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Understanding the Applicant Guidebook and Questionnaire
Thursday, 23 June 2011
ICANN Meeting - Singapore

 

 >>FREDERICK FELMAN:  I guess we're ready to go.  Hi and good
afternoon, and thank you for opting to having lunch with us today. 
If you are starving, there is ice cream right out the door.  You can
do that.  Hopefully, we will have a great session.  I'm Fred Felman. 
I'm the chief marketing officer of MarkMonitor.  

 Today we'll be covering getting ready, understanding the applicant
guidebook and questionnaire.

 We have got a great set of panelists.  Just before we get into
introducing them, let's talk a little bit about the program today and
also the agenda and then we'll introduce the rest of the panelists.

 First of all, setting this in context, we've got a launch date. 
There is a stable guidebook according to the staff that's not going
to change much between now and the launch date.  And we have got
administrative and technical backend that's sort of ready to go at
this point.

 So now it's time to start getting ready to actually launch the
program and make things happen.  So our purpose today is to
familiarize ourself with the questionnaire that's included in the
guidebook.  Now, because it is a very long document, we probably
won't get into every detail of it.  In fact, we could probably spend
hours on individual topics, but we will familiarize ourselves with
it.  We will consider the questions and we will discuss the
implications of the applicant's answers in the context of the
guidebook.

 Just before we get to introducing folks, let's think a little bit
about what the purpose of the questionnaire is, in fact.  Really
primarily it is there to assert the suitability of an organization to
be able to manage a part of the DNS.  Secondarily, you may find it's
helpful in terms of enumerating the benefits and possible risks that
your TLD might face.

 Another place that's important to understand with respect to the
guidebook is that it's divided into a public section and non-public
section.  We will get into that in a little bit more detail, but it's
important to understand that this piece that's public facing is an
opportunity for you to market to the community as well.  So you'll
have a chance to actually tell people what your TLD is and what
advantage it provides.

 Additionally, it is an opportunity for you to think about what
contention and what objections you might face and also scope yourself
around those potential objections and contention.

 So let's get a little bit of housekeeping out of the way.  The
session will be recorded and it will be carried on the ICANN Web
site.  So we're going to take the questions at the end of the
session.  So if you have a piece of paper, grab it and make sure that
you write down any questions that you might have.  We'll take
questions at the end of the session.  And we'll be dividing questions
between here in the room and also those that are online with the help
of Carole and staff.  So thanks very much for that.

 So let's talk about our agenda.  First we'll do the panel
introduction.  We will do a brief introduction of the structure of
the guidebook, and then we will go through each one of the sections
with each one of the panelists leading some of the aspects of the
discussion of the sections of the guidebook itself.

 So with that, I would like to start directly with my left to Tom
Barrett and give him a chance to introduce himself.

 >>THOMAS BARRETT:  Hi, I'm Tom Barrett, the President of Encirca. 
We are an ICANN-accredited registrar and plan to be a registrar with
the new gTLDs as well.

 >>SARA LANGSTONE:  Thanks, Tom.  

 My name is Sara Langstone.  I am a director of product management
at VeriSign.  I have been working at VeriSign for nearly 11 years. 
And during that time, I have managed ccTLDs, gTLDs, sponsored TLDs. 
And I'm now working in the new gTLD program.

 >>JOHN MATSON:  I'm John Matson.  And I'm COO of Architelos.  For
the last two years prior to Architelos, I was part of a consulting
group that pursued the panel evaluation process for ICANN, support of
the process of benchmarking registries as well as evaluating the
criteria used here in the technical and financial questions.

 >>MIKE RODENBAUGH:  I'm Mike Rodenbaugh.  I run a small law firm
called Rodenbaugh Law in California.  Background around here, I was
on the GNSO Council that adopted the initial policy recommendations
that were approved by the board.  And I have participated in just
about every working group, it seems like, related to new TLDs since
then.

 >>CHRIS WRIGHT:  Hi, my name is Chris Wright.  I'm the CTO of
AusRegistry International.  We are a registry operator and we are
providing registry services to various TLD applicants.

 >>FREDERICK FELMAN:  All right.  So let's talk a little bit about
the structure of the guidebook.  First of all, before we get into
some of the details of the questions and question sections, there are
a couple of slides that lead into this.  And these are the slides
that I refer to as the RTM pages, "read the manual."  Some people
insert another letter between the T and the M in technology.

 So, really, it is important for you to understand that you must
read this.  In front of me -- I have a rich and interesting life.  I
actually read the guidebook on my way over here from the U.S. again. 
And some of it is enriched by the length of this.  So it is important
for you to actually look at the guidebook itself.  And answering
these questions is going to be helped by actually looking at how it
is in context.  

