Avri: Thank you for engaging in discussion and for not trying to foreclose it. I answer your questions below. >>> Avri Doria <[log in to unmask]> 08/18/05 5:43 PM >>> >The indication is that this is against the rules. The GAC/DoC intervention did not follow defined procedures for offering policy advice. You could call that a break in the rules. But the more important point is that it represents an arbitrary and politically motivated deviation from what ICANN said its process would be. ICANN laid out its TLD RFP, application and approval process in October 2003. Everybody planned according to those procedures. Now it's throwing them aside. That's bad. .net was another example (see below) - apparently you understood the significance of that case. ICANN probably has the legal authority to not move forward with finalization of the contract, but you can definitely expect a lawsuit from ICM Registry if they turn them down on reconsideration, and at the point there will be a long and interesting dialogue about what rules were broken or not. >Also if I understand correctly, and i admit i might not, >they are not specifically asking for the decision to be rescinded >just for time before negotiating the contract. Now, i can see how >this might amount to the essentially the same thing, but not >necessarily. I think you understand that correctly. And I am saying, for civil society to remain silent during that period is really, really incomprehensible. We have to make known our concerns. >While i understand the issue when seen from the perspective of undue >influence, I know that i generally value flexibilty, and was very >happy, e.g., when the ICANN Board and Verisign indicated willingness >to renegotiate elements of a signed contract. and I know that I want >the board to be subject to a lot a review before they sign any contract. Actually you are reinforcing our point. The reason the VeriSign contract had to be revisited was that ICANN very definitely broke its own procedure by not posting the changed contract to permit public comment. In other words, it denied the community the opportunity to express it views on the changes in the .net contract by revising its procedures on the fly. Not to mention the other procedural parade of horribles documented by the Register and others regarding how the .net process seemed deliberately skewed to favor VeriSign. Now if ICANN had somehow DENIED the GAC an opportunity to participate in the sTLD approvals by being shifty then I would definitely be on the side of GAC in this dispute. But in this case the opposite is happening. GAC wants to suspend the rules because it doesn't like the result and didn't bother to get engaged when it could., >In other words I do worry about sending a self-conflicting message: >we like it when you reconsider decisions aexcept for when we don't. I hope you can see now that there is no inconsistency. The revolt against the VeriSign .net contract was a revolt against shifting procedures that make it impossible for people to know what the rules are and how to participate. It is the same issue here.