Colleagues: There were substantial changes to the draft gnso recommendations in yesterday's gnso council mtg. The new version in below. The gnso's adoption of GAC Principle 2.1 that mandated cultural and religious sensitivities in domain names has been dropped from gnso Rec #6. And there is now recognition that free expression is a value to protect in #3 and #6. And #6's prohibition against immoral and disorderly domain names should not allow a particular ban in one country to extend to the whole world. There continues to be much disagreement on council about Rec. #11 which was "Staff Evaluators will be used to make preliminary determinations about applications as part of a process which includes the use of expert panels to make decisions." I'm not really sure what will be proposed next for this. But we have been asking for the evaluations to be technical and operational only, so there wouldn't be a need for expert panels (or ICANN) to make up new 'international law' outside of democratic processes and public accountability. And Rec #20 is also very contentious and we need to continue to push on it. #20 calls for a public opposition period so anyone who doesn't like a string application can lobby to reject it. Special thanks to Mawaki and Norbert and Victoria for helping to argue these points! Best, Robin previous gnso draft recommendations: http://www.ipjustice.org/ICANN/GNSORecomOverview11May2007.htm last week's ncuc amendments: http://www.ipjustice.org/ICANN/062007.html -------- Original Message -------- Subject: [gtld-council] Plain text version of new gTLD recommendations as changed during the call Date: Fri, 8 Jun 2007 19:42:02 +1000 From: Bruce Tonkin <[log in to unmask]> To: Council GNSO <[log in to unmask]> CC: <[log in to unmask]> Hello All, Below is a plain text version of the new gTLD recommendations as changed during the call. They are getting better all the time :-) Regards, Bruce Tonkin 1 ICANN must implement a process that allows the introduction of new top-level domains. The evaluation and selection procedure for new gTLD registries should respect the principles of fairness, transparency and non-discrimination. All applicants for a new gTLD registry should therefore be evaluated against transparent and predictable criteria, fully available to the applicants prior to the initiation of the process. Normally, therefore, no subsequent additional selection criteria should be used in the selection process. 2 Strings must not be confusingly similar to an existing top-level domain. 3 Strings must not infringe the existing legal rights of others that are recognized or enforceable under generally accepted and internationally recognized principles of law. Examples of these legal rights that are internationally recognized include, but are not limited to, rights defined in the Paris Convention for the Protection of Industrial Property (in particular trademark rights), the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (in particular freedom of speech rights). 4 Strings must not cause any technical instability. 5 Strings must not be a Reserved Word. 6 Strings must not be contrary to generally accepted legal norms relating to morality and public order that are enforceable under generally accepted and internationally recognized principles of law. Examples of such limitations that are internationally recognized include, but are not limited to, restrictions defined in the Paris Convention for the Protection of Industrial Property (in particular restrictions on the use of some strings as trademarks), and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (in particular limitations to freedom of speech rights). 7 Applicants must be able to demonstrate their technical capability to run a registry operation for the purpose that the applicant sets out. 8 Applicants must be able to demonstrate their financial and organisational operational capability. 9 There must be a clear and pre-published application process using objective and measurable criteria. 10 There must be a base contract provided to applicants at the beginning of the application process. 11 (intentionally blank) 12 Dispute resolution and challenge processes must be established prior to the start of the process. 13 Applications must initially be assessed in rounds until the scale of demand is clear. 14 The initial registry agreement term must be of a commercially reasonable length. 15 There must be renewal expectancy. 16 Registries must apply existing Consensus Policies and adopt new Consensus Polices as they are approved. 17 A clear compliance and sanctions process must be set out in the base contract which could lead to contract termination. 18 If an applicant offers an IDN service, then ICANN's IDN guidelines must be followed. 19 Registries must use ICANN accredited registrars. 20 An application will be rejected if it is determined, based on public comments or otherwise, that there is substantial opposition to it from among significant established institutions of the economic sector, or cultural or language community, to which it is targeted or which it is intended to support.