 With respect to the questionnaire itself, it is in Section 2, it is
an attachment to that section.  It is about 50 pages long.  And it is
very helpful in that it gives you the question.  It tells you whether
it is going to be included in the public or private sections of the
posting.  It gives you notes on how to answer.  It explains how you
might be scored, the criteria, and it also gives you some of the
scoring details.  And it is in a table that's pretty easy to
understand.

 It's not very helpful unless you do read Section 2 of the guidebook
where it explains how these questions will be evaluated by who and
what part during the process.

 So, with respect to what ICANN is looking for, they've provided
this slide.  They're looking for the fact that the answer meets their
minimum requirements, that they show -- the applicant shows a
demonstrated capability and knowledge of the minimum requirements,
and the answers are clear, relevant and within the space limits. 
That's important.  They recommend the space, and they also give you
outlines in a lot of cases what you must do to answer.

 And just before we get into sort of the meat of it, again, the
first questions, 1 through 30, are focused on who you are, the
registry service and the type of strings.  And these are public
facing.  And then the second set are externally facing.  This is
where you can get the technical details, the operational details, the
financial details of your registry.

 And it's no small task.  I mean, there are nearly 50 pages -- there
are five pages, you know, alone on certain sections.  I think there
are 20-some-odd pages with respect to the technical requirements.  It
is actually a complex document, and there are subquestions.  It is
not just a yes-or-no kind of thing.

 So now let's start to think about this in a little more detail. 
And I'd like to start with Questions 1 through 12.  This is where you
will be providing applicant information, contact data, legal
establishment, background and evaluation fee.

 It's still complex and there is some strategy involved with respect
to how you answer these questions.  And aside from, you know,
avoiding the risks the applicant has no pulse or can't read, John,
what are the considerations that somebody might think about as they
go to answer these questions?

 >>JOHN MATSON:  Well, they do need to have a pulse and they also do
need to be a corporation or a legal entity that represents such.  You
cannot apply as an individual alone or a sole proprietor.  

 The process, so on January 12th the application window will open. 
And what you'll do is there's the application system, TAS, that you
will need to register in as your entity and you also need to pay
$5,000.

 Now, it may take a week, week and half or more for you then to get
a log-in that will now allow you to access the system.  From that,
you'll need to enter in the answers to all your questions.  But you
need to realize, it may take a long time to answer these questions. 
And so with a three-month window, you definitely don't want to wait
till the end in order to start this process.  We would encourage you
to start it as soon as possible.

 Other parts, you will need to identify your executives, your
officers, anyone who is a shareholder, an equity holder in the
company because they'll need to do background checks.  And so
personal information will be needed.  It won't be disclosed, but
you'll need to identify it.  And Mike will talk a little bit more
about that later.

 The other part is that if you make any material changes to the
information you put in your application, you must let ICANN know
that.  The main thing is get in early, reserve your spot and start
filling out the application.

 >>FREDERICK FELMAN:  So, Mike, crime and criminality are one of the
bigger potential risks associated with running part of the domain
naming system and there have been some incidences where people have
abused the system rather profoundly.  So ICANN's sort of scoped the
background check process into this.  Can you tell us a little bit
about that?  And what types of activity might render an organization
ineligible?

 >>MIKE RODENBAUGH:  Sure.  It is a bit of a long list.  It is in
Section 1.2 of the guidebook.  But essentially it is at two levels. 
ICANN will do background screening both of your entity in the event
that it is not listed on one of the 25 largest stock exchanges in the
world.  If it is, you pass the background screening at the entity
level and also for the individuals involved.  As John said, it is
directors, officers and partners and any shareholders with 15% or
more of the shares.

 And the idea is to prevent people from running a registry who have
been convicted of a crime of trust or have some sort of criminal
history in that regard.  The standard was taken from the banking
industry in a lot of respects, but it is also broader than that.

 But for financial crimes, if that was done within the past ten
years by any of those designated officers, then you're going to fail
the application.  There is also additional provisions that say if you
have ever been convicted of any crime involving the use of computers,
telephony systems, telecommunications or the Internet, then you're
barred ever.  Including also any violent crime ever, then you're
barred.  So it's pretty stringent requirements as far as the criminal
history goes as well as it probably should be.

 In addition to crimes, you also will be barred if you have a
history of cybersquatting behavior, meaning a pattern of final
decisions is the standard.  So it is a little bit amorphous.  We
don't know exactly what that means.  But it does give the example if
you have had three or more adverse final cybersquatting decisions or
also reverse domain name hijacking decisions against you and one of
those was in the last four years, then presumably you're going to
fail this aspect.

 >>FREDERICK FELMAN:  Excellent.  And so you mentioned actually,
Mike, as just a follow-up, if you are a public entity and you are
traded on the top 25 exchanges, that you're exempt from this.  Some
people have talked about potentially forming separate entities for
this.  I guess that's sort of a balance.  Do you stick with your
existing entity that has listing status on this exchange, or do you
actually form a new one for other legal reasons?

