[Gnso-newgtld-wg] Current Thinking on Closed Generics

trachtenbergm at gtlaw.com trachtenbergm at gtlaw.com
Mon Jul 27 14:10:16 UTC 2020 

Unfortunately (or fortunately depending on your point of view!) I cannot attend the call today due to a competing obligation in the real world.  I am OK with tabling discussion on closed generics for now because we will not get agreement in the WG and as Alex said can’t even agree / haven’t addressed foundation aspects like the applicability of public interest generally and instead putting out these two proposals to the community for feedback.  If this approach is acceptable to other in the WG I reserve the right to comment on final wording of the competing proposals that will be put out for comment but don’t want to waste time doing that now if there is no support for this approach.

Marc H. Trachtenberg
Shareholder
Greenberg Traurig, LLP | 77 West Wacker Drive | Suite 3100 | Chicago, IL 60601
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[Greenberg Traurig]

From: Gnso-newgtld-wg [mailto:gnso-newgtld-wg-bounces at icann.org] On Behalf Of Alexander Schubert
Sent: Monday, July 27, 2020 5:29 AM
To: gnso-newgtld-wg at icann.org
Subject: Re: [Gnso-newgtld-wg] Current Thinking on Closed Generics

*EXTERNAL TO GT*
Hi,

I agree. But since we can't even find concensus WITHIN this WG on the issue whether the allocation of closed generics (because of standing GAC advice and/or the bylaws) should follow a public interest goal - and how far reaching this should be in the realm of this new gTLD program:
Shouldn't we first lay the groundwork on which we then later can build on?

We are soon to publish a draft to the public and garner their input. And I fully agree that at this point of time we are in no position to advance concrete policy recommendation proposals.
But we could sample two general proposals for the community to elaborate on that would establish a base as to how the actual "picket fence" of "public interest" should look like. Not policy but guidelines for what the basis of our policies should be.

E.g.:
1) "Generally generic keyword based gTLDs should be available for registration of domains to a wider public. The benefit of operation as restricted or single registrant registry would have to outweigh the unavailability of domains to all or part of the community. The registry operator will have to convince the community that his operating model justifies making domains unavailable to some within or even all the community."

2) "There is an endless amount of strings available - and as any single registrant use is potentially fostering innovation just the prospect of innovation in and of itself justifies single registrant registries."

Btw: Picket Fence 1) is the basis for community gTLDs and restricted TLDs like .bank: 99.9999% of entities are denied to register a .bank domain: because it is indeed in the public interest that you end up on a bank's website if you visit a .bank domain. Yes that denies companies who produce or sell banks (seating, power banks, etc) to use .bank domains - but overall the benefits that the restriction generates outweighs the unavailability.

Let's the community decide to what degree the new gTLD program should be bound to the public interest. Right now would be an awesome moment in time to garner input on this topic from the community. We are acting ON BEHALF of the community - so why second guessing what the community wishes - just ask.

In case the community choses 2): we are done. Any string can be applied for as closed generic. If the community choses 1): we have finally very clear guidelines. Even when we still can't agree on a concrete policy we can put that portion into the applicant guidebook - and warn folks:
"In 2012 closed generics were barred from advancing. This program follows a clear public interest goal. If you restrict registrations just to yourself and affiliates then there shouldn't be a general expectation that your application will be approved."

We owe it to new entrants that they are warned. In 2012 we had mostly ICANN insiders applying  (consulting). In the next round this will dramatically change.

See you later in the call.

Alexander





Sent from my Samsung device


-------- Original message --------
From: "Aikman-Scalese, Anne" <AAikman at lrrc.com<mailto:AAikman at lrrc.com>>
Date: 7/27/20 07:01 (GMT+02:00)
To: "mail at christopherwilkinson.eu CW<mailto:mail at christopherwilkinson.eu%20CW>" <mail at christopherwilkinson.eu<mailto:mail at christopherwilkinson.eu>>, Jeff Neuman <jeff at jjnsolutions.com<mailto:jeff at jjnsolutions.com>>, gnso-newgtld-wg at icann.org<mailto:gnso-newgtld-wg at icann.org>
Subject: Re: [Gnso-newgtld-wg] Current Thinking on Closed Generics
As I understand it, Jeff does not see an opportunity for consensus without obtaining further public comment on the issue of Closed Generics.  I believe that by definition, a Closed Generic is one where only the applicant and its strictly defined affiliates may occupy the domains.

The WG has recently been to GNSO Council with a request for a new timeline, which was approved. That is where Jeff is getting his deadline.  I tend to agree with Jeff that:
(a) further discussion by the WG at this time will not achieve consensus
(b) additional public comment on the various proposals (and anything new that comes in during the next week) will better inform further attempts of the WG to achieve consensus.

Regarding the discussion on the public interest, I don’t think every gTLD is required to serve the public interest.  There is a general assumption (which may be questioned of course) that competition is fostered by the program generally and that this will inure to the benefit of consumers.  The topic of Closed Generics serving a public interest is a separate one entirely, due to standing GAC Consensus Advice.

