Purpose/Brief:

A collaboration between members of ICANN's Business Constituency (BC) and At-Large Advisory Committee (ALAC) proposes the use of mandatory Policy Advisory Boards (PABs) for a subset of new Generic Top-Level Domains (gTLDs) which are targeted at regulated industry sectors and other consumer-trust-sensitive fields. These ICANN community members have advanced PABs to address what are perceived to be substantial public-interest deficiencies in the current implementation of ICANN's gTLD expansion program.

The purpose of this public comment period is to obtain feedback and collect broader community input into the further development of the PAB model, and to which TLD strings it may best apply.

Background

At the Buenos Aires ICANN meeting, three members of the Business Community – Ron Andruff , and Marilyn Cade , Phil Corwin – met with Olivier Crepin-Leblond, Alan Greenberg and Evan Leibovitch from ALAC regarding an issue of mutual interest: the advancement of Public Policy Advisory Boards (PABs) as a way to address what are perceived to be substantial public-interest deficiencies in the new gTLD expansion program.  

While it is agreed amongst the proposed that ICANN itself is not – and should not be – involved in the regulation of content of domains within these new TLDs, the original design of the program did not allow for any special external oversight over TLDs using related to regulated industries or otherwise using trust-sensitive namesstrings. In response to pressure from its Governmental Advisory Committee (GAC) and other stakeholders (but without consulting them on the response), ICANN instituted a mechanism called Public Interest Commitments (PICs). While the PIC program superficially provided a mechanism that enabled TLD applicants to demonstrate a set of self-imposed rules intended to satisfy the GAC advice, upon further review PICs are revealed to provide little or no actual public interest benefit:

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To many stakeholders – especially those stakeholders who provide and use services and products over the Internet – this is simply not a sufficient infrastructure on which to base trust in the new gTLDs, particularly those related to regulated or sensitive industries.

The ALAC believes that the PAB model is an effective and implementable solution to many of the trust issues that have been raised related to new gTLDs, and we are asking for the support of the wider ICANN community.

History

To date, ICANN leadership (the Board New gTLD Process Committee and the gTLD Division have not given the PAB model a warm reception.

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The ALAC believes that the PAB model is an effective and implementable solution to many of the trust issues that have been raised related to new gTLDs, and we are asking for the support of the wider ICANN community.

Willett Response 2014-02-04.pdf

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Policy Advisory Board Model Proposal

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