 >>MIKE RODENBAUGH:  Well, if you have convicts on your board, then
that certainly becomes an issue.  

 No, it's a huge issue to decide what sort of entity should be the
registry operator, where that entity should be located and, of
course, who specifically you're going to put forward as the
individuals operating that entity.

 >>FREDERICK FELMAN:  All right.  Does anyone have anything to add
to this, section Number 1?

 >> JOHN MATSON:  Just a follow-up on the fees.  I didn't finish,
the balance of the 185,000, which is the 180,000, you need to put in
once you've completed filling out your application.  There's also the
possibility of additional fees based on if you have some unique
registry services that may get referred to extended evaluation. 
There's a planning figure of about $50,000 in the guidebook currently
that says you would need to put that money up if you get referred to
extended evaluation for registry services.  But it would be a cost-
base process.  So if it costs less than that, you would be refunded
whatever is left over from the 50,000.

 >>FREDERICK FELMAN:  In fact, that's one of the important reasons
with respect to making sure you understand the guidebook thoroughly
because there are a number of different triggers that could extend
the period that it would take for you to delegate, get your TLD to
delegation which means it will stall its availability and also stall
your ability to operate it and make money from it or provide a
service to community for that matter.

 It is important that you understand the trigger points and how the
answers to your questions might affect that eventuality and the costs
associated with the TLD.

 So with that, I guess just underscoring what Mike said, is be very
careful, watch who is on your management team because it could
actually make it so that you are, in fact, ineligible if there is
someone who is not eligible.

 So you should make sure that actually -- potentially running a
background check on everyone just to make sure there are no nasty
surprises at this point because $185,000 is a lot of money to lose on
this.

 All right.  With respect to Questions 13 through 17, naming the
baby is one of the hardest tasks if you are starting a family.  And
if you look at the TLD process, it's a bit of a family process, I'd
say.  And I'm sure there are a lot of spirited discussions going on
in the hallways here about what people might call their TLDs.

 And another very interesting thing about this -- and I know we have
a lot of international participants here in Singapore -- is that with
this round of TLDs, there's also the possibility of international
domain names.  And with the growth of Internet usage occurring mostly
in places that don't use the Latin script, that's a pretty important
growth area.

 And I was sort of hoping that Sara might talk to us about some of
the requirements for IDNs and thinking about how someone would choose
an IDN and that process.

 >>SARA LANGSTONE:  Yes, thank you, Fred.  Well, obviously the
introduction of IDN new gTLDs represents a huge opportunity, and it
explains global accessibility for Internet users as well as providing
a wide range of opportunities for registrars and registrants.

 And I thought that I would highlight some of the issues using
VeriSign's own experiences as we've been going through some of the
thought processes and preparing for potential IDN.IDN applications.

 Obviously VeriSign has been offering IDN at the left of the dot for
a number of years.  But, of course, it's not a truly international
experience yet because everything to the right of the dot is still in
ASCII.

 So VeriSign decided after much thought that it didn't make much
sense for us to just do a translation of dot com in different
languages and scripts.  In most cases, it wouldn't make sense for us
to do that.  So we actually decided that what made more sense for us
was to look at phonetic transliterations of dot com and dot net at
the first level.  It is really more about how it sounds.  But even
after we selected that strategy, there can be issues with a blanket
approach.

 So to give you an example, in the Russian market, the phonetic
transliteration of "dot net" is "dot het" which means no.  That is
not a good choice for us.  

 My point here is even once you have decided upon an IDN strategy,
there's no size-that-fits-all kind of approach.  And you need to give
it careful consideration.

 You'll also notice for those of you that are interested in applying
for an IDN new gTLD, there are a lot of references to things called A-
labels, U-labels and Punycode conversion tables.  And I think in just
starting to explain that, first off, you need to understand that the
DNS, it only supports ASCII, the A-label.  It does not support the
IDN or the Unicode U version.  And so what you need is you need a
conversion tool, which is a Punycode conversion, tool, which will,
basically, convert the IDN component into something that the DNS can
understand.  

 Now, it is a tremendously complex and technical issue.  And you
really need to know what you are submitting and why.  You need to
ensure compliance and, of course, you need to remember that one size
doesn't necessarily fit all cases.

 Just real quickly as well, IDN variants are not currently supported
in this release.  And I'll just give you a quick example of that. 
Within ASCII character sets, lowercase A maps exactly to uppercase A.
They're interchangeable but not so with all scripts.  And so the
opportunity is working on a solution for this issue.  

 And until a solution for this issue has been found, then there are
no IDN variants supported within the first round of the new gTLD
application.

 >>FREDERICK FELMAN:  That's great.  And also, by the way, there is
a question regarding variants.  You must actually enumerate the
potential variants for your strings.

