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What next for new TLDs? Part 4 – GAC Concerns

Kevin Murphy, December 15, 2010, 13:50:02 (UTC), Domain Policy

Like or loathe the decision, ICANN’s new top-level domains program appears to have been delayed again.
But for how long? And what has to happen now before ICANN starts accepting applications?
In short, what the heck happened in Cartagena last week?
In this four-part post, I will attempt an analysis of the various things I think need to happen before the Applicant Guidebook (AGB) is approved.
In this fourth post, I will look at areas of the AGB that the Governmental Advisory Committee is still concerned about.
GAC Concerns
The GAC’s laundry list of objections and concerns has grown with every official Communique it has released during an ICANN public meeting over the last few years.
While it has not yet published its official “scorecard” of demands for the home-stretch negotiations, it has released a list of 11 points (pdf) it wants to discuss with the board.
These 11 points can be grouped into a smaller number of buckets: objections and disputes procedures, trademark protection, registry-registrar separation, and the treatment of geographical names.
I wrote about the trademark issue in part one of this post.
The GAC appears to have adopted many of the arguments of the IP lobby – it thinks the AGB does not currently do enough to ensure the costs to business of new TLDs will be minimized – so we might expect that to be a major topic of discussion at the GAC-Board retreat in February.
I’ll be interested to hear what it has to say about registry-registrar separation.
The GAC has been pushing for some looser cross-ownership restrictions, in order to foster competition, since 2007, and most recently in September.
It has previously been in favor of restrictions on “insider” companies with market power, but for a more relaxed environment for new entrants (such as “community” TLDs that may largely operate under agreements with their local governments).
This position looks quite compatible with ICANN’s new vertical integration policy, to me, so I’m not sure where the GAC’s concerns currently lie.
The issue of disputes and objections may be the trickiest one.
The GAC basically wants a way for its members to block “controversial” TLD applications on public policy grounds, without having to pay fees.
The “Rec6” policy, previously known as “morality and public order objections” is one of the issues the ICANN board has specifically acknowledged is Not Closed.
This is from its Cartagena resolution:

Discussions will continue on (1) the roles of the Board, GAC, and ALAC in the objection process, (2) the incitement to discrimination criterion, and (3) fees for GAC and ALAC-instigated objections. ICANN will take into account public comment including the advice of the GAC, and looks forward to receiving further input from the working group in an attempt to close this issue.

GAC members on the Rec6 working group repeatedly highlighted objection fees as a deal-breaker – governments don’t want to have to pay to object to TLD applications.
This appears to been cast as some kind of sovereignty-based matter of principle, although I suppose it could just as easily be an “in this economic climate” budgeting concern.
ICANN’s position is that the GAC as a whole can object for free, but that individual governments have to pay. Fees for some objection procedures will run into tens of thousands of dollars.
The GAC also has beef with the AGB’s treatment of geographic strings.
This is an area where ICANN says the AGB already “substantially reflects the views of the ICANN community” but intends to take GAC comments into account.
ICANN has already made substantial concessions on the geographic names issue, but there may still be a few loopholes through which territory names could slip through the net and be approved without the endorsement of their local governments.
Finally, the GAC wants to include amendments to the Registrar Accreditation Agreement, previously recommended by law enforcement agencies, in the AGB discussion.
The appears to have come completely out of the blue, without any direct relevance to the new TLD program.
It’s a long list covering a lot of issues, and it could get longer when the GAC publishes its official “scorecard”. We’ll have to wait and see.

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Comments (3)

  1. steve says:
    December 15, 2010 at 3:31 pm

    Will it effect the .com domains.
    Dam thieves will try their best to include pre existing tld’s so they can steam them.

    Reply
  2. ICANN given 27 New Year’s resolutions | DomainIncite.com - Domain Name News & Opinion says:
    January 3, 2011 at 12:59 pm

    […] I’ve previously noted, ICANN and the GAC have a major stumbling block when it comes to effective communication due mainly […]

    Reply

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