Personally, and certainly not speaking on behalf of the IPC, I don’t think a long discussion about why the Board should override GAC Advice is a good use of our time.  Nor do I think the proposal from the small group led by George is actually a proposal for a Closed Generic.  It appears to me to be more of a proposal that is community and/or eligibility based.

For the above reasons and subject to Monday’s discussion, I support Jeff’s proposed approach to the issue for purposes of the draft Final Report.
Anne

From: Gnso-newgtld-wg <gnso-newgtld-wg-bounces at icann.org<mailto:gnso-newgtld-wg-bounces at icann.org>> On Behalf Of mail at christopherwilkinson.eu<mailto:mail at christopherwilkinson.eu> CW
Sent: Sunday, July 26, 2020 12:13 PM
To: Jeff Neuman <jeff at jjnsolutions.com<mailto:jeff at jjnsolutions.com>>; gnso-newgtld-wg at icann.org<mailto:gnso-newgtld-wg at icann.org>
Subject: Re: [Gnso-newgtld-wg] Current Thinking on Closed Generics

[EXTERNAL]
________________________________

Dear Jeff:

Allow me just a quick response.

1.  The proposals that we have received merit a full discussion by the PDP. I think that time should be made available.

2.  Your latest communication seems to me to ignore the current and prospective economic situation arising from the global pandemic.

> … we could get much further behind and ultimately not meet our end of year date.

On the contrary, there should now be no urgency. If the objective is to successfully launch another large opening of the DNS, then that should be done in the context of substantial international economic expansion. Which is apparently not currently on the cards.

I assume that Staff and Co-Chairs have investigated the relationships between the macro economic situation and the relative success of introducing large numbers of new TLDs.-

3.  Although I may have missed something, I do not know where the 'end of year date' comes from.
Nor the current twice a week PDP schedule. Indeed, that has not brought matters forward, rather just made more time for discussion.

Just a few thoughts

Best regards

CW
…






we could get much further behind and ultimately not meet our end of year https://urldefense.com/v3/__http://date.de__;!!DUT_TFPxUQ!W6vv9cksJRpKqxgRO4xCh7yYX8zAod8PC5Elf5svdfranziHM5lCjttXibjtdHayCg1H4g$  julio de 2020 a las 18:30 Jeff Neuman <jeff at jjnsolutions.com<mailto:jeff at jjnsolutions.com>> escribió:

All,



I wanted to throw something out for consideration by the group in the interests of getting to the draft final report.  We are already a week or two behind and I am worried that we could get much further behind and ultimately not meet our end of year date.  So, I am laying this out on the line as a proposal.  This is not a definitive plan, but something to think about.



  1.  For the Draft final report, we state that there is No Agreement on the issue of Closed Generics and keep the paragraph in the draft the way it is today.
  2.  In addition to the text that is already in there, we now have two proposals, one from George et al., and one from Kurt, et al.  What if we give everyone an additional week to come up with any proposals on Closed generics they would like to float out for public comment.
  3.  We publish those proposals for public comment being very specific that they are individual proposals and do not have any level of support within the working group.  We may even not want to attach names to the proposal so as to try not and bias the comments we get in.  We can of course discuss this last point.
  4.  We solicit comments on all of the proposals.
  5.  While the public comment period is going on, we continue to discuss the proposals as a Working Group to see if we can reach any sort of consensus on this issue.
  6.  We make it very clear in our report that absent reaching consensus within the Working Group on any of these proposals, taking into consideration public comments of course, that in the final report, we will go with the language that is in the Draft Final Report (without any of the individual proposals); namely, No Agreement.



Why do this?

  1.  We need to be realistic with ourselves as well as the community that to date there is no agreement on how to move forward.
  2.  We also need to give the community a chance to look at the various options people in the working group have proposed so that they can think about these as well (regardless of whether one group of people like it or not).
  3.  At the end of the day, we will need to demonstrate to the GNSO Council and the Board that we attempted every possible way to reach consensus on a compromise.
  4.  And finally there are 40+ other topics that we have come to some sort of final resolution on and there is no reason to delay everything even more for these last few issues.



What does this mean for us?

i)                    On the call on Monday, we will discuss this path of moving forward.

ii)                   This means that we do not need to use up time on the call discussing the two existing proposals for which I am sure we could spend hours going back and forth and likely end up on Monday exactly where we are now.

iii)                 It also means that others have a week to submit their own proposals.  I personally have some ideas that I may put into a proposal that I may submit (not as a co-chair, but personally speaking).   This may give us another reason to not attach names to the proposals so that if I submitted a proposal it wouldn’t be associated with the “co-chair”.

iv)                 We work on finalizing the draft report sections on Predictability and Mechanisms of Last Resort this week as well as the Preamble and “Cant Live With” Package 7.

v)                   This would enable us to stay only a week or to behind.



Thoughts?







[cid:image003.png at 01D6638F.003B0770]


Jeffrey J. Neuman

Founder & CEO

JJN Solutions, LLC

p: +1.202.549.5079

E: jeff at jjnsolutions.com<mailto:jeff at jjnsolutions.com>

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