[Gnso-newgtld-wg] Comment on "The Case for Delegating Closed Generics"

[Alan Greenberg]

While preparing a presentation for At-Large on Closed Generics, I 
noted something that I think needs to be considered going forward.

In the Pritz, Trachtenberg and Rodenbaugh proposal "The Case for 
Delegating Closed Generics" advocating the unrestricted delegation of 
closed generics, the following statement is made in relation to the 
Board action in response to GAC Advice:

The Board consequently decided to halt the processing of applications 
for "closed generics" for the current round, and sought additional 
policy recommendations from the GNSO on how closed generics should be 
treated in subsequent rounds.
That is not accurate as a critical part of the Board resolution is 
omitted. The exact wording was:

NGPC requests that the GNSO specifically include the issue of 
exclusive registry access for generic strings serving a public 
interest goal as part of the policy work it is planning to initiate 
on subsequent rounds of the New gTLD Program, and inform the Board on 
a regular basis with regards to the progress on the issue.
The key missing phrase is that the GNSO Council was instructed to 
initiate policy work for exclusive registry access for generic 
strings SERVING A PUBLIC INTEREST.

I understand the authors' belief that a test for the public interest 
is not possible or practical, but that does not remove the clear 
requirement in the charge the Board gave to the GNSO Council.

Regardless of my personal views on the issue of closed generics, I do 
not believe that the PDP can or should make a recommendation that is 
not aligned with the Board's instructions to the GNSO.

Alan
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