ICANN - Expression of Interest for new gTLDs, are they harmful to Development?
At the Seoul meeting of ICANN a few prospective new gTLD applicants petitioned the ICANN Board for a means to get around the forever delayed new gTLD process with an invention that is being called Expression of Interest (EOI). From their perspective, I can see why this would be advantageous to their business plans and I cannot blame them for trying - if you have the money why not try to use it for your advantage - no harm in asking.
But is this idea in the public interest?
Has this been asked?
Is ICANN taking the right steps to decide whether it is or whether it isn’t in the public interest?
After a single brief comment period, that resulted not in consensus but in a mixed opinion, the Board has approved the next step in the implementation of an Expression of Interest for new gTLDS. They have authorized the staff to go out and create such a plan which they will later approve - OK - or maybe not approve (in the best of all possible worlds, it could happen).
The ICANN Staff proposed model discusses various risks, but not all risks. A major risk it ignores is that applicants from developing regions or less developed sectors of the economy will be further discouraged from participation in the new gTLD process. That is, the effect of the model on the developing world and those who do not have ICANN style deep pockets is neither discussed nor reviewed. This lack of analysis runs counter to the Affirmation Commitments (AoC) guarantee:
To ensure that its decisions are in the public interest, and not just the interests of a particular set of stakeholders, ICANN commits to perform and publish analyses of the positive and negative effects of its decisions on the public, including any financial impact on the public …
The ICANN Staff report recommends making this process expensive and making it a prerequisite for the first round. This is not in the public interest of those in development regions and seems counter to guarantees of promoting competition made in the ICANN Bylaws and in the AoC. It takes the Draft Application Guidebook (DAG) process that is already strongly biased in favor of incumbents with deep pockets and makes it even more biased in that direction.
Putting any cost on the EoI will constitute a further barrier to entry to entrepreneur applicants from development regions. It is obvious now that full funding for new gTLD applications will not be needed until 2011 or later as expressed on page 12 the EoI model ”(e.g., 18 months from the closing date of the EOI submission period).” Until the latest slippage in schedule, one could have assumed that there were at least 9 months until funding would be required. With the introduction of a required EoI with an expensive price tag, any applicant will need to have a significant amount of money in hand now in order to gain a ‘license’ to apply sometime in the future. It is difficult enough for some future applicants to keep a small group of workers focused on an ever slipping application target, but to require them to pay for the privilege of waiting in line is cynical, though possibly of advantage to ICANN bottom line.
The EoI, as currently planned, compounds the injury of the exorbitant application fees featured in the DAG. The question asked by the Government Advisory committee (GAC) concerning whether the pricing could be made fair to those whose economies were still developing has not yet been answered. Now, even before that question has been answered, or better yet some remedial provision having been made, those from development regions need to assert their claim. And to do so they will need to come up with a large player’s fee before they know how these issues will be resolved. They will need to pay $55,000 just for the privilege of standing in line waiting for Godot or the start of the gTLD application process, whichever comes first.
The EoI model as proposed is not in the public interest of those from the developing world who are waiting to finally be allowed entrance into the world of gTLDs.
In closing, I want to point out that this is once again an example of the ICANN staff, with the support and encouragement of the Board, making policy by calling it implementation. Unfortunately this is becoming the norm in ICANN - and while not the subject of this blog, I feel it is important to point it out whenever it happens and to remind all that this is not the way a bottom-up multistakeholder organization behaves. This sort of policy must not be implemented without a proper policy process. Once again, the Staff, with the approval of the Board is bypassing the GNSO and usurping its proper role in developing policy related to new gTLDs.
