Re: [atlarge-discuss] Where is the New TLDs Evaluation Process?

["Richard Henderson" <richardhenderson@ntlworld.com>]

Following on from my summary of the way the New TLDs Evaluation Process
appears to have been discarded, along with the recommendations of ICANN's
own Task Force, and ICANN's commitment to implement those recommendations...
to hire a Chair and Evaluation Team to carry out the Process, starting with
a range of detailed key questions, and analysis of the Registry Appendix U
data (which has been withheld for 12 to 18 months)...

May I ask Mr Twomey and the ICANN Board why there appears to be no budget in
the Y2004 Budget to finance the New TLD Evaluation Process (a process which
the Task Force acknowledged could be expensive though vital)?

I refer you to the ICANN Y2004 Budget here:
http://www.icann.org/financials/proposed-budget-17may03.htm#BudgetIssuesforF
Y04

The year referred to is 1 July 2003 to 30 June 2004.

There is no mention of funds to be allocated to a New TLDs Evaluation Team,
which the Board agreed to contract when it accepted the Task Force
recommendations.

Of the New TLD Evaluation Process itself (no Evaluation Team even formed
yet) it says only this:

It is a priority to "complete any remaining work on the evaluation of the
November 2000 round of new gTLDs; complete any remaining work on approving
and launching a limited round of new sponsored gTLDs; and develop a
framework for considering any possible further expansion in the top-level
gTLD namespace."

Complete? The Process hasn't even been started yet.

The Task Force made it clear that their work was merely setting the
framework within which a future Evaluation Team and Evaluation Process could
operate.

When the Y2004 Budget statement refers to the need to "complete any
remaining work" what on earth is it talking about?

This is "Alice in Wonderland" or should I say "Alice in Cyberland" stuff.

The New TLD Evaluation Process just gets smaller and smaller... until (the
Board seems to hope) it disappears.

I think they hoped that it wouldn't be seen disappearing.

Read the NTEPPTF Report -
http://www.icann.org/committees/ntepptf/final-report-31jul02.htm -
and you will get some concept of the scale and complexity of the task which
needs doing. The ICANN Board undertook to fulfil this process (when they
accepted the Report).

There is no way they have even begun to finance or recruit or commence work
on the formal Process - a Process which is vital both to learn lessons, and
inform decision making for future NewTLDs, and just to show that this world
resource needs to be taken seriously and professionally.

The expression "complete any remaining work on the evaluation" sums up how
ICANN is trying to sweep the Process away. And the absence of financial
planning for the Process in Y2004 (July 2003 to June 2004) tells me all I
probably need to know about ICANN's commitment to their undertaking, and
what they "said" they'd do.

No self-respecting business would operate this way. And ICANN have
stewardship for a world resource, and yet they seem to me to operate in such
an arbitrary manner, changing things as they go along, or... is it simply
inept mismanagement?

Where is the New TLD Evaluation Process?

Where is the New TLD Evaluation Team?

Where is the Chair to be found and appointed to head that team?

Where is the funding to pay for the New TLD Evaluation Process?

Where is the Registry Evaluation Report from each Registry, as required by
Appendix U of their Agreements?

Where is the (now discarded) time schedule for carrying out the Process
(which has not even commenced, far less in a state where ICANN can 'complete
any remaining work on the evaluation')?

Where is there any evidence that ICANN will keep their word?

Where is there evidence that the ICANN Board or its Staff are competent to
carry out the role they lay claim to?

As the Subject of this thread says:

"Where is the New TLDs Evaluation Process?"


yrs,

Richard Henderson


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