[council] Council meeting: New gTLD Update

[Kurt Pritz <kurt.pritz@xxxxxxxxx>]

Council Members:

Thank you for the opportunity on last week's Council call to provide 
information regarding the current state of implementation planning for the 
GNSO's new gTLD policy recommendations. I thought I would take few minutes of 
your time to reiterate some of the points made during our discussion and 
indicate possible paths for Council and community discussion.

As you may recall, one of the items described during the Council call was a 
recent discussion with the GAC to obtain a better understanding of the issues 
raised in their policy advice to the ICANN Board: "GAC Principles Regarding New 
gTLDs."  In that meeting (and earlier ones in Delhi and Paris), GAC members 
provided some detail as to the expectations of
governments and the possible protections to be afforded to geographical names 
in the new gTLD application and evaluation process.

As a result of those consultations, ICANN will post two documents. The first 
will be a letter from Paul Twomey to GAC Chair Janis Karklins that: (1) repeats 
back the meeting  discussion points in order to ensure understanding; (2) 
provides a potential model for going ahead with some of the protections the 
government representatives are requesting; and (3) describes areas where 
requested protections would be problematic to implement or enforce. The second 
document, for public  comment, review and modification, is the upcoming draft 
of the new gTLD "RFP" - the guidebook that will be provided to potential 
applicants. The RFP will also describe some of those potential protections.

Those documents are being presented for public discussion and do not represent 
a final implementation model.

The documents are intended to highlight discrepancies between the report of the 
GNSO Reserved Names working group and the GAC advice to the Board by describing 
potential implementation details. I.e., creating potential operational 
processes brings to light more clearly issues for implementation discussion.  
They will inform a discussion in Cairo where there will be opportunity for 
additional consultations with the GAC and the GNSO.

The draft RFP will be posted and discussed in Cairo, and will be modified 
through public dialogue. It is planned that the draft RFP will be revised and 
posted again before a final version is posted for ICANN Board approval. The 
Board will be informed by this upcoming dialogue as it considers the final 
implementation model of the completed and approved GNSO policy recommendation 
for approval.

Sorry this took so long to describe (I thought the note would be shorter.) I 
hope the intent and meaning are clear. Denise or I would be happy to answer any 
questions you might have.

Thanks for your time & regards,

Kurt


Kurt Pritz

ICANN
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Marina del Rey. CA  90292

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