
 agreement has 23 attachments to allow customization.

 Discussions with one of the sponsors (MuseDoma of .museum) have
 been nearly completed since about 20-22 August, when the basic
 agreement and the key attachments were posted. As of 5 September,
 five attachments still must be completed (requiring XML schema
 verification, etc.), but it is expected these will be completed
 by the time of the 9 September 2001 ICANN Public Forum, so that
 final comment on this agreement may be received and the Board may
 be asked to consider approval at its 10 September 2001 meeting.
 The agreement with MuseDoma is in accord with the proposal it
 made that led to its selection and ICANN management recommends
 that it be approved.

 Discussions with a second sponsor (SITA of .aero) have also been
 proceeding toward completion. There are still a few significant
 attachments to be completed (notably the start-up plan). In major
 progress on one issue, SITA has obtained a ruling from the ISO
 3166 Maintenance Agency that the Maintenance Agency does not
 object to use of two-character airline designator codes as
 second-level domains within .aero, in view of the low
 likelihood of confusion with two-letter country codes based on
 the longstanding (over 50 years) IATA standard creating that
 coding system for airlines. Completion of the .aero agreement
 with SITA in accord with its proposal that was selected in
 November 2000 should be attainable inthe next few weeks.
 ICANN management recommends that the 7-day notice procedure
 adopted in Melbourne for the the uTLD agreements be extended
 to .aero.

 Way Forward for .pro and .coop

 In the course of negotiations, the proponents of the .pro
 (unsponsored) and .coop (sponsored) TLDs have indicated that
 they wish to make significant changes to the plans of
 operation of their TLDs that they included in their proposals
 last year. In the case of .pro, the selected operator (Registry
 Pro) has indicated that it wishes to revise its plans to
 reduce the level of financial commitments it will make to
 launch the .pro TLD. In the case of .coop, the selected
 operator (NCBA) has requested to change from the competitive
 models it proposed at the registrar level (through use of
 competitive registrars after a six-month start-up period) and
 registry levels (through rebidding after start up to replace
 the inital registry operator) to long-term sole-source models
 at both levels. In view of continuing discussions regarding
 these proposed changes for .pro and .coop, it does not appear
 appropriate for the Board to act on these agreements at this
 time. Instead, discussions should go forward between ICANN and
 both RegistryPro and NCBA regarding measures that might be
 taken to fashion appropriate adjustments that are consistent
 with the spirit of their proposals. Additional time is needed
 for discussions that might develop concrete proposals, which
 can then be presented.

Best regards,
/// Alexander

PS: I hope most of you don't mind the FYI mails? Actually,
I'd prefer a more active icann-announce list, but since this
doesn't happen, I try to send excerpts from recent
announcements if they haven't been discussed on the GA list
before. This makes it somewhat easier to discuss them.
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