Hi Sam,

I’m confused about how you’re conflating and comparing the two issues of .doctor and .sucks.

More inline:

On Mar 30, 2015, at 4:15 PM, Sam Lanfranco <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> Milton,
> 
> Unfortunately much of this discussion is slicing into the issues under a constrained (in some cases simply binary) understanding of process here. You would be correct in what you say if your version of the core issues here was correct, but it is not. Put in terribly simple corporate terms, ICANN as a corporation is making product decisions, entering into contractual agreements, and then going completely silent when issues arise around them, or making very non-consultative decisions that sow anger and confusion.

ICANN (the corporation) hasn’t to my knowledge made any decisions regarding the .sucks issue. ICANN isn’t involved in pricing of domain names. Everything else regarding .sucks was subject to application guidelines developed by the community, which took years to achieve through a long process in which the IPC and many others provided input. So if ICANN is to be questioned by those outside the community (who may not be aware of how gTLD policy is developed), the easy answer is that this was consensus policy implemented by ICANN at the behest of ICANN’s multistakeholder community.

Having said that, I am curious about the additional fees .sucks will be paying to ICANN. I haven’t looked at their registry agreement, but taking a look seems worthwhile to try to figure out what that’s all about.

>  Example: ICANN and staff either did or did not issue a controversial directive to .doctor earlier this month. The .doctor applicant says it did and ICANN remains mute. This left NCSG to have a "maybe it did, maybe it didn't" discussion that lead nowhere.

Yes…, I have no idea what’s going on there. It will most likely turn out to be an administrative error on documenting the NGPC resolutions. But the board decision on .doctor (in response to GAC advice) is kind of the opposite of what’s happening with .sucks. If you want ICANN to react positively to the IPC request, then you’re effectively (from a process perspective) asking ICANN to repeat the mistake of .doctor. Except this time, it’d be in response to a request of a GNSO constituency not mandated with providing the ICANN board any (capital A) Advice. Rather dramatic of the IPC to also send a copy of this letter to the NTIA. What’s that all about?!

> This has nothing to do with your cheap shot of calling discussion of these issues an appeal to "the heckler's veto". The less cheap shot come back to that is that expertise that misses context can be damaging to reasoned dialogue if credibility from credentials substitutes for evidence and analysis in context.

I have no idea what the “heckler’s veto” is. :)

> What is being asked outside the walled city of ICANN is how is it performing in terms of corporate social responsibility, and in general that has to do with not only its product decisions (which are not solely binary here) but how it engages in product related dialogues outside the walls of the city. On that later part ICANN remains mute and that will come back to haunt it.

Again…, this has nothing to do with ICANN CSR, and ICANN corp should not be making any unilateral decisions here. They should remain compliant with the rules and processes in the applicant guidebook and registry agreement. Asking them to do anything different is basically asking ICANN to go rogue, which nobody should really want. The IPC itself has members on the CCWG-ACCT working on mitigating the risks of that, but they apparently seem to reverse their position when it suites their own purpose.

How ICANN engages in dialogue with those outside of ICANN is up to them, but I agree. They haven’t been doing a very good job at it. Heck…, they’re not that great at engaging in dialogue with those within the walled city either. :)

Thanks.

Amr