[agenda] Suggestion to revisit the process for new gTLDs

[Elisabeth Porteneuve <Elisabeth.Porteneuve@cetp.ipsl.fr>]

Dear Intake Committee,


The current debate on the contract ICANN-VeriSign is an outcome 
of a situation which, IMHO, originated at the DNSO and Names Council.

When the WG-C delivered its report and a shy, but how difficult,
conclusion "there should be new gTLDs, few of them to start",
the Names Council forwarded this decision to the Board for approval,
and ICANN staff was requested to proceed.

The ICANN staff got the burden to invent all procedures from scratch,
call for proposals, criterias for selection of proposals, the study
of received proposals, call for consultants to read proposals and 
compare it, etc. It was very difficult.
The ICANN staff did not noticed (at least nothing get notified to
the NC) that contracts for new gTLDs are somewhat different 
from the old one with NSI for .com/.org/.net, and that these 
incoherencies may lead to a conflictual situation as we face 
today with the agreement ICANN-VeriSign, and options "A" or "B".

I do believe we are going to have more decisions on new gTLDs,
and it would be a good idea to completely revisit the call for proposals
text, criterias as well as selection process. 
To have a real competition in proposals for new gTLD (once the process
revisited) some documents shall be translated into various languages.

Last not the least -- while an outsourcing of the comparative study 
may be a good way of doing, I feel it would be much more appropriate
if such work be done by two or three consultants, from various regions,
not all native English speakers.

I propose to the NC to consider to revisit the process for new gTLDs.
I have no idea how it should be done to fit into Bylaws.

Elisabeth