Possible contributing causes
- Lack of appropriate outreach
- Outreach to those who could have decided to create a TLD
- Technical capacity lacking
- registry service providers
- registrars
- No interest
- No business case
- Timing
- No buy in from local community
- Cost of RSP
- unnecessary duplication of ccTLD and IDNccTLD
4 Comments
Tijani Ben Jemaa
Possible contributing causes
No interest
Unnecessary duplication of ccTLD and IDNccTLD
Fatimata Seye Sylla
+1 Tijani
No business case: this is a major issue for developing countries in which the local communities don't see much interest in applying for New gTLDs
Other possible causes :
Lack of emphasis on cultural value added: this issue will have to be linked to a business case
No technical benefits simply expressed
Tijani Ben Jemaa
Possible contributing causes
Very high application fee
Since the first draft of the applicant guide book, a big concern regarding the application fee was expressed by a large part of the ICANN community. It was judged too high, and applicants from developing countries, as well as most of the communities would not afford to pay US$ 185 000 for an application. The reason for such a high fee given by the GNSO, and then by the ICANN staff was the cost recovery. Despite the repeated complaints of the At-Large community, the developing country citizens and a lot of the public interest oriented people, ICANN stuck to its original position.
Finally, and under the pressure of the community, the ICANN Board adopted in Nairobi, in March 2010, a resolution to form a working group to develop a sustainable approach to providing support to applicants requiring assistance in applying for and operating a new gTLD. The Working group (under the name of JAS) delivered its final report that has been partially adopted and an amount of 2 million US$ have been allocated by ICANN for that purpose. The Applicant Support Program was then born and a very precise procedure has been defined to select up to 14 eligible applicants.
Despite the huge effort made by the community in lobbying for fee reduction, and then in drafting the JAS recommendations over about 2 years of work, the number of application for new gTLDs from developing countries and needy communities was very poor:
The number of application for support was 3 only while the fund could support up to 14 applications.
This significantly low participation of the developing countries and the poor communities in the new gTLD program was due to several elements such as:
Lack of appropriate outreach
The outreach for the new gTLD program was done in a way that makes only potential applicants from developed countries well informed. In fact, the campaigns were mostly done in North America and Europe. The only effort for the developing regions was done through electronic means (website, tweeter, facebook, etc.). Without noisy physical events, the information couldn’t reach the possible applicants in those regions, especially because they are not well served in terms of access and connectivity. The electronic campaign was more useful for the north people who were already well informed.
As for the Applicant support program, no outreach was done in the appropriate regions that could encourage people to apply. The number of application for support shows clearly the failure.
Moreover, all outreach programs for both the new gTLD Program and the Applicant Support Program were implemented very late.
We can say that the outreach effort was conceived and implemented for the developed world only.
Tijani Ben Jemaa
Possible contributing causes
(Second completed draft done with the precious help of Andrew Mack)
Since the first draft of the applicant guide book, significant concern was expressed regarding the application fee by a large part of the ICANN community. The fee was judged too high for many applicants from developing countries, as many LDC applicants would not be able to afford to pay US$ 185 000 application fee imposed by ICANN. According to both GNSO and ICANN staff, the reason fees were set so high was the cost recovery. And, despite the repeated concerns voiced by the At-Large community, developing country citizens and others, ICANN stuck to its original pricing policy.
Finally, and under the pressure of the community, in Nairobi, in March 2010 the ICANN Board adopted a resolution to form a Working Group to develop a sustainable approach to providing support to applicants that might require assistance in applying for and operating a new gTLD. The Working Group (under the name of “JAS”) worked for over two years and delivered its final report in September 2011. Recommendations from the report have been partially adopted and an amount of $2 million USD has been allocated by ICANN for the purpose of supporting JAS-eligible applications. Given the amount of money available, the Applicant Support Program had the resources to support up to 14 eligible applicants.
Still, despite the huge effort made by the community in lobbying for fee reductions, and then in drafting the JAS recommendations, the number of applications for new gTLDs from developing countries and needy communities under the general new gTLD program was very limited:
· 0.88 % from Africa
· 1.25 % from Latin America and Caribbean
· 4.35 % from “communities” (communities per ICANN’s community definition)
· 6.01 % IDN applications
Out of more than 1900 applications, only 3 applicants chose to apply for JAS applicant support, despite the capability to fund up to 14 applications.
So why was the new gTLD program not picked up in emerging markets? Why were there so few JAS/Applicant Support requests? There were many reasons why we believe -- based on numerous conversations with potential applicants from developing countries and poorer communities.
Some of the issues were simple questions of business model or local logistics.
However, much of the fault for this unsatisfactory result must lie at the hand of ICANN – in terms of both its approach and resourcing.
Timing was also a major issue.
Finally, even with the potential of JAS discounts, cost remained a barrier, one that disproportionately affected (and we believe depressed) demand in LDCs. Simply put, the playing field was never level for potential developing country applicants given additional costs from:
All of these issues could have been addressed, we believe, with enough communication and a longer time horizon for potential emerging markets applicants, but for the members of the JAS group, the lack of response, while sad, was not a surprise.
It is clear that the new gTLD program — and especially the Applicant support Program — did not reach the intended audiences in the global south, and this can be seen by the small number of gTLD applications from developing nations and the small number of application for support. These failures were by no means a surprise to any JAS Working Group members, given inadequate time and communications efforts. Going forward, we believe that with significantly increased and much earlier outreach communication — using multiple media as well as in-person events — and a longer time horizon for potential emerging markets applicants (enabling them to address their additional technical and logistical challenges), future new gTLD rounds should have significantly increased LDC participation.