Comment Close Date | Statement Name | Status | Assignee(s) and | Call for Comments | Call for Comments Close | Vote Announcement | Vote Open | Vote Reminder | Vote Close | Date of Submission | Staff Contact and Email | Statement Number |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
07.09.2013 | Community Priority Evaluation (CPE) Guidelines Update from ICANN | Adopted 11Y, 0N, 0A |
| TBC | 29.08.2013 | 30.08.2013 | 30.08.2013 | 04.09.2013 | 05.09.2013 | 06.09.2013 | n/a | AL-ALAC-ST-0913-02-00-EN |
Community Priority Evaluation Guidelines Posted for Community Review and Input
16 August 2013
Community Priority Evaluation (CPE) is slated to begin in late September, 2013. In preparation, the CPE panel firm has developed a set of guidelines that are based on the criteria in the Applicant Guidebook. These guidelines were developed by the CPE panel firm to ensure quality and consistency in the evaluation process.
View the guidelines document » [PDF, 803 KB]
If you would like to provide input on this document for the panel firm's consideration, please send them to newgtld-cpe@icann.org. The due date for submitting feedback on the guidelines document is 30 August 2013 at 23:59 UTC. All feedback will be forwarded to the CPE panel firm for consideration and inclusion in their guidelines document, at their discretion. A finalized version of the CPE guidelines document will be published in early September 2013.
Learn more about Community Priority Evaluation »
(NOTE: This announcement was updated on 21 August 2013. The new deadline for submitting feedback on the CPE Guidelines document has been changed to 7 September 2013 at 23:59 UTC to allow more time for review and feedback.)
Please click here to download a copy of the PDF below.
FINAL VERSION TO BE SUBMITTED IF RATIFIED
Please click here to download a copy of the PDF below.
FINAL DRAFT VERSION TO BE VOTED UPON BY THE ALAC
Community Priority Evaluation Guidelines Posted for Community Review and Input
On the whole, the ALAC welcomes the proposal of “Community Priority Evaluation (CPE) Guidelines” prepared by The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU). It notes with satisfaction that the EIU has transposed the Applicant Guidebook Criteria into Evaluation Guidelines for what is intended to be an evidence-based evaluation process. The ALAC supports the need for comprehensive community assessment to ensure the legitimacy of applicants and the long- term sustainability of their value proposals.
Without re-opening the debate on the Applicant Guidebook Guidelines themselves, the ALAC has several recommendations and observations to make based on the document, which was made open for Public Comment. Our comments follow the structure of the EIU’s Guidelines document for ease of review.
1-A Delineation
Whilst it is important to establish this criterion clearly, history within the gTLD market has demonstrated that an assessment based on strict metrics alone falls short of expectations.
Further indicators (markers) should be added to 1A. If there are two competing applicants purporting to represent a “community”, then there should be other qualitative markers that can help differentiate the two.
There are Communities who need protection through leadership and foresight – and the “clear delineation proposal” in 1-A does *not* provide such safeguard when comparing Western-based Communities with Traditional Cultures.
Special care should be taken to protect “traditional knowledge” and “Indigenous Communities” that may not have the technological knowledge and ability to navigate the systems effectively.
For example, consider a large firm deciding to apply for .maasai, supporting a clearly delineated online community around a product named “Maasai” and already holding a trademark on the word “Maasai”. Then consider a Maasai Elder in the process of protecting their traditional name. Ron Layton of Light Years IP argues that the Maasai brand is worth $10million. Intellectual Property and Traditional cultural expressions have been the subject of global discussions as early as 1967 when there was an amendment to the Berne Convention for the Protection of Artistic and Literary Works for the protection of unpublished and anonymous works. Whilst Trademarks work in a manner where it is first come first serve, there has to be some level of moral and ethical consideration when it comes to reservation of names for Communities and not allowing them to be exploited.
1-B Extension
Whilst we understand the need for a Top Level Domain to be representing the majority of people in a community, “Considerable Size” is a subjective metric, which needs to reflect context that may be diverse.
