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Poor nation support crucial to new TLD talks

Kevin Murphy, May 23, 2011, 15:12:57 (UTC), Domain Policy

Whether to provide discounts for new top-level domain applicants from poor countries has become a critical obstacle in the process of getting ICANN’s new gTLD program approved.
Not only are its policy-making bodies going through a bout of infighting over proposals to help developing nations, but it is also being seen as a “major political risk” to ICANN’s global credibility.
Sources say that the Governmental Advisory Committee is increasingly concerned that a lack of support for poorer nations could used to bash the gTLD program and discredit ICANN itself.
There are fears that the Group of 77 could use the perception that ICANN works primarily for the benefit of the developed world to push for more UN-based governmental control of the internet.
These concerns were apparently raised during the ICANN Board-GAC teleconference on Friday, and will continue to be discussed in the run-up to the Singapore meeting.
Merely applying for a new gTLD will cost a minimum of $185,000 in direct ICANN fees, potentially rising dramatically in the case of complex or contested applications.
That sum also excludes the many more hundreds of thousands of dollars required to create an application that meets ICANN’s stringent financial and technical stability demands.
Many have estimated that an application for a new gTLD could require an first-year outlay of easily over $1 million.
Unsurprisingly, this may exclude applicants from poorer nations, particularly non-profit and community-based initiatives.
There’s a worry that if support mechanisms are not in place for the first round of applications, culturally or commercially valuable IDN gTLDs will get snapped up by wealthy western companies.
Warning: More Acronyms Ahead
To come up with solutions to this problem, ICANN in April 2010 asked for what is now called the “Joint SO/AC Working Group on New gTLD Applicant Support” – JAS for short.
JAS was chartered by, and comprised of members of, the Generic Names Supporting Organization and the At Large Advisory Committee, two of ICANN’s policy bodies.
Earlier this month, JAS submitted its draft second milestone report (pdf) was submitted to the ICANN board. It’s more of a collection of ideas than a structured framework for applicant support.
It calls for, among other things, fees and financial commitments reduced by as much as three quarters for applicants from about 50 poor nations, if they can show they are (essentially) worthy and needy.
It also suggests that such applicants could have their requirements to support the new DNSSEC and IPv6 technologies from day one – which would raise start-up costs – eliminated.
Unfortunately, the GNSO and ALAC apparently had quite different expectations about what the JAS would produce, and since January the group has been working under a split charter.
Registries and registrars were (and are) worried that JAS was going too far when it recommended, for example, discounted application fees.
Because ICANN has priced applications on a cost-recovery basis, there’s a real concern that discounts for poor applicants will translate into higher fees for wealthier applicants.
Broadly, it’s an example of the usual tensions between commercial domain name industry stakeholders and other groups playing out through quite arcane due process/jurisdictional arguments.
For the last couple of weeks, this has manifested itself as a row about the fact that JAS submitted its report the report was submitted to the ICANN board before it was approved by the GNSO.
Mind The GAC
If it’s the case, as sources say, that the GAC is urgently pressing for applicant support measures to be available in the first round of new gTLD applications, this puts another question mark over ICANN’s ability to approve the Applicant Guidebook in Singapore a month from now.
The GAC “scorecard” of problematic issues has since November stated that ICANN should adopt the findings of the JAS.
But today the JAS is nowhere near producing a comprehensive solution to the problem. Its recommendations as they stand are also unlikely to attract broad support from registry/registrar stakeholders.
Many of its current suggestions are also highly complex, calling for ICANN to establish special funds, staggered payment or repayment programs and additional applicant background checks.
They would take time to implement.
There’s been some talk about the idea that ICANN could approve the Applicant Guidebook before the JAS work is complete, but I’m not sure how realistic that is or whether it would receive the GAC blessing.
If the GAC is worried that ICANN’s very legitimacy could be at risk if it goes ahead with the program before the developing world is catered for, we could be looking at another big roadblock.

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Comments (6)

  1. Elaine says:
    May 23, 2011 at 5:48 pm

    HI Kevin,
    From the JAS milestone report published Nov 2010:
    2.11 Relationship to New gTLD Applicant Guidebook
    Full Consensus: The WG believes that the recommendations presented in this Milestone Report should not affect the schedule of the New gTLD Applicant Guidebook, currently in its 4th version. Rather, a separate program needs to be established in parallel with the New gTLD Program and the completion of the (Final) Application Guidebook. The WG recommends that once the recommendations in
    this report are endorsed by the respective chartering organizations and ICANN’s Board, that text is added to the (Final) Application Guidebook indicating that a
    Support Development Program will be announced before the start of the first round and that the conditions of this program are established and published separately.
    https://community.icann.org/display/jaswg/SO-AC+New+gTLD+Applicant+Support+Working+Group+%28JAS-WG%29

    Reply
  2. Evan says:
    May 26, 2011 at 2:43 pm

    Excellent article, Kevin.
    There may be a row over how the JAS report was submitted… but it must be noted the GNSO has not endorsed or even accepted the section quoted by Elaine … or, for that matter, any other JAS output to date.
    Such action — or lack thereof — is consistent with your analysis.
    If not for the initiative of the ALAC, none of the difficult and vital work of the JAS group would have ever reached the ICANN community to this day.

    Reply
  3. GAC calls for $44,000 new TLDs | DomainIncite - Domain Name News & Opinion says:
    May 28, 2011 at 3:35 pm

    […] Poor nation support crucial to new TLD talks […]

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    May 28, 2011 at 5:27 pm

    […] for developing nations has arguably become the biggest hurdle to be leaped before the program can launch, as I reported earlier in the […]

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