DRAFT ALAC STATEMENT ON PREFERENTIAL TREATMENT FOR COMMUNITY APPLICATIONS IN STRING CONTENTION
The ALAC notes that due to strict eligibility criteria, some of the new gTLD applications intended for communities and with wide public/grassroots support were not submitted as community applications. These applications are currently in contention with those that are fully commercial (i.e., driven purely by financial gain).
We firmly believe that applications with demonstrable support, appropriate safeguards and emphasis on community service over revenue maximization should be accorded preferential treatment in the new gTLD string contention resolution process. We thus support the position of the Governmental Advisory Committee (GAC) as per the GAC Communiqué dated 18 July 2013 and call on ICANN to review all 688 applications currently in contention and provide preferential treatment to applications that meet the specification described above.
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