<html><head></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'Times New Roman'"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: transparent; font-size: 16px;">All, </span></font><div><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'Times New Roman'"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: transparent; font-size: 16px;">in preparation of this week's GNSO telco, please find below the draft letter in response to Bertrand de La Chapelle's request for input on the impact of new gTLDs. I would like to thank Brian Winterfeldt, Joy Liddicoat, Osvaldo Novao, Zahid Jamil, Stéphane van Gelder, Wolf-Ulrich Knoben and Jeff Neuman for their contributions.</span></font></div><div><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'Times New Roman'"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: transparent; font-size: 16px;"><br></span></font></div><div><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'Times New Roman'"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: transparent; font-size: 16px;">I am looking forward to discussing this with you.</span></font></div><div><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'Times New Roman'"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: transparent; font-size: 16px;"><br></span></font></div><div><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'Times New Roman'"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: transparent; font-size: 16px;">Best regards,</span></font></div><div><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'Times New Roman'"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: transparent; font-size: 16px;">Thomas</span></font></div><div><br></div><div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 16px; ">Dear Bertrand,</span><br><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 16px; ">the GNSO Council would like to thank you for the opportunity to provide feedback to your request for input on the impact of new gTLDs on ICANN's structure.</span><br><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 16px; "> </span><br><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 16px; ">As you know, the Council as well as individual SGs and Constituencies have been discussing this important subject for a long time now. It has also been a topic during face to face meetings between the GNSO Council and the Board and GAC as well as with the ccNSO. Some groups have already or will respond to the Board directly and our impression is that they are confident to have taken appropriate steps to address the upcoming challenges. </span><br><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 16px; "> </span><br><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 16px; ">As far as the Council is concerned, here will most likely be quantitative and qualitative challenges. What these will be and their size can hardly be predicted. </span><br><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'Times New Roman'"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: transparent; font-size: 16px;"> </span></font></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; font-variant: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: transparent; font-size: 16px;"><div lang="EN-US" link="blue" vlink="purple"><div class="WordSection1" style="page: WordSection1; "><div style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; "><font class="Apple-style-span" color="#000000" face="'Times New Roman'">In qualitative terms, there may be new requests to form constituencies and new stakeholder groups in both houses, some of which may be re-configurations or alignments of existing groups.</font></div></div></div></span><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'Times New Roman'"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: transparent; font-size: 16px;"><div><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'Times New Roman'"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: transparent; font-size: 16px;"><br></span></font></div>Since this is an unknown factor, the effects on the democ</span></font><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 16px; ">ratic and participatory process of the Council and the response to that are yet to be seen. However, we would like to highlight that ICANN is already publishing information on how to participate (see </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 16px; "><a href="http://gnso.icann.org/en/about/participation.htm" style="color: blue; text-decoration: underline; ">http://gnso.icann.org/en/about/participation.htm</a></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 16px; ">) including information on how to form a Constituency. Thus, the information and processes are available to be inclusive.</span><br><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 16px; "> </span><br><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 16px; ">In quantitative terms, challenges are more predictable in some aspects. For sure, there will be </span><br><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 16px; ">- more attention by the general pubic and Governments;</span><br><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 16px; ">- more attendants at meetings, which has an impact on sizing the venues; </span><br><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 16px; ">- more groups that need administrative and technical support;</span><br><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 16px; ">- more telephone conferences with more participants and more remote participation;</span><br><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 16px; ">- more documents to be produced and read; </span><br><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 16px; ">- more decisions to be made and operationalized;</span><br><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 16px; ">- more contractors that need to be managed;</span><br><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 16px; ">- an increased budget to be administered;</span><br><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 16px; ">- more compliance issues that need to be taken care of; </span><br><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 16px; ">to name but a few areas of growth.</span><br><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 16px; "> </span><br><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 16px; ">While ICANN should have sufficient funds to meet these challenges, growth needs to be managed carefully. More staff and other operational resources will be needed to support the community and fulfill ICANN's mission while preserving operational excellence. </span><br><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 16px; "> </span><br><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 16px; ">These quantitative challenges require managerial responses that ICANN can prepare for. Such preparations should also encompass the increased burden on volunteers to deal with even more and potentially more complex material to work on. Processes and support schemes for volunteers should be designed to best possibly avoid volunteer fatigue.</span><br><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 16px; ">The unknown is what new groups will be established and what their place and role in the ICANN eco system shall be. However, additions will only lead to marginal changes that can be dealt with once they are known.</span><br><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 16px; "> </span><br><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; font-family: 'Lucida Grande'; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-size: medium; "><div lang="EN-US" link="blue" vlink="purple"><div class="WordSection1" style="page: WordSection1; "><div><div><div><div><div style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; "><o:p></o:p></div></div><div><div style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; "><o:p></o:p></div></div><div><div style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; "><o:p></o:p></div></div><div><div style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; "><o:p></o:p></div></div><div><div style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; "><o:p></o:p></div></div><div><div style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; "><o:p></o:p></div></div><div><div style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; "><o:p></o:p></div></div><div><div style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; "><o:p></o:p></div></div><div><div style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; "><o:p></o:p></div></div><div><div style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; "><o:p></o:p></div></div><div><div style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; "><o:p></o:p></div></div><div><div style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; "><o:p></o:p></div></div><div><div style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; "><o:p></o:p></div></div><div><div style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; "><o:p></o:p></div></div><div><div style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; "><o:p></o:p></div></div><div><div style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; "><o:p></o:p></div></div><div><div style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; "><o:p></o:p></div></div><div><div style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; "><o:p></o:p></div></div><div><div style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; "><o:p></o:p></div></div><div><div style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; ">In summary, the GNSO Council believes that the current structure is resilient to respond to the challenges to come as long as ICANN provides the resources required to accommodate an increasing number of participants / stakeholders and their respective needs. </div></div></div></div></div><div style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; ">Thank you,</div><div style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; ">Stéphane van Gelder</div><div style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; ">GNSO Chair</div></div></div></span></div></div></body></html>