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At the same time, the ALAC advises that the Board duly consider what might be done to ensure that, in the future, the multi-stakeholder model can be strengthened to allow users to more equitably influence the outcomes in future policy discussions. Such evolution is a core necessity identified by ICANN's Accountability and Transparency review as well as to meet the goals of its Strategic Plan.

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+FINAL+ 09 September 2011

ALAC Statement on the Post-Expiration Domain Name Recovery Recommendations for ICANN Board Consideration

The Post Expiration Domain Name Recovery PDP was initiated at the request of the ALAC in 2008, and we are pleased to see that it may now come to a positive conclusion.

The original request was made because, at that time, there were absolutely no guarantees in place that a registrant could renew or otherwise recover a gTLD domain name if it was inadvertently allowed to expire. Earlier ICANN actions including the creation of a Redemption Grace Period (RGP) for most registries, and developing the Expired Domain Deletion Policy (EDDP Consensus Policy PDP) had been carried out with the intent of putting such guarantees in place, but business practices had changed and the guarantees no longer existed.

The originators of the request for the Issue Report which triggered the PDP had hopes that the end-result would be far more pro-registrant than what has ultimately come out of the PDP. This can be attributed to a number of causes, including the need of the PDP Working Group (WG) to come to a full consensus on the outcomes, and this of course had to include the Registrar Stakeholder Group.

However, the largest problem can arguably be said to be the extreme difficulty in getting active and continued participation in an ICANN WG by those parties whose livelihood and business success do not depend on the PDP. To be clear, it is a major challenge to get users who are active in ICANN purely as volunteers to participate, particularly in a process which often takes close to three years. This clearly endangers the balance of the ICANN multi-stakeholder model.

Given these conditions, the ALAC is pleased that some progress was made in advancing gTLD registrant rights and that ICANN will be taking positive action to educate, inform and support gTLD registrants, who are ultimately one of its core, often forgotten, stakeholders. As such, the ALAC encourages the Board to ratify the PDP Recommendations as approved by the GNSO.

At the same time, the ALAC advises that the Board, in consultation with the community, duly consider what might be done to ensure that, in the future, the multi-stakeholder model can be strengthened to allow users to more equitably influence the outcomes in future policy discussions. Such evolution is a core necessity identified by ICANN's Accountability and Transparency review as well as to meet the goals of its Strategic Plan.