 But let's get a little bit more into the sort of technical and
practical considerations of selecting a string.  This is an
interesting environment.  There is a lot of change occurring in the
Internet itself at this point, and some of the changes we're seeing
are the increased reliance on social.  We're seeing the fact that an
increasing number of people carry things like smartphones.  In fact,
a third of the people who carry phone contracts in the U.S. actually
have cell phones.  So those are some of potential considerations.

 But, Chris, I was hoping you could spend a little time and tell us
in your opinion what you think some of the practical and technical
considerations are of the new naming system.

 >>CHRIS WRIGHT:  Sure.  Technically, the considerations for a
strong are relatively easy to understand.  They're spelled out in the
guidebook fairly straightforward for us.  Three to 63 characters in
length, so no shorter or no longer than that.  No numbers or symbols.
And if we are going to get into the IDN space, it needs to be valid
based on the IDN rules.  It is a little bit more difficult to
understand those ones.  We need something like this Unicode NFC form.
So you need someone that understands it and can explain that to you.

 You need to find what sort of script you're going to use in your
IDN there.  And you're only allowed to build your TLD string out of
the characters or the representation of characters in the one script.
So you can't mix Chinese and Arabic characters together, for example.
And that just makes sense.

 You also need to make sure that all the characters in your string
come from a script that are written in the same direction.  So you
can't mix left-to-right with right-to-left characters or Arabic with
English characters, for example, or Latin I should call them.

 Another important thing to understand is that technically your
string may not work in many applications out there on the Internet,
especially initially.  And the registries that applied for dot info
and dot biz, for example, last time around can attest to this.

 There are -- and there still exists many applications out there on
the Internet that assume that a domain name must end with dot com or
dot net.  And if it doesn't, then it can't be a valid domain name. 
Those applications are starting to disappear.  The previous round of
TLD applications sort of started off that effort of getting rid of
those.  But there are still many applications out there that make
that assumption.  So you just need to be aware of that.  It is going
to take some time before all those applications are eliminated.

 It is also important to understand that IDNs, as Sara was alluding
to, are new.  It's almost impossible to get an IDN e-mail
successfully sent at the moment.  There are many issues with use of
IDNs in various applications.  You just need to jump into any of the
IDN working groups that exist around ICANN to start to understand a
lot of those issues:  Domain names not being displayed correctly in
browsers, not being able to be used in various places on Web pages
and around the Internet and so forth.

 IDNs, whilst you will have the TLD effectively forever, as long as
you comply with your requirements for ICANN, but just initially, it
is not necessarily going to be as usable as you may think.  And you
just need to be aware of that.

 Another thing to consider is that devices.  I think Fred alluded to
this before as well.  Those of you that have an iPhone will notice
there is a dot com button on the iPhone.  That's an interesting thing
to think about and what that actually means from an end user's
perspective.  So those are some of the technical things to think
about.  

 Practically, I have broken them down into sort of three main areas.
That's risk, usability and purpose.

 So risk, you need to think about the similarity of your string to
other potential applicants.  You don't want to end up in a contention
set.  And I believe there is a conversation later on about what that
means.

 You don't really want to go for a string that's going to infringe
someone else's trademark or a geographic term.  There are
restrictions on applying for geographic terms as well.  So it is
important to be aware of those.  And, effectively, just remember that
there are only limited cases where you can get a refund.  So if you
put in a string that happens to conflict with somebody else's
trademark and you allow that to get all the way through to the end of
the process and then that trademark holder somehow objects and wins
the objection, you don't necessarily get a refund.  You need to be
sure about what you're doing.

 Also, you need to be careful that when you choose a string, words
can mean things in other languages you don't necessarily intend them
to mean.  And that is potentially a case for other entities to
object.  Now, whether they would win the objection or not is
completely unknown.  It depends on the case that they make.  But
there are words written -- or particularly English words that when
you pronounce them in other languages they mean other things.  And
the Internet is global, and these strings are going to be used all
over the world.  So you need to be aware of that.

 Another thing to do with risk, think about the lifetime of the
string that you're applying for.  Potentially applying, for example,
for dot MP3 might not be a good idea because in ten years' time MP3s
might not exist.  We might have moved on to some new wonderful audio
technology that is 100 times better.  Think about the lifetime of
your string.  You are getting this string forever.  You are not just
for tomorrow.  It is not just for next week.  It is forever.  So you
want to make sure it is usable forever.

 Usability, think about pronunciation of your string.  Your string
is not always going to be written down.  All these things depend on
what you are business model is.  Strings are not always going to be
written down.  It is going to be spoken.  It is going to be -- people
are going to talk about it.  If it is not easy to talk about...

 You also need to make sure that your string is going to work with
potential domains that you think are going to be registered
underneath it.