Take for example the context of the Pacific Islands where the population size is diverse: Niue has 1300 inhabitants whereas Papua New Guinea has a population of 8 million people. Tuvalu (.tv), Palau (.pw), Tokelau (.tk) and Niue (.nu) are examples of small countries. There may be community applications from small countries like these island nations where the matter of “considerable size” may differ. The question then arises as to how applications from the Communities of such countries would have any chance of success when compared to applications supported by multi-national commercial entities anchoring a “community” around one of their products?
Take another example based in Africa: The “Amharic” Community is limited in members and geographic dispersion. It is a linguistic and cultural Community located in Ethiopia. Why should it be given a low score when it is a valid Community?
As in 1-A, there appears to be absolutely no safeguard for small Community applications if the sole criterion in 1-B is overall extension. The ALAC is therefore concerned that here again a strict arithmetical evaluation will discriminate against small Communities and therefore recommends that there be special consideration when the community is of special interest or endangered.
2 – A Nexus
The ALAC appreciates the care that has gone into defining the Nexus. However, a concern has been raised in the special case of community applications made by a Diaspora and the Diaspora exceeds the original population of a country. Simple examples would be Niue (3500 living in New Zealand vs. 1500 in Niue) or Lebanon (14 million living elsewhere vs. 4.3 million in Lebanon). An application made by a Diaspora may therefore score higher than a local community application in the country of origin. Determining which of the two Communities should be prioritized is a difficult matter.
3 – A Eligibility
For a geographic location community TLD, the current Guidelines take the example of Eligibility as applications that impose a geographical restriction for applicants, requiring that the registrant’s physical address be within the boundaries of the location.
The ALAC recommends that the Eligibility criterion be extended to registrants conducting business targeted at the location irrespective of their physical location. This should score better than an unrestricted approach thus the ALAC proposes a three level grading:
2 = eligibility restricted to community members
1 = eligibility restricted to service provision to community members
0 = Largely unrestricted approach to eligibility
4 – A Support and 4 – B Opposition
There is neither mention of individuals nor governments as recognized channels or sources of support or opposition. Some individuals may not be part of an institution or organization, but could potentially rally to make an endorsement or objection. Online petitions as well as crowd-sourcing and other forms of virtual Communities do not have the legal framework in place nor the strict hierarchy that this section appears to require for a letter of support or opposition to be endorsed.
Extra care should be used in 4 – B, where “a group of non-negligible size” is too vague, and without measurable elements, may lead to a non-objective and gamed evaluation.
The ALAC also re-iterates its concern regarding Community Support and Opposition, that the new gTLD Program has not been advertised enough to Communities worldwide. Evaluators should exercise care in using this criterion particularly when lack of opposition is observed.
One failure of the ICANN process has been to give not enough time for Communities worldwide to understand their rights in objecting to applications that could be detrimental to their Community. In this respect and in the vast majority of cases, the Objections process at ICANN (and indeed the new gTLD Program altogether) was unknown when the window for Community Objections was open.
With insufficient notice to the concerned Communities to respond and object, those who understand the mechanics of the new gTLD application process may be the first to respond and lend their support.
Evaluating the level of Community support or opposition as determined in Criterion #4 is tricky in that support for the applicant will easily be found whilst opposition is less likely to be readily stated since potential opponents are less likely to be involved in the new gTLD Process. As a result, Communities that might benefit more from a specific gTLD, but are not aware of the new gTLD process taking place, will not have the chance of voicing their concerns unless they have been advised in advance of the opportunity to do so.
--- END OF STATEMENT ---
FIRST DRAFT SUBMITTED
The ALAC notes that ICANN has appointed the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) as the sole new gTLD Community Priority Evaluation (CPE) panel firm and that the firm has developed a set of guidelines for CPE, which is open for stakeholder feedback from 16 August - 9 September 2013 (http://newgtlds.icann.org/en/announcements-and-media/announcement-4-16aug13-en).
Selection of Evaluator
We seek clarification on the following regarding the selection of the CPE panel firm:
- Was there an open call for tender?
