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FINAL DRAFT VERSION TO BE VOTED UPON BY THE ALAC

Slightly revisedFinal: 2930/02/2013 1802:12 UTC  BLUE is added, RED is deleted51 UTC   

On the whole, the ALAC does not believe that unlimited closed that unrestricted closed generics provide public benefit and would prefer that TLDs -- especially for strings representing categories -- were not allocated in a way that would lock out broad access to sub-domains. Some members of At-Large believe, on principle, that all closed generics are harmful to the public good. Others believe that, while not necessarily being beneficial to end users, closed gTLDs should be allowed as simply being consistent with existing practise for lower-level domains.

However, in developing this response to the Board's request, the ALAC found the issue to be far more nuanced than the above hard positions would suggestsuggest. We can foresee There may be innovative innovative business models that might allow a closed TLD to be in the public interest. An example might be a registry that makes 2nd level names available at no cost to anyone, but retains legal control over them. This is similar to the model used by Facebook and many blog hosting sites. Allowance should be made for applicants interested in widespread sub-domain distribution that do not require domain-name sales as a source of revenue, or for other forms of sub-domain allocation.

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In summary, the ALAC believes that completely uncontrolled use of generic words as TLDs is not something that ICANN should be supporting. However, some instances of generic word TLDs could be both reasonable and have very strong benefits of just the sort that ICANN was seeking when the TLD space was opened. Such uses should not be excluded as excluded as long as it can be established that they serve the public interest .

FIRST DRAFT SUBMITTED

This is not so much a first draft as a series of notes and comments I've created while considering the issue. I have a definite bias in my approach to this and these comments will certainly need balance with others who don't quite share my take - Evan

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