 Purpose, you need to understand what your target audience is.  So
you need to make sure that your strings fit for your target audience.
You need to make sure that it's unique but it still has some sort of
established identity or meaning.  And in what will potentially be a
large landscape of competition, there could potentially be thousands
of new TLDs.  You have to make sure that your one is going to beat
out the other ones, so you need to make sure -- assuming that's the
purpose of your TLD.  So those are just a bunch of things.

 >>FREDERICK FELMAN:  This is a pretty meaty topic, and I think we
will probably end up spending a bunch of time on it because we have
just explored a bunch of really important issues, contention,
objections, the fact that actually strings might not work.  I think
it is Section 1.2.4 of the guidebook, ICANN itself says be careful
because the string that you might choose might not work in
applications.  It might not work in the middleware that's the Web and
that sort of thing.  So make sure you have vetted that rather well
before you proceed.

 You know, because we mentioned so much in that area and because I
think naming the baby, as I said, is the hardest task, I was just
wondering, is there anybody who would like to actually comment on
this?  I see Mike would like to say something.

 >>MIKE RODENBAUGH:  Yeah.  Chris alluded to legal rights objections
from potential trademark owners to what's called a limited public
interest objection for potentially immoral terms, bad words.  You
really need to do very intelligent and in-depth clearance searching
on your string to try to understand what the risk of that is.  And
maybe that pushes you into another direction.  It's really critical. 
It's not just your basic $500 trademark search of the United States. 
You got to consider where are your target markets and essentially it
is impossible to do a global perfect search.  But you got to do as
best as you possibly can.

 >>FREDERICK FELMAN:  Tom?

 >>THOMAS BARRETT:  I just wanted to mention that there's really two
types of objections that could be raised for your string.  First, the
GAC itself can object to any application that is sent to ICANN that
might violate national law or local sensitivities.  And we're seeing
how they still have issues with the applicant guidebook today.  So
I'm sure they will stay active.

 Also, there is a formal objection process that could be submitted
by anyone in the public and there is basically four types of reasons
why they might object to an application.  Not only could the string
be confusing, that include translations into different languages but
also legal rights, morality and public order and community which we
will talk about later.

 >>FREDERICK FELMAN:  Excellent.  Anyone else?

 >>MIKE RODENBAUGH:  Just to cap it, any of these objections is
going to take you out of the normal flow.  And, you know, assuming
that there is hundreds of applications I think is an extremely
conservative estimate.  There is really time-to-market issues that
you have to consider.  Any objection is going to take you out for a
good six, eight months minimum.

 >>FREDERICK FELMAN:  Excellent.  Well, thanks, Mike.  And, thanks,
Chris and Tom.

 Well, let's go on and let's discuss some other issues because
there's kind of an existential section of the guidebook which is the
mission and purpose, Section 18.  And it's where you have a chance to
actually answer some important questions about your selection and
what kind of business you intend to run.  And, in fact, the 20th
question gives you a chance to designate yourself as community or not.

 And there are a lot of advantages and disadvantages in terms of
designating yourself as a community application.

 So I guess what I think I would like to frame this just before we
get started, the Affirmation of Commitments sort of talks about this
program as being able to extend competition and consumer trust and
choice.  And this is really an opportunity for you to demonstrate how
your application would actually deliver on that promise.

 And because it's one of the key areas that will help you market
your TLD and it's going to help you avoid objections and general
contention, I guess what are your recommendations for strategies for
answering this question and how do you foresee the response being
used, John?

 >>JOHN MATSON:  Thanks, Fred.  Well, now we get to the fun
questions.  This is hands-down the most important question you will
answer.  Spent a lot of time thinking about this.

 >>FREDERICK FELMAN:  Of course, because you are answering it as well.

 >>JOHN MATSON:  And in deference to my colleagues.  But this is
really what you have to set up the whole evaluation process and get
your evaluators to understand.

 There's five groups that are really going to look at this question
and see how you've answered it.

 Number one is the evaluators.  Two, it's ICANN.  Three, it's your
target market.  Who are you trying to secure as your registrants, and
why.

 Then it's going to be governments.  And finally, it's going to be
the press.

 Because on May 1st, roughly two weeks after the application window
closes, the public sections of the guidebook -- or of the application
are going to be posted, and so you can imagine a list of 500.  Well,
people immediately are going to go, "Well, what are the top 10 and
what are the bottom 10?"  So immediately you're going to get buzz
around your application when that gets posted, and this is the
question that people are going to read to understand what you say
you're going to do.

 This is also the question that the evaluators are going to look at
and try and understand:  What are you doing and how does your
technical and financial responses relate to each other?

 So this is context.  It's really critical.  You'll win or lose from
this sort of answer.

 The other part of it is, the things that were added in the last
guidebook revision, which really responded to the economic issues
associated with your TLD.  What's the social cost or benefit of what
you have?  If you want to head off objections, you want to address
potential communities and why your TLD is beneficial to them.

 You want to make sure that you have the opportunity to provide good
information.