- What were the selected channels for the call for tender?
- Was the call for tender only made in the English language and targeted exclusively at the English-speaking world?
- Were the criteria for selection published and have they changed since initial publication?
- How many applications were considered and who made the selection decision?
- What are the terms of the CPE service provision contract (i.e., remuneration, confidentiality clause, obligations to include certain segments of the Internet user community, etc.)?
- Why was InterConnect Communications dropped from the CPE panel firm appointees?
Community Expertise
The ALAC has raised concerns about the sufficiency of community expertise in the CPE panel firm via our Statement to the ICANN Board dated 9 August 2013 (AL-ALAC-ST-0813-03-00-EN). We re-iterate our concern that the EIU may have a natural familiarity and pre-disposition toward business that may discriminate against applications emphasizing community service. We wish to stress the importance of ensuring sufficient and relevant community-related expertise among the team of evaluators conducting the CPE evaluation.
We request further clarification on the EIU and its evaluation team, criteria and principles:
- How has the EIU demonstrated its competence in evaluating proposals related to public communities?
- How diverse is the team of EIU evaluators and how well do they match the needs of the new gTLD applications opting for CPE?
- On “EIU evaluators are selected based on their knowledge of specific countries, regions and/or industries, as they pertain to Applications” – How would the evaluators treat applications that are global in scope and do not pertain to industries? (Example: the community of kids; the gay community).
- On “All EIU evaluators must undergo training and be fully cognizant of all CPE requirements as listed in the Applicant Guidebook. This process will include a pilot testing process” - Who will conduct the training for the EIU evaluators? What is the level of understanding about communities among the trainers? How would understanding of what a community is be facilitated given that the Applicant Guidebook does not have a clear and agreed definition of “community”? How would the sufficiency of community expertise among the evaluators be ascertained and ensured? (Recommendation: The team of evaluators should have both a broad understanding of the Domain Name System as well as specific knowledge of the Domain Name System market in under-served communities).
- On “All Applications will subsequently be reviewed by members of the core project team to verify accuracy and compliance with the AGB, and to ensure consistency of approach across all applications” – What is the recourse when these cannot be verified?
CPE Guidelines Developed by the EIU
(Awaiting community input – if any)
Additional Recommendations on the CPE
Note to the ALAC: The Community TLD Applicant Group (CTAG) is requesting for the following consideration in the CPE via a letter from the CTAG to the ICANN Vice President of gTLD Operations dated 1 August 2013. Please provide feedback on whether any of these recommendations should be included in the ALAC Statement:
- Permit the expert panelists to consult with applicants for clarifications, especially when it would be significant in their grading.
- Provide a transparent result to community applicants after the CPE so they can know the criteria on which and why they did not receive the maximum score.
- Allow a community applicant that does not pass the evaluation to discuss the results with the expert panel, and allow for reconsideration by the expert panel after such discussions.
- Implement a CPE review mechanism by the NGPC for all applicants that achieved a threshold-level score in the test, but did not pass. The threshold would be determined by the NGPC.
11 Comments
Rinalia Abdul Rahim
DRAFT
ALAC STATEMENT ON COMMUNITY PRIORITY EVALUATION EVALUATOR AND GUIDELINES
The ALAC notes that ICANN has appointed the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) as the sole new gTLD Community Priority Evaluation (CPE) panel firm and that the firm has developed a set of guidelines for CPE, which is open for stakeholder feedback from 16 August - 9 September 2013 (http://newgtlds.icann.org/en/announcements-and-media/announcement-4-16aug13-en).
Selection of Evaluator
We seek clarification on the following regarding the selection of the CPE panel firm:
Community Expertise
The ALAC has raised concerns about the sufficiency of community expertise in the CPE panel firm via our statement to the ICANN Board dated 9 August 2013 (AL-ALAC-ST-0813-03-00-EN). We re-iterate our concern that the EIU may have a natural familiarity and pre-disposition toward business that may discriminate against applications emphasizing community service. We wish to stress the importance of ensuring sufficient and relevant community-related expertise among the team of evaluators conducting the CPE evaluation.
