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  • Letter from Steve Crocker to Cherine Chalaby (7 March 2013):
    • “. . . the Council would like to point out that, although the GNSO did not explicitly consider the issue of “closed generic” TLDs as part of the new gTLD PDP [concluding in 2007], we recall that the issue of restricting new gTLDs was, in general, considered and discussed. At that time, it was the view within the GNSO that it should not be the responsibility of ICANN to restrict the use of gTLDs in any manner, but instead to let new gTLD applicants propose various models; open or closed, generic or not.”
  • Letter from Steve Crocker to Jonathan Robinson (27 July 2015):
    • “. . . the NCPG requests that the GNSO specifically include the issue of exclusive registry access for generic strings serving a public interest goal as part of the policy work it is planning to initiate on subsequent rounds of the New gTLD Program.”
  • Letter from Jonathan Robinson to Steve Crocker (21 September 2015):
    • “. . . the Preliminary Issue Report on New gTLD Subsequent Procedures, which is currently available for public comment (https://www.icann.org/public-comments/new-gtldsubsequent-prelim-2015-08-31-en), contains a discreet subject for each of Closed Generics (Section 4.3.11 of the report) and the Global Public Interest (4.3.9 of the report), as each pertains to New gTLDs. Excerpts of each of these sections can be found in Annex A to this letter. The GNSO Council would, however, like to take this opportunity tonote that there are challenges related to the definition or scope of “global public interest”, as well as determining how this should be integrated into the New gTLD Program, especially as it relates to exclusive registry access to generic strings. Therefore, we welcome any input that you or the ICANN Board may have on this subject, which could be returned either via correspondence or perhaps as public comment to the Preliminary Issue Report.”
  • Letter from Steve Crocker to Jonathan Robinson (12 October 2015):
    • "On the topic of “global public interest” and the related challenges in the definition or scope of the phrase, the GNSO Council’s concerns are noted. As members are aware, staff will be available to support the Community when they have sufficient bandwidth on the broader theme of exploring how the term “public interest” is understood within ICANN’s remit; whether this is through providing background research or other means deemed useful by the Community in  preparing for a bottom-up, multistakeholder approach that is cognizant of the operational, legal, and fiscal parameters and limitations of any potential definition(s).”
  • Letter from Volker Greimann & David Cake to Steve Crocker (24 November 2015):
    • “Following our review of your response during the GNSO Council meeting on 21 October, several Council members pointed out the importance of the development and implementation of a global public interest framework bounded by ICANN's mission. The Council would be interested to learn how the Board has interpreted and considered the public interest in relation to its responsibilities under the ICANN Bylaws, as it may help inform subsequent discussions on the linkage between the new gTLD Subsequent Procedures Policy Development Process and the topic of exclusive registry access for gTLD strings representing generic terms.”
  • Letter from Steve Crocker to James Bladel (12 April 2016):
    • Elaborates on the Board’s interpretation and consideration of the public interest, research of the global public interest framework, and next steps on this work. 


ALAC Statements & Advice on the Issue:

  • ALAC Statement on “Closed Generic” gTLD Application (7 March 2013):
    • “On the whole, the ALAC does not believe 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 suggest. There may be 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.
    • Whether a generic-word string is used with its generic meaning or in some other context may also be relevant. The fictitious but famous computer manufacturer, Orange Computers Inc. using the TLD ".orange" might be acceptable, while the same string used as a closed TLD by a California Orange Growers Cooperative (and not allowing access to orange producers from Florida or Mediterranean and South American countries) might wellbe considered unacceptable.
    • Allowing this nuanced approach would likely involve a case by case review of how a TLD will be used and how its sub-domains will be allocated. Moreover, it would require a contractual commitment to not change that model once the TLD is delegated.
    • 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 long as it can be established that they serve the public interest.”
  • ALAC Advice to the ICANN Board on Subsequent Procedures PDP Recommendations (16 April 2021):
    • “In the present absence of consensus policy recommendations by SubPro WG with respect to Closed Generics, the ALAC advises the ICANN Board to direct ICANN Org to suspend any processing or acceptance of any applications for Closed Generics until such time consensus policy is adopted on how to address applications for Closed Generics which serve a global public interest.”


Community Input received during SubPro PDP: