[nc-org] Discussion with McLaughlin

["Milton Mueller" <mueller@syr.edu>]

Because ICANN staff must draft an RFP 
based on our policy, I sought out Andrew
McLaughlin, ICANN's chief policy officer,
during the Annual Meeting to discuss the
.org situation.

I received one strong message from him.
The decision criteria for the Board need
to be as specific as possible. ICANN
feels a little burned about the criticism
it received in selecting the new TLD
applicants in the last round, and would
like to avoid any appearance of 
arbitrariness.

Another interesting fact: ICANN
staff does not mind, Andrew said, allowing
the DNSO Task Force to review its RFP
before it is publicly disseminated. As 
long as there is a clear limit on the
number of review cycles (both of us agreeing
that the optimal number is one, given the
time constraints) he has no objection to
running it by the TF. This is interesting
because some one on the Names Council 
objecting to the paragraph in our current
policy calling for TF review of the RFP.
I would imagine those objections would be
dropped once this is made clear.

Finally, Andrew proposed a very 
interesting concept that we may want to 
incorporate into the final policy document.
In keeping with his desire to avoid 
subjecting the Board to vague and difficult
decisions, he suggested that DNSO 
constituencies or external non-profit groups
might play a role in reviewing ORG applicants.
For example, the NCDNHC, or an international
committee of noncommercial organizations 
galvanized by the NCDNHC, might review the
proposals for non-profit Sponsoring 
Organizations and write a report on them
to the Board. 

This could be particularly useful because 
many commercial registries or other businesses
that would like to "get" .org are likely
to form their own nonprofit SOs. The ICANN
Board, confronted with 5 or 10 of such 
entities, might ot be in a good position 
to judge which is real and has significant
support from the noncommercial Internet
community. Review by a broad committee of
noncommercial stakeholders might provide
the information they need, at little cost
to ICANN.

Please let me know what you think of this
concept.