[council] Two Letter gTLD Domains

[Phil Corwin <psc@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Council colleagues:

Over the weekend Milton Mueller posted a rather provocative blog at 
http://www.internetgovernance.org/2016/08/26/another-government-land-grab-in-the-name-space/
 , concerning the just-closed comment period on Proposed Measures for 
Letter/Letter Two-Character ASCII Labels to Avoid Confusion with Corresponding 
Country Codes (at  
https://www.icann.org/public-comments/proposed-measures-two-char-2016-07-08-en).
 It prompted me to review the filed comments, and I noted that the NCSG, IPC, 
and registry SG all came out against aspects of the staff proposal that 
concerns Prof. Mueller.

While this item is not on our agenda for the September 1st call, I would hope 
that we can at least begin a preliminary discussion during the concluding AOB 
section. I would like to better understand the historic context for the current 
proposal. Beyond the specifics of the proposal, my more general concern is that 
ICANN may be moving to implement a general policy for gTLDs that originates 
from ICANN staff rather than a PDP, and that apparently there is not even GAC 
Consensus Advice to which the proposal is responding.

Thanks and best regards,
Philip


Philip S. Corwin, Founding Principal
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