The call for the New gTLD Subsequent Procedures Sub Team – Track 1 - Overall Process/Support/Outreach Issue will take place on Tuesday, 29 November 2016 at 20:00 UTC.
12:00 PST, 15:00 EST, 20:00 London, 21:00 CET
For other times: http://tinyurl.com/zpp5v2h
PROPOSED AGENDA:
1. Welcome
2. SOIs
3. ICANN 57 Recap – Accreditation and Applicant Support
4. Clarity of Application Process excerpt - please review excerpt from Final Issue Report
5. Application Fees except & Variable Fees excerpt - please review excerpts from Final Issue Report (if there is time)
6. AOB
Documents: WT1 Meeting 4 slides
Apologies: Vanda Scartezini, Katrin Ohlmer
On audio only: none
Action Items/Discussion Notes:
2. SOIs: no updates.
3. ICANN 57 Recap – Accreditation and Applicant Support
- Good feedback received in the WG meeting
- Additional meetings held (Alice from the GAC, APAC)
- Takeaway: We need to fully understand why the applicant support program failed before moving forward.
- Cost was an important factor.
- GAC will put forward a plan for work to better understand challenges related to applicant support.
- Concern flagged that North American companies may not understand other regions, review should be led by someone that understands the impacted regions.
- Comment on the presentation slides: We need clarity in the way we describe these issues in the future. It is important to be specific (for example, if cost was an issue, which costs specifically?)
- COE study recommends that ICANN should do more outreach and can still be impartial in doing so (https://rm.coe.int/CoERMPublicCommonSearchServices/DisplayDCTMContent?documentId=09000016806b5a14): [rm.coe.int]
- Feedback from Alice Munyua in the GAC --If we do pursue applicant support going forward, need to understand priorities of prospective applicants in underserved regions.
From the chat:
Donna Austin, Neustar: I agree Christa -- if there is no market for domain names or infrastructure or resources to support a TLD, then providing financial support to apply for a TLD may not necessarily solve the problem.
Jim Prendergast, The Galway Strategy Group: I think the ongoing costs issue is important. $185 k is just the beginning.
Donna Austin, Neustar: @Jim, agree
- Need to revisit the balance between preventing gaming vs. making the applicant support program successful. By setting the bar so high to prevent gaming, we may have discouraged too many potential applicants in the last round.
From the chat:
avri doria: we need to be clear that accusations of possible gaming do not become in themselves a form of gaming.
Jeff Neuman: One question is whether we believe ICANN needs an ongoing set of funds to pay for infrastructure for any RSP that agrees to support one of the Applicants who qualifies for support
- Was the original intent of the program to target specific TLDs or regions or was it more focused on serving those who did not have the financial ability to apply for a TLD?
- JAS report that came out at the time is useful background reading. The program wasn’t about any specific TLD, but there was a sense that IDNs would be valuable. There was a recommendation from the GAC that fees needed to be low for developing economies. There was a component that was just financial, but there were also elements of the program offering other types of help.
- Important to remember that the ASP work was done very late, some felt that it was misdirected. We need to do a zero base budgeting exercise -- We should go back and look at what we really need, not base future work on the JAS proposal alone.
- Re-evaluate the goals of the program in order to help determine what represents success going forward.
From the chat:
Rubens Kuhl: Our experience in LAC region shows distribution channel as the largest barrier to overcome, at least for open TLDs.
Rubens Kuhl: So in our experience, revisiting the vertical integration policy and registrar accreditation policy would go much further than paying application fee or part of it.
avri doria: there is also a big difference between the JAS report and the Board designed program.
4. Clarity of Application Process
- Generally it was felt that the AGB was the proper vehicle for implementing recommendations, but transparency was lost in implementation of operational processes and procedures.
- These processes got better over time as ICANN rolled them out. The change requests were too opaque. Customer support got better over time. Application prioritization in the end became largely irrelevant as other issues came up. The draw iself was reasonable successful, but ultimately did not have much relevance. ICANN has done some work documenting its process and opportunities for improvement. Maybe we can use this as a starting point for our discussion.
- One possible recommendation --ICANN developed a knowledge base. Every time a question was asked that generally applicable, the question and answer were added to the knowledge base. It was very difficult to search and find answers. We could recommend improving and reorganizing this knowledge base and making more searchable and readable. Make sure we capture in the applicant guidebook any clarifications that were made in those knowledge base entries to improve clarity of language guidebook.
- We don't have good insight into the clarifying questions that were asked. The public does not have any record of the clarifying questions (without revealing what was asked to specific applicants). It would be useful to have a list of these questions that were used in general.
- To the extent that an applicant or an RSP got a question, it got the same question for every application it supported. It would be helpful to devise a process where an applicant could answer the question once and have the answer apply to all applications submitted by that applicant.
From the chat:
Rubens Kuhl: AGB is a mixture of "how to"'s and "why"'s. A simplified how-to only version would be easier to digest. The "why's" are only needed when changes to AGB or new processeses are needed.
Rubens Kuhl: CQs and answers for published responses should have been published.
Donna Austin, Neustar: The clarifying questions could also indicate that the question was ambiguous and in that regard the question should be reviewed to remove ambiguitiy or any other problems.
- It would be helpful to have a clear method of determining the correct point of contact and communication channel.
- Staff response to discussion on CQs: There is useful information on pages 52, 79, 85 of the Program Implementation Review report https://www.icann.org/en/system/files/files/program-review-29jan16-en.pdf[icann.org]
5. Application Fees except & Variable Fees
- Application fees: it would be useful to review total cost recovery anticipated vs actual.
- Staff response: Financial Management section of the Program Implementation Review is a useful resource (see page 183), includes some numbers on forecast and actual costs.
- Application fee for 2012 was $185000. If the next round is in 2018, do we use $185000 as a basis for the future fee if we don’t do it on a cost recovery model? The $185000 probably wasn’t the right amount if we do it on a recovery basis, but was that a reasonable fee?
- There was a lack of invoices, which was identified as challenge for applicants in the previous round.
From the chat:
Donna Austin, Neustar: Application Fees based on cost recovery is difficult to do if you don’t understand the demand, which is evidenced from the 2012 rounds.
Phil Buckingham: + 1 Donna . cost recovery of which costs - 1/3 of the fee was a legal contingency cost . Is this needed now.
avri doria: or even if we do stay with a cost recovery model. the model slected was quite controversial at the time.
Rubens Kuhl: I support cost-recovery.
Donna Austin, Neustar: even if that means $5,000/application?
Rubens Kuhl: Donna, even in this case.
Donna Austin, Neustar: I don't agree.
Donna Austin, Neustar: a unique piece of real estate on the internet has a value - and I think that needs to be part of the discussion.
Rubens Kuhl: Errors of the past don't justify making them forever.
