[Gnso-newgtld-wg-wt3] Actions/Discussion Notes: Work Track 3 SubTeam Meeting 18 April

Tue Apr 18 16:21:53 UTC 2017

Dear Sub Team Members,

Please see below the action items and discussion notes captured by staff from the meeting on 18 April. These high-level notes are designed to help Work Track Sub Team members navigate through the content of the call and are not a substitute for the recording.  Please also see the recording on the meetings page at: https://community.icann.org/display/NGSPP/Work+Track+3+Meetings.  

In addition, the referenced slides are attached along with excerpts from the chat room are included below for ease of reference.

 Best regards,

Julie

Julie Hedlund, Policy Director

Action Items/Discussion Notes 18 April 2017

1. Update from PDP Full Group – Avri Doria, Co-Chair

-- At our last full meeting we had a discussion with the CCT-RT and got a lot of questions clarified.

-- At our next meeting we will discuss a comment on the CCT-RT report.

-- CC2 has begun and been translated.  Encourage your groups.  We have a request pending to extend the deadline for comments by 2 weeks.

-- Geo names webinar is being organized.  A number of speakers.  We will have two sessions.  Most will be at both sessions.  Be sure you sign up.  25 April at 15:00 UTC and 22:00 UTC.  See link above for details. To RSVP, email Geo-Names-Session at icann.org.

-- Feel free to forward the invite to other groups.  

-- Drafting Teams are up and running.

2. Definition of Community & Other Follow-Up From Last Week 

-- Potential stumbling block is that we need a definition of what a community is before we move forward.

-- Come to a decision about what it is that we are trying to achieve.  Don't have a shared understanding about what it is we want to achieve and who are we trying to privilege.  Is it underprivileged, noncommercial, etc.?

-- Staff has started taking a look at some of the statements that have been made defining community.  When we are talking about community we are starting to talk about types of community.

-- One of the things to challenge us with: the optics of the concept of "community."  It is how we refer to a particular group of people.  To go to the process and find out that you are not a community is difficult.  If it is the words specifically in ways that clearly define a group it sends a strange optic.  Maybe we need to think of whether to select a different word.

-- Part of the issue is that there are multiple types of communities - commercial versus noncommercial for example.  The challenge is how do we resolve issues if we have multiple groups claiming to be the community for group X.  I think we need to be really open in terms of the classes of community.

-- Might need to make sure that we have consensus on the principles.

-- In line with those who are looking for a broad definition.  One of the principles could be freedom of expression which invokes freedom of association.

-- Keep in mind the lack of data for communities.  Don't think we can answer the question of whether to have a community since there is a lack of data on community TLD.  

-- Concept in the first round implies a social good in having community TLDs.  It is the social good aspect that implies that they should have priority.  If we go to first-come, first-served process then their may not need to be a priority.

-- ICANN very specifically avoids content regulations so deciding what community is for social good is a dangerous area for ICANN to be in.  Could there be a community of kennel clubs that could be for profit -- who will decide that they are a community or for the social good.  Careful about limiting freedom of association, or what we think is good or not.

- 28 applications in the first round, need to look at what we can learn from these applications and how well they fit with the criteria we are discussing now. This issue of how to handle appeals and objections 

-- Need to consider what a mess communities was for the first round.  Already getting too nuanced over the is in any ways accurate.  We need to go back and look at the facts of what is happening and of the applications and what happened with them.  Also all the communications that were sent to the Board.  Need to reconsider the concept of a community and why give it a priority in terms of what should be a community.  One might even consider taking away priority.

-- Ask ourselves why we are creating the concept of community?  There was a notion that there was some social good -- to recognize underprivileged groups.  But never codified or defined that way.

-- Don't agree with the above statement.  Boils down to how to allocate namespace when there is contention.  One answer is having an auction, but that may not be appropriate for a public namespace.  Then there were the sponsored names, which was too easy.  This rounds ended up being too hard.  Not sure it is right to say that TLDs should only be allocated via auction in any circumstance.  In 2000 it was a "beauty contest."  Need to consider the allocation methods -- a way that is not a pure "beauty contest" that will preserve the use of a namespace other than the TLD model.

-- Try to come up with a plan for a structured way through this.

>From the chat:

John Laprise: There's always a tension: defining a community externally vs. internally

Jeff Neuman: the term we used to use was "sponsored TLDs"

avri doria: that was a previous round

Jeff Neuman: right......and every tld that applied that round was approved.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr (CLO): agreed Alan, that is why we need much more discussion on this 

avri doria: but the notion of supported was not as broad as the notion of community.  and the degree of support needed to be considered supported was not as deep as that required by the AGB

Cheryl Langdon-Orr (CLO): indeed 

Jeff Neuman: In this "round" very few were accepted.  Somehow we may need to try to swing the pendulum back to a balance....if we still favor community applications

Robin Gross: It is important to remember we are creating classes with special privileges in tlds, and that will impact existing rights, like IPR.

Alan Greenberg: Part of the concept I think is that the rules of the TLD are governed by "the community"  Does the TLD need to be not-for-prfit??

Anne Aikman-Scalese (IPC): not for profit really limits freedom of association and freedom of speech.