 Now, there's only going to be a limited amount of space, so you've
got to write it very carefully.  But again, I really feel that this
is the most important question.  It's the heart of your application
that everything has to build upon.

 >>FREDERICK FELMAN:  That's funny you said that.  I worked for a
marketing guy who said well, if I had you -- if I had a little more
time, I'd write a shorter answer.  You know, you can be more succinct
and more clear if you've got lots more time.

 You know, it is an important area and it is an important area with
respect to marketing your TLD and presenting yourself to the market. 
I'm just wondering, does anyone else have anything that they want to
share in this section before we get on to discussing community, which
I think will be something that we'll talk about for a little while?  

 Sara?  

 >>CHRIS WRIGHT:  Yeah.  I just --

 >>FREDERICK FELMAN: I think Sara first.

 >>CHRIS WRIGHT: Yeah.

 >>SARA LANGSTONE:  Sorry, Chris.  Thanks, Fred.

 I was just going to say that I always think that the answers to
these questions are really going to help ICANN in round 2 determine
what are innovative business models, and really which TLDs have
spread the benefits across the different communities.

 >>FREDERICK FELMAN:  That's great.  Chris, go ahead.

 >>CHRIS WRIGHT:  I just wanted to point out that it is really
interesting this particular question, that even though it does set up
the context for you answering all the other questions in the
guidebook, this question is actually not scored.  So this question
has very little impact on your overall score for your application,
except that it helps set up the context for the rest of the answers
throughout the application.

 >>JOHN MATSON:  And although it is not scored, it will looked at
for completeness and you can -- your application can be rejected if
you do not answer the questions fully and completely.

 So there are subsections in this question that are difficult to
answer, such as, "What are the social costs and benefits associated
with your application?"

 There are resources out there -- the economic studies that have
been performed -- you need to look at.  Minds + Machines did a very
good study on the costs of disputes.  There are other benchmarking
studies out there that you need to look at in order to assess things.

 You want to look at what are the behaviors you're trying to cause
in your target market because you're going to have the behaviors of
speculation, behaviors of choice, the behaviors of defense, and those
that really focus on building new content.

 But those are some things you can use to try to quantify things,
because it asks for you to quantify those costs.

 >>MIKE RODENBAUGH:  And also, even though it's not scored, I echo
everyone's sentiments up here.  It's absolutely critical because you
are going to be bound by what you say, whether it's scored or not. 
You know, these operating rules, you need to provide some serious
detail around, and then live with them forever.

 So you need to be extremely careful.

 >>FREDERICK FELMAN:  Yeah.  And just before we move on to
discussing community, there are a lot of hot-button issues exposed by
this question and some of the subsections.  For example, privacy is
exposed and that's something that you're going to have to describe
how you're going to protect your registrants and others' privacy in
the operation of the TLD.

 So is there anything anyone else wants to add before we go on to
talking about community?  Okay.  Then let's talk about community,
because this is, you know, one of the goals of the program was to
actually open up the domain naming system so it actually supported
more types of communities and this is a great opportunity to present
that chance to communities to be more active on the Web and have
different applications and it's a very exciting moment.

 And there are some great advantages to actually electing to be a
community and there's also some responsibilities.  And so this
section, 19 and 20, allow you to designate and also get a little more
specific about it, so I guess, Tom, what are the considerations over
why you might apply for a community, for an application or not?

 >>THOMAS BARRETT:  Well, in an ideal world, everyone applying for a
TLD will get one.  And I hope you all do.

 But clearly, there are some strings that are going to be more
popular and have multiple applicants, and if they're both simply
generic, they'll go to auction, but ICANN has also identified this
community preference to -- as a way of you demonstrating you have
support from your special-interest group for that very popular string.

 It's not something to -- it's not a step to take lightly.  It's
something that if you're planning to apply in January as a community,
you should be -- you should have lined up support by now from members
of that community, and the applicant guidebook is very detailed in
terms of how you can demonstrate that level of commitment.

 Interestingly, this is -- because you're given preference in how
they weight the application, it could well be the biggest potential
area for gaming, in the sense that people are trying to claim
community when, in fact, they haven't lined up the support of the
community.

 So that's -- and also, it will likely be one of the biggest areas
of disputes.

 We've seen disputes just recently with dot xxx and dot jobs, which
are really community-based disputes, so I think you'll see a lot of
community-based disputes based on -- and it's -- it will happen -- it
could happen to any application, but the likelihood is raised if
you're claiming a community preference.

 >>FREDERICK FELMAN:  It is a very interesting topic.  I mean, some
of the things that are kind of interesting to me is when I look at
the questionnaire, it asks you well, how is that community delineated
and is it clearly delineated.  It's a scale.  Because, you know, you
look at some communities and they aren't very well defined.  How are
they structured?  How will you vet the registrant so that they
actually fit into that community?  So there's some complexity here. 
And I was just curious, is there anyone who wanted to comment more on
community before we sort of talk about the relationship with the
community.  And Mike, is there anything anyone else would like to add?