We request further clarification on the EIU and its evaluation team, criteria and principles:
1. How has the EIU demonstrated its competence in evaluating proposals related to public communities?
2. How diverse is the team of EIU evaluators and how well do they match the needs of the new gTLD applications opting for CPE?
3. On “EIU evaluators are selected based on their knowledge of specific countries, regions and/or industries, as they pertain to Applications” – How would the evaluators treat applications that are global in scope and do not pertain to industries? (Example: the community of kids; the gay community).
4. On “All EIU evaluators must undergo training and be fully cognizant of all CPE requirements as listed in the Applicant Guidebook. This process will include a pilot testing process” - Who will conduct the training for the EIU evaluators? What is the level of understanding about communities among the trainers? How would understanding of what a community is be facilitated given that the Applicant Guidebook does not have a clear and agreed definition of “community”? How would the sufficiency of community expertise among the evaluators be ascertained and ensured? (Recommendation: The team of evaluators should have both a broad understanding of the Domain Name System as well as specific knowledge of the Domain Name System market in under-served communities).
5. On “All Applications will subsequently be reviewed by members of the core project team to verify accuracy and compliance with the AGB, and to ensure consistency of approach across all applications” – What is the recourse when these cannot be verified?
CPE Guidelines Developed by the EIU
(Awaiting community input – if any)
Additional Recommendations on the CPE
Note to the ALAC: The Community TLD Applicant Group (CTAG) is requesting for the following consideration in the CPE via a letter from the CTAG to the ICANN Vice President of gTLD Operations dated 1 August 2013. Please provide feedback on whether any of these recommendations should be included in the ALAC statement:
“● Permit the expert panelists to consult with applicants for clarifications, especially when it would be significant in their grading.
● Provide a transparent result to community applicants after the CPE so they can know the criteria on which and why they did not receive the maximum score.
● Allow a community applicant that does not pass the evaluation to discuss the results with the expert panel, and allow for reconsideration by the expert panel after such discussions.
● Implement a CPE review mechanism by the NGPC for all applicants that achieved a threshold-level score in the test, but did not pass. The threshold would be determined by the NGPC.”
END
Rinalia
Carlton Samuels
The statement has seamlessly coopted the concerns raised in the interventions on the list and gets my support.
Carlton
Salanieta Tamanikaiwaimaro
To: ALAC
Cc: Members of At Large
Re: Comments on the Community Priority Evaluation (CPE) Guidelines
Firstly, I would like to acknowledge the difficult work and task in creating the guidelines. I have no problems with the Economic Intelligence Unit (EIU)and think that they are better candidates at prescribing guidelines without getting emotionally involved. The Unit is universally recognized and their Publication – The Economist is read in most countries if not all.
Their team namely Leo Abruzesse[1], Phil Todd[2], Manoj Vohra[3], Lucy Hurst[4] have a combined synergistic experience that makes them perfect for creating the Guidelines. Their knowledge of market segmentation, emerging markets, ICT make them perfectly competent to carry out the task of preparing Guidelines. ICANN made a great decision to choose an organization that is independent from the gTLD application process so that there is no hint of impropriety, impartiality that would possibly open the scope for lawsuits against ICANN.
Given that all applications by ICANN are fully transparent, it would be helpful to know how EIU intend to address matters regarding selection and scoring where they may be conflicted.
On the matter of the CPE, kindly find my comments on the Guidelines below. I have only commented on bits that I felt needed clarification or issues to be addressed.
Comments on Guidelines
I acknowledge that the task of creating the CPE is challenging given the diversity of possible contexts and variables. I note that in forecasting the guidelines, they would have identified the range of potential applicants, and they refer to this in the guidelines when describing “size” and “considerable size”.