Jamie Baxter | dotgay: I think that Anne's suggestion makes sense to look at this from the angle of freedom of association.

Jeff Neuman: I do not necessarily believe that there is a need to limit to not for profits.

Robin Gross: The problem I see with the freedom of association argument is that it doesn't extend to preculding others from identifying with an idea also.

John Laprise: What about communities in jurisdictions that persecute non-profits?

Alan Greenberg: As we know, a NFP can make money and turn it back into the community. 

Anne Aikman-Scalese (IPC): QUESTION: What about a for-profit community of kennel clubs from around the world who want to associate and promote discussion around dog breeding?  would that be bad somehow?

Cheryl Langdon-Orr (CLO): yes ALAN, true the interdependencies are yet to be explored 

Gg Levine (NABP): @Anne -- no, not bad.

Jeff Neuman: Again a for-profit and not-for-profit is not necessarily a universal concept adopted globally nor is it consistent amongst jurisdictions.  Not sure how we can make being "not for profit" as defined in the US the standard......

Michael Flemming: I agree with Anne on that aspect. We have a habit of distinguishing what the Public Interest is and what may harm the Public Interest. This is similar to our discussion of Closed Generics. But if we have to define what the social good is, then how do we even begin to define that?

Cheryl Langdon-Orr (CLO): agree Anne could be a slippery slope here as well 

Alan Greenberg: Is the COMMUNITY of kennel clubs for profit, or are the kennel clubs for profit?

Annebeth Lange: I agree with Anne here. THis is a dangerous road to go down.

Jeff Neuman: All - It is hard to talk about the freedom of association as an absolute right.  All communities have some form of qualifications to get into an stay in the community.  We cant say that all of them are a restriction on the freedom of association

John Laprise: If we take a social scientific perspective, a community is simply a group of actors who interact and exchange, bound by an interest.

Michael Flemming: @Jeff, for my own personal question, is there no sense of what defines a collective community in international law?

Jamie Baxter | dotgay: I agree with Anne. Each community may have their own purpose for applying for a community TLD. Trust is a huge one that has previoulsy been discussed, but let's not forget that the current implemenation of community TLDs took none of this into consideration.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr (CLO): NOTE Anne I was  stating establishment of purpose is important not a opinion on the 'worthiness' of the purposeless essential 

Greg Shatan: Not a risk.... :-)

eff Neuman: Its all about the effective allocation of TLDs

Anne Aikman-Scalese (IPC): @Cheryl - I agree with you.  I really cannot see ICANN trying to decide which applicants qualify as promoting social good.

John Laprise: I can't see the GAC signing off on a definition of social good.

Communication Applications Spreadsheet: https://community.icann.org/x/Wz2AAw

-- Results of the community priority evaluation (CPE).  Whether or not they failed with high-level data.

-- Added overall score, individual breakouts, averages for the total outcomes and the individual core areas, links to reconsideration requests.

-- Add that there is a current investigation by the new CEO looking at all the aspects about how the CPEs were done.  Keep in mind what comes back from that investigation.  Not sure when that is expected.

-- Keep in mind needs for cultural identity when considering definition.

>From the chat:

Michael Flemming: @Anne, even if a community was not an established non-profit, if the model behind the TLD itself was a non-profit or non-money making model, could that be used to tie into the model of a community TLD?

3. Applicant Freedom of Expression 

The slides are available here under the heading Documents: https://community.icann.org/x/FbHRAw

-- One of the aspects is the ability to use geographic names, that is based on international law.

-- Slide 2: Background 

-- Slide 3: International Law -- ICCPR & UDHR, Article 19 -- ability for persons to express themselves.

-- Slide 4: Issue Description -- PDP tasked with examining GAC Advice, community processes (WT 3), and reserved names (WT 2); several interlocking groups.

-- Slide 5: ICANN's Procedures and Policies in the Light of Human Rights, Fundamental Freedoms and Democratic Values (CoE report).

-- Slide 7: 2014 GAC Proposal on Geographic Names.

-- Alternative view -- chilling effects on applicant Freedom of Expression in the Joint Civil Society Comments on the GAC proposal.

-- Concern that the proposal was extremely broad.  These claims that governments have over words are not internationally recognized laws.

>From the chat:

Jeff Neuman: It should be noted for the record that this version 3 of the GAC Subgroup has een abandoned for now

Cheryl Langdon-Orr (CLO): thanks everyone... lots more to come on this of course... bye for now 

Jeff Neuman: Now there is a repository proposal....but still may have similar implications

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://mm.icann.org/pipermail/gnso-newgtld-wg-wt3/attachments/20170418/dbecb1ae/attachment-0001.html>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: SubProWT3_ApplicantFX_18Apr2017[KLD].pdf
Type: application/pdf
Size: 218829 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://mm.icann.org/pipermail/gnso-newgtld-wg-wt3/attachments/20170418/dbecb1ae/SubProWT3_ApplicantFX_18Apr2017KLD-0001.pdf>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: smime.p7s
Type: application/pkcs7-signature
Size: 4630 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://mm.icann.org/pipermail/gnso-newgtld-wg-wt3/attachments/20170418/dbecb1ae/smime-0001.p7s>