 >>MIKE RODENBAUGH:  Well, yes.  Definitely.

 It's very -- going to be very difficult, I think, very difficult,
to -- suffice to say, to prove that you're a community-based
application.

 Particularly if you're going for a more generic word.  In fact, the
guidebook specifically cautions against it.  It says community-based
applications are intended to be a narrow category.  It says, you
know, that the whole guidelines -- and there's 10 pages of scoring
guidelines as to whether or not you're a community.  And you have to
get 14 of 16 points.

 And, you know, they're designed to eliminate false positives,
meaning referring to a community construed merely to get a sought-
after generic word as a TLD string.  I mean, ICANN is specifically
cautioning against this.  And if you really get into the weeds with
the evaluation criteria, it's going to be very difficult to show.

 Bottom line, if -- you will lose two points -- meaning you have to
have an absolutely perfect -- all the remaining 14 points if two or
more non-negligible groups oppose your application.

 You will also lose one point -- and so therefore your application
is now dead -- if two non-negligible groups oppose you and your
string has some sort of alternate meaning.  In other words, as a
generic word.

 So it seems to me that generic vertical words are simply not likely
to qualify under almost any circumstances.

 The only other thing that I would add about it is you also have to
show your dedicated use policies, your security verification
policies.  It's very -- intended to try to limit your audience,
rather than allow you to have an extremely large audience, and you
have to live with these rules, again, for the life of the term.  It's
going to be very, very difficult for a community-based applicant to
change those rules later.

 >>FREDERICK FELMAN:  I see that John has a comment so --

 >>JOHN MATSON:  Yeah.  Just additionally, you need to realize that
administering those policies have a cost, and so make sure that your
application hangs together from section to section, and it's clear if
you are a community, then your cost structures have to reflect the
additional administration of those policies.

 >>FREDERICK FELMAN:  Okay.  Sara.

 >>SARA LANGSTONE:  I just wanted to make sure that everybody that
was aware who are thinking of applying as a community, sometimes I
hear people get confused and they think that if they opt for a
community priority evaluation, that it means they're not going to
have to go to auction.  And they don't realize, sometimes, that more
than one party can receive more than 14 of the 16 points, and that
you could still end up in an auction situation and have the costs of,
you know, managing the more narrow registrant base and the more
extensive eligibility policies.  Really just picking up on John's
point there.

 >>FREDERICK FELMAN:  Anything else?  I guess there also are fees
associated with the community priority evaluation as well which you
must pay, so there's also a cost consideration, so you should be
certain of it before you actually incur those fees.

 Anything else?  Chris?  Others?  Okay.

 Then let's talk about geographics just really briefly, because one
of the areas that we've heard a lot of interest in is city names,
regions, countries, and, you know, this is a chance for people to
rally around their own flags and create geographic names and get
registrations around geographic top-level domains, and so, you know,
it's -- there have been names proposed from Berlin to New York, and
so how would an applicant establish their eligibility for a
geographic name and is there risk like communities for objection and
contention and I'd like to direct that at John.

 >>JOHN MATSON:  I respectfully decline to answer the question.

 >>FREDERICK FELMAN:  All right.  Then --

 [ Laughter ]

 >>FREDERICK FELMAN:  Mr. McCarthy.

 >>THOMAS BARRETT:  I'll take that.  So I think the issue was that
the GAC, again, has insisted on reserving geographic names.  Not
reserving them but have special allocation rules for geographic
names, and that includes there's a bunch of ISO standards for their
long form, their short form, also "commonly known as," and "et
cetera."  

 So there is an opportunity for you to apply for a geo name, but
it's a -- you need to get the support of the governments affected by
that geographic area, and you should not underestimate the effort
required to get the support of a government for a geo name, so this
is not a step to take lightly.  In fact, as we're seeing with the
GAC, governments simply don't make decisions.  So ideally you get a
letter of support, non-objection, but you may, in fact, get silence,
and it's -- it's at your risk if you decide to proceed without formal
government support.

 I wanted to also mention a geo name-related risk for other
applicants, which is that you need to make sure that the string
you're applying for, even if it's generic to you, is not a
translation of a geo name, because that is a possible objection that
can be raised if, in fact, your string is a translation of a geo name
in another language, in any language.

 >>FREDERICK FELMAN:  It's interesting because there are a lot of
technology product names that actually have adopted, you know,
cultural or linguistic or geographic designations as their product
name and I can't think of languages and support platforms for online
environments that all fall into this sort of category, and I guess
that's where contention, you know, really comes into play here. 
That's a really good observation.  And that was my mistake.  That
question was supposed to be directed at Tom, so I apologize, John,
for that.