Criterion 1 Community Establishment
Comments on 1A
I note that the whole purpose of the CPE is to provide guidelines for an evidence evaluation process. My comments on delineation, is that whilst it is important to establish this clearly, history within the gTLD market shows us that this on its own is not enough. Further indicators (markers) should be added to 1A and if there are two competing applicants purporting to represent a “community”, then there should be other markers. Care should be taken to protect “traditional knowledge” and “indigenous communities” that may not have the technological savvy to navigate the systems effectively. For example, should Louis Vuitton decide to apply for .maasai and where a Maasai Elder is in the process of protecting their traditional name. Ron Layton of Light Years IP argues that the Maasai brand is worth $10million[5]. Intellectual Property and Traditional cultural expressions have been the subject of global discussions as early as 1967 when there was an amendment to the Berne Convention for the Protection of Artistic and Literary Works for the protection of unpublished and anonymous works.
Whilst Trademarks work in a manner where it is first come first serve, there has to be some level of moral and ethical consideration where it comes to reservation of names for communities and not allowing them to be exploited. Some would argue that open waters means every thing is fair game but I would submit that there are communities who need protection through leadership and foresight.
Comments on 1B
.
“Considerable size” here is vague. This needs to reflect the diverse contexts. For example,Niueis a territory that has 1300 people on the island.Papua New Guineais a country that has 8 million people. Likewise communities differ in size. Whilst the definition of size states that it relates to both members and geographical reach, this should be made clearer.Tuvalu(.tv),Palau(.pw), Tokelau (.tk) andNiue(.nu) are examples of small countries. Whilst their domain names were protected by virtue of them being country codes, there may be community applications from small countries and the matter of “considerable size” may differ. Large in terms of membership as an indicator, should a rough percentage be given in terms of the context or would that make it absurd. Large is relative on its own. Large in comparison to what?
Criterion 1 Community Establishment
Comments on 2A
The “overreaching” component can be made a little clear and less ambiguous.
There are some challenges that can be foreseen. Where there are multiple applications from situations where you have diasporas, how do you prioritise components showing “nexus”. For example, a country like Niue has 1300 people on the island but about 3500 live inNew Zealandand were you to have a competing application to show “Nexus” what would be the demarcating factor? Similarly, the Chinese diaspora is global and the two indicators on “considerable size” may not be as efficient and if there are instances where the string identifies the community, there could be challenges in terms of internet searches. What if the information exists but is not available through internet searches.
Criterion 4 Community Endorsement
Comments on 4A
There is no mention of individuals or government. There are some individuals who may not be part of an institution or organization but could potentially rally to make an endorsement or object.
There should be instances where it is also not just about the majority because if there was insufficient notice to the communities to respond, those who understand the mechanics may be the first to lend their support. Care should be taken that this was gazetted and published in the newspapers in the countries affecting the communities in their respective languages and space for people to send their objections or support and a proof of this to be shown to ICANN. Just because they appear to be the majority does not necessarily make them the majority until proper notices are published within the countries.
[1] http://research.eiu.com/OurTeam/LeoAbruzzese.aspx
[2] http://research.eiu.com/OurTeam/PhilTodd.aspx
[3] http://research.eiu.com/OurTeam/PhilTodd.aspx
[4] http://research.eiu.com/OurTeam/LucyHurst.aspx
[5] http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-22617001
Disclaimer
This is not the view of APRALO nor the ALS that I belong to but are my personal views. I reserve the right to amend or make additional changes to this contribution.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond
Thanks for this input, Sala. Very interesting comments from which to build a Statement from.
Tijani Ben Jemaa
I agree with Rinalia statement and with some of Sala remarks on the Guidelines. My comments on the Guidelines below
1-A Delineation
The questions of the guidelines couldn’t lead to score this criterion. The differences between the applicants who qualify for a score of 3 and those who qualify for a score of 1 should be clear and easily measurable.
1-B Extension
I agree with Sala that “considerable size” is vague. There must be measurable criteria for the size. The “Amharic” community is limited in members and geographic dispersion. It’s a linguistic and cultural community located in Ethiopia. Why should it be scored low??? It should be given a full mark in my opinion.
