dag4-icannIn unse­rem Kom­men­tar zur 4. Ver­si­on des die Aus­schrei­bungs­be­din­gun­gen für neue gTLDs ent­hal­ten­den Bewer­ber­hand­buchs haben wir uns ins­be­son­de­re dafür ein­ge­setzt, dass Initia­ti­ven wie .ber­lin, die die loka­le Gemein­schaft in ihrer Bewer­bung berück­sich­ti­gen, zusätz­li­che Punk­te in der „Community”-Bewertung erhalten.

Wir hal­ten die­sen Aspekt für eine Bewer­bung um dot­ber­lin für sehr wich­tig, da man bei einer Bewer­bung für eine Stadt-Top-Level-Domain die loka­le Inter­es­sen u.a. aus Wirt­schaft, Kul­tur und Poli­tik berück­sich­ti­gen sollte.

Unse­re For­de­rung wur­de in nach­fol­gen­den Kom­men­ta­ren auch von ande­ren Initia­ti­ven auf­ge­grif­fen, die bis­her eben­falls zahl­rei­che Inter­es­sen­grup­pen in ihrem Pro­jekt berücksichtigen.

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We par­ti­ci­pa­ted in and con­tri­bu­ted to the new gTLD pro­cess from the very begin­ning in 2005. Tog­e­ther with our sup­port­ers we repre­sent thou­sands of Ber­lin based SMEs, Fede­ral Sta­te of Ber­lin owned or shared orga­niza­ti­ons, major Ber­lin based com­pa­nies, hotels, Inter­net busi­nesses, regis­trars, indi­vi­du­als and other mem­bers which form an unpar­al­lel­led com­mu­ni­ty for a city top-level domain appli­ca­ti­on at ICANN.

For the 4th Draft Appli­cant Gui­de­book we have comm­ents and chan­ge requests by which we are aiming to get a fair and time­ly tre­at­ment on our way to acqui­re our own iden­ti­ty on the Internet:

RE Time­line / ICANN Summit
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Again we urge ICANN to fina­li­ze the gTLD pro­cess and start accep­ting new gTLD appli­ca­ti­ons. Any actions which may faci­li­ta­te this are high­ly wel­co­me, like the pro­po­sed „ICANN Sum­mit” in September.

RE 4.2.3 Com­mu­ni­ty Prio­ri­ty Eva­lua­ti­on Criteria
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The ccTLDs are geo­gra­phi­cal­ly and geo­po­li­ti­cal­ly based top-level domains which are based on the RFC 1591 which sta­tes for the admi­nis­tra­tor of a ccTLD:

„The­se admi­nis­tra­tors are per­forming a public ser­vice on behalf of the Inter­net community.”
„The desi­gna­ted mana­ger is the trus­tee of the top-level domain for both the nati­on, in the case of a coun­try code, and the glo­bal Inter­net community.”

We ask that the same is self-evi­dent for appli­cants for a GeoTLD (incl. cities, regi­ons, cul­tu­ral and other geo­gra­phi­cal and geo­po­li­ti­cal strings).

For this reason we claim:

> One extra point in the Com­mu­ni­ty Prio­ri­ty Eva­lua­ti­on should be given if the orga­niza­ti­on of a GeoTLD appli­cant is based on a sound mul­ti-stake­hol­der com­mu­ni­ty of the Geo­Na­me concerned.

Many of the recent­ly emer­ged new gTLD appli­cants may take advan­ta­ge of the immense delay the new gTLD pro­gram has been facing sin­ce its start in 2005. The ten­ta­ti­ve time­line published with the Board’s appr­oval of the new gTLD pro­gram in June 2008 sta­ted an appli­ca­ti­on win­dow for March 2009. We think that appli­cants which were plan­ning with this time­line alre­a­dy had a ripe appli­ca­ti­on, while a num­ber of new appli­cants who came in during the last 18 month some­ti­mes seem to rather copy exis­ting con­cepts and pro­jects or have ques­tionable busi­ness models.

For this reason we claim:

> One extra point in the Com­mu­ni­ty Prio­ri­ty Eva­lua­ti­on should be given if orga­niza­ti­on of an appli­cant was alre­a­dy estab­lished befo­re the appr­oval of the new gTLDs pro­gram by the ICANN Board on 26 June 2008 or befo­re the first com­mu­ni­ca­ted appli­ca­ti­on win­dow in March 2009.

RE Tre­at­ment of incom­ple­te Applications
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We expect that the pro­vi­si­ons in para­graph 1.1.2.8 (String Contention)

„… if an appli­ca­ti­on is iden­ti­fied as being part of a con­ten­ti­on set, string con­ten­ti­on reso­lu­ti­on pro­ce­du­res will not begin until all appli­ca­ti­ons in the con­ten­ti­on set have com­ple­ted all aspects of eva­lua­ti­on, inclu­ding dis­pu­te reso­lu­ti­on, if applicable.”

will be used in com­pe­ting appli­ca­ti­ons (con­ten­ti­on sets) to take spe­cu­la­ti­ve advan­ta­ge of inten­tio­nal­ly cau­sed delays by incom­ple­te applications.

For this reason we claim:

> Appli­cants should be given limi­t­ed time of max. 4 weeks to mend incom­ple­te appli­ca­ti­ons parts.