[council] Agenda Item for discussion during 20 September 2017 Council call

[Austin, Donna]

Dear Councilors

Over the past six months or so a number of community gTLD registry operators have been developing a Draft Community gTLD Change Request Process. This has been done under the guidance of GDD staff and in consultation with the RySG. Attached is a copy of the draft process for information.

Craig Schwartz from fTLD Registry, and who has been leading this effort, has requested an opportunity to brief the Council on the process and this will be done during the 20 September 2017, Council call.

Background

In September 2016, fTLD submitted a request to ICANN to amend Specification 12 of our Registry Agreements for .BANK and .INSURANCE to add another class of regulated entities to our respective Registrant Eligibility Policies. fTLD submitted the request after following our Policy Development Process Policy available at https://www.ftld.com/policies/ and with approval from our Advisory Council and Board of Directors, which are both comprised solely of banks, insurance companies and financial services trade associations. ICANN denied the request in September 2016, stating in part that they are "not currently in a position to approve requests to amend community restrictions in Specification 12 of the New gTLD Registry Agreement."

In follow-up discussions with ICANN GDD and Legal staff, fTLD was told that ICANN could not consider the requested changes because there was no community-developed/supported process to enable them to do so. There was a procedure discussed in the New gTLD Program Explanatory Memorandum Discussion Draft: Community gTLD change request handling, but because it had not been approved nor was it included in the Applicant Guidebook, ICANN could not use this as the basis for considering our request. As a result, ICANN asked fTLD if we would help lead the way in creating a Community gTLD Change Request process. fTLD agreed to undertake this effort and formed a working group comprised of fTLD and several community-based Registry Operators and New gTLD Applicants to develop a draft Community gTLD Change Request process.

The working group also sought input from the RySG on various iterations of the proposal and the current draft incorporates the feedback provided as a result of this exercise.

The working group has also been working closely with ICANN's GDD team.

Thanks

Donna
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