Also, I don’t think that neither the size, nor the dispersion should be a criterion for a community application. In fact, we can’t refuse a community because it is small. Even small communities have the right to apply for a community string. But this is the guide book…
3-A Eligibility
The applicant guide book mentions 2 possibilities only: registration restricted to the community members and unrestricted registration policy. I think that the guidelines should further detail the scoring system. For example, a policy that restricts registration to the community members and other services related to the community (a dot Mediterranean that restricts registrations to the Mediterranean citizens and to tour operators for their business in the Mediterranean countries, etc…)
4-B Opposition
Same remark as for 1-B regarding the assessment of size; “a group of non negligible size” is too vague, and without measurable elements, it may lead to a non objective and gamed evaluation.
Sylvia Herlein Leite
LACRALO STATEMET
Declaración sobre ALAC Statement on the Community Priority Evaluation (CPE) Guidelines Update
LACRALO supports the adoption of the document by the Economist Intelligence Unit on the Community Priority Evaluation (CPE) PRIORITY At-Large Community in general. Additionally, LACRALO underscores the need for comprehensive community assessment is to ensure the legitimacy of applicants and the long term sustainability of the proposals, without detriment to the flexibility required for their evolution over the years. The history of community gTLDs previous rounds must be consulted and encourage extreme caution in the analysis.
Salanieta Tamanikaiwaimaro
I wanted to add to my earlier comments on "overreach".At first instance, the Guidelines reference to overreach is riddled with ambiguity which is not a useful thing to have on one view but I understand that sometimes ambiguity is also a tool that gives people the discretion and some degree of flexibility. The Industry Domain Name Report shows that .tk was a serious driver in the domain name industry and whilst it is a ccTLD it ranked quite high as far as domain name registrations were concerned. Tokelau which is a NZ Territory in the Pacific is small in size and demographics and it is unclear how "overreach" would be applied for small sized communities such as Tokelau. With .tk, the year over year growth rate is reported at 11.8% as reported in the Domain Name Industry Brief Volume 10, Issue 1, April 2013 (The Verisign Domain Report). This shows that small communities can have links to names that generate interest in markets outside their exclusive economic zone.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond
Thanks for your additional feedback on this. I think that the resulting Statement is already robust enough, including Section 2A, to not need an additional amendment.
The context of .tk that you have explained is exactly the opposite of what I would call overreach. The fact that .tk is being used by people who have nothing to do with Tokelau nor the Tokelau community is detrimental to that community through speculation & non availability of domain names for the community.
TK would be seen as excessively broad if used in another context than the Tokelau ccTLD. This "excessive broadness" is taken into account:
"If the string appears excessively broad (such as, for example, a globally well-known but local tennis club applying for “.TENNIS”) then it would not qualify for a 2." and furthermore, if the string does not identify the community then it scores NIL in the Nexus criterion.
Salanieta Tamanikaiwaimaro
I actually agree but wanted to record my thoughts on the wiki just the same. The statement is indeed robust enough and does not need to have anything added. For the sake of completion, I merely wanted to point out in my additional example that small communities can have TLDs that attract demand and inserted references in case at some point in the future where discussions escalate, it might be handy.
Salanieta Tamanikaiwaimaro
Dear All,
I attended the Session on where the Economist Unit as well as the selected Auction facilitator presented on CPE and the Auction process and it was very interesting. I tweeted about it when it happened and you can probably find on #ICANN48 or in my storyboard. One of the things that was not so cool was a feature that in the event there was no resolution to contention sets, the last resort option is the Auction.
It would appear that if one of the Applicant is an underserved community that may have difficulties in financing bids, this could pose a threat and risk.
Kind Regards,
Sala
Rinalia Abdul Rahim
The ALAC sent advice to the ICANN board requesting for preferential treatment of community applications that fulfill certain criteria precisely because we knew that an auction as a process for resolving string contention would disadvantage community applicants with less financial means than big industry players. We also urged the Board to ensure that the Economist Intelligence Unit has sufficient community expertise in its panel that is tasked to conduct the Community Priority Evaluation (CPE) because community strings that pass the CPE would be in the position to knock out competing applications without going to action. Sadly, the Board response on these matters has been most disappointing.
Rinalia