The ICANN Board, at its October 2009 annual meeting in Seoul, passed a resolution directing staff to prepare an analysis regarding the feasibility of ICANN soliciting Expressions of Interests (EOIs) from prospective applicants for new Generic Top Level Domains (gTLDs). ICANN staff subsequently opened a public forum seeking input from the community on a number of questions. While this latest initiative should not distract ICANN from the remaining four overarching issues, if well executed, this EOI initiative could provide valuable insights into two of the four overarching issues: economics and root scaling. But if executed improperly, this EOI initiative will likely erode confidence in the new gTLD process and negatively impact ICANN\'s evaluation in the upcoming reviews under ICANN\'s new Affirmation of Commitments.
Let\'s Have a Bottom-Up, Not Top-Down Process
One of the core principles enshrined in the ICANN model is the bottom-up consensus-driven process. This process, however, is a double-edged sword: While inherently noisy, contentious and time consuming, when consensus finally emerges from this cacophony of competing voices (public and private) the results are generally well founded principles and policies that respect the global public interest. As ICANN moves forward with the Seoul EOI resolution, the legitimacy of its final action must learn from the same bottom-up community consensus processes that were followed in the 2000 Proof of Concept new gTLD round and the more recent Internationalized Domain Names (IDNs) ccTLD Fast-Track round.
A full copy of the article is available below or as a PDF document from the PFF website.
Written by Michael D. Palage, Adjunct Fellow at The Progress & Freedom Foundation
