[ga] Where is the New TLDs Evaluation Process?

["Richard Henderson" <richardhenderson@ntlworld.com>]

Excuse me for asking a dumb question, but where *is* the New TLDs Evaluation
Process?

It's fine having a public forum about the process, but where is the process
itself?

There was a committee set up to define the aims and workings of a NewTLDs
Evaluation Process, but as far as I know, nobody has been appointed to chair
the actual Process itself (though Stuart Lynn said this would be cleared up
at Shanghai) and I can see no sign of the Process at all.

Now ICANN is making decisions about further New TLDs, which it is limiting
to 'sponsored' ones, and I question whether its decisions should be branded
'arbitrary' if it has failed to carry through the proper process of
Evaluation of its much-vaunted "Proof of Concept" testbed with the last
TLDs.

Furthermore, it has failed to publish the Registry Evaluation reports from
Afilias and Neulevel, which should have been available for publication over
a year ago under the terms of Appendix U of the ICANN-Registry Agreements.
The excuse given for not publishing them was "ICANN staff haven't had time"
but that was a year ago.

These should have shed valuable light on the severe problems (some would say
fiasco) which occurred at the launch of .info and .biz

I raised questions with Dan Halloran over 400 days ago, and he has never
acknowledged my mail. I asked Paul Twomey to respond to me about this, a
month ago, and... he has never acknowledged my mail.

I don't personally matter (though I appreciate professionalism and courtesy)
but the process *does*. ICANN seems to be ignoring what it chooses to
ignore, and doing what it chooses to do, but how does it account for the
invisibility of a Process it promoted itself?

If there is no New TLDs Evaluation Process, how can we expect informed
discussion to take place prior to the selection of further TLDs?

If there is no New TLDs Evaluation Process, carried out formally and
professionally, then how can we trust ICANN to make fair and considered
selections of New Registries and New TLDs?

If there is no New TLDs Evaluation Process, why should we suppose that the
same mistakes and corruption that beset the earlier TLDs will not be
repeated all over again?

Does the ICANN Board just want to do whatever it chooses, without submitting
to a formal Evaluation Process?

Where is the New TLDs Evaluation Process?

yrs,

Richard Henderson


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