[gnso-gac-closed-generics] Returning to the Broad Agreement on CG Second Comment Period

[Kathy Kleiman]

Dear Melissa,

In the last 48 hours, I feel as if our Small Team has become surreal, 
and must object.  In the discussion of a Separate, Second Comment Period 
for Closed Generic applications, to follow GAC Early Warnings, we had 
“broad agreement” as we have always defined “ broad agreement” – GNSO 
(2), ALAC (1+1), GAC (4).

Despite overwhelming agreement on a second comment period, we somehow 
ended up with compromised language that was severely problematic. Now, 
even that hard-fought compromise is being clawed back.

No, no, and no.   These are Closed Generic terms – words that represent 
entire industries – and the Broad Agreement is in favor of a /meaningful 
second comment period /where the industry has time to learn, discuss, 
and respond, /with the leadership and following GAC Early Warnings/. We 
would not be here in this Small Team if there was not already much at 
stake on this issue. Greg, Alan and I laid out in a 5 page paper of 
factual information just how much – and the Small Team agreed.

Alan, I appreciate you pointing us to the SubPro recommendation about 
websites, but it does not help us here. ICANN websites are hard to use, 
generally geared to experts, and very hard for newcomers to navigate. 
What we have asked for, and what SubPro WG never had the opportunity to 
discuss, is the special needs of Our Closed Generic Framework- and a 
very Special Call Out to the World to Comment in a Meaningful Way before 
this most valuable of gTLD real estate (as I think Jason calls it) is 
given away.

_A Second Closed Generic Comment Period to be meaningful and effective 
would have: _

+ A page listing all the rules and evaluation criteria for Closed 
Generics – not as written for applicants (e.g., in the Applicant 
Guidebook), but written for the public seeking to understand Closed 
Generic gTLDs and how to prepare meaningful comment (with knowledge of 
the evaluation factors) in this evaluation process.

+ A good semantic search tool for searching the potentially thousands of 
closed generic applications by members of the public, so small 
businesses, NGOs and others can easily find all new gTLD applications 
with closed generic strings that impact their business or industry. For 
example, for the aviation industries, such a search tool should find 
.airport, .runway, and .airplanes. This type of tool is special, but not 
infrequent in our data-based world.

3)+ A homepage showing all Closed Generic gTLD applications as part of a 
table visible with each new gTLD string, the Applicant, translation of 
string to English if an Internationalized Domain Name, and country of 
origin.  You should not have to search the closed generic string, to see 
all Closed Generic gTLD applications at this summary level.

4)+ Clear information about deadlines, easy input by the commenter, easy 
review by the public and applicant, and a link to any response the 
applicant may submit.  (Consistent with other aspects of our work, if 
additional features are made available for the initial comment period, 
then they should be added to this Closed Generics comment website as well.)

/This is not a big ask –a microsite dedicated to helping businesses, 
industries and organizations across entire Generic Terms to understand 
and navigate our new Closed Generic Framework, and future Closed Generic 
policies that follow it./

//

*//*

*/Melissa, what I share above was the “Broad Agreement” and put forward 
as the compromise. I call for us to return to it.  I see no meaningful 
second comment period – and without it I believe our Framework falls./*

//Kathy
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://mm.icann.org/pipermail/gnso-gac-closed-generics/attachments/20230601/9f2fd037/attachment.html>