 The next sort of section that I think we should discuss is registry
services, and this is sort of at the heart of how your TLD will be
operated, you know, from a technical background perspective, and the
answers to Question 23 and some of the following questions, you know,
define what services will be offered and, you know, one of the things
I think that's kind of difficult for a lot of business people who are
considering offering a top-level domain is how will they answer these
questions and how will they prepare themselves to do this, and will
they need to use an external registry provider.  And I think that's
probably a good question, a next question, to sort of direct towards
Sara and Chris, but let's start with Sara on this one.

 >>SARA LANGSTONE:  Thanks, Fred.

 So the answer to Question 23 is where you need to describe your
registry services.  So let's start with a very high-definition of
what (a) registry services is.  It's the data that's passed between
registrars and registries regarding registrations.  It's things like
the dissemination of zone files and security involved in that.  And
it's really any service that only the registry operator is capable of
providing by reason of its designation.

 And to go back to one of Chris' points earlier on, this question is
not scored, but I can't emphasize the importance of taking the time
to complete it.  It's critical because it really forms the basis for
the rest of the answers in the technical and operational capabilities
section.

 So it's essential to comply with the security components that are
required to protect the data between the registry and the registrar,
and to protect that data from unauthorized access and any tampering.

 It's very important to give a thorough description of what your
registry services is, and here I would say don't focus so much on the
"what" but really focus on the "how."

 So my recommendation to anybody that's completing this -- the
answer to this question is to list each of your registry services,
list the technical components, the business components, the risks
associated with them, how you're going to mitigate it, and then use
that as a framework when you're completing the rest of the questions
throughout the technical section.

 Now, to pick on something that John actually said, if any of your
registry services require a further analysis, then they're going to
be considered by the registry services technical evaluation panel, or
RSTEP.

 This isn't just for new TLDs.  I mean, existing registry operators
have to go through this process as well with regard to any new
registry services.

 To give you some examples of registry services that VeriSign has
submitted, you have registrar lock, which is requiring additional
authorizations for changes to be made to the second-level domain
name.  Obviously, when we went for DNSSEC, to DNSSEC able dot com and
dot net, another example of a registry service.

 So this isn't just something that happens for new gTLDs.  It
happens for existing TLDs as well.

 So ICANN is really looking to make sure that you comply with all
the RFCs that you need to, and that you comply with all of the
industry standards.

 And if you have any risk -- or any thoughts that there's risks
about you not being able to do that, then you really should consider
talking to a -- you know, a registry services provider.

 Now, it's obviously up to you, as the applicant, to know the
questions, know your answers, know the score, and then do a risk
analysis of an in-house registry versus using the services of a
technical provider.

 I would recommend that you speak to registries, you get their
pricing, you understand the difference between the service that
you're going to be able to provide versus theirs, and the impact of
the potential scores.

 Then you do a cost/benefit analysis of working out do I do it in-
house, do I do it outside, do I outsource it, and look at that with
the risks and really think about your major cost items.

 So your major cost items are going to be things like your
provisioning systems, the SRS -- shared registration system -- the
WHOIS, the ability to technically comply with all of the requirements
of IPv6, of DNSSEC, the redundancy that you have to have in place,
the monitoring, the reporting, and all of the things that you need to
do to ensure compliance with escrow.

 So really at this stage, Fred, I would just say:  Do the risk
analysis, speak to registries, do a cost/benefit analysis, and if you
do it properly, then that will lead you to the right decision for
your own TLD application.

 >>FREDERICK FELMAN:  My guess is there are very few organizations
that have the wherewithal to actually do the technical services
themselves; that most will be relying on third parties.  There are
very few exceptions.  I think Tom wanted to say something.

 >>THOMAS BARRETT:  I think one consideration applicants have here
is not only identifying that they're registry services but deciding
how much of their future roadmap they want to reveal as well.

 Because if they don't reveal it all now, they'll have to come back
and go through an RSTEP process with ICANN, and you only need to look
at ICANN's Web site to understand that that can sometimes be a
lengthy process and can somehow disrupt your business plans.

 So you need to consider how much you want to reveal up front which
perhaps could eliminate that RSTEP later on.

 >>FREDERICK FELMAN:  All right.  Then Questions 24 through 44, on
to some more technical and operational issues.  And really it seems
like choosing a partner to provide registry services will be really
important, you know, to avoid extended evaluation in the application
process in operating a gTLD.  What are the considerations for
choosing a registry provider, Chris?

 >>CHRIS WRIGHT:  So in no particular order, there are a number of
different things that you should be thinking about when you're
talking to a registry services partner.

 Obviously, experience is going to be very important.  Someone who
is going to be trusted with the running of your TLD and effectively
something that you just paid at least $185,000 to obtain -- and I say
"at least" because you're definitely going to spend more than that --
you need to make sure that they know what they're doing.  You need to
make sure that all those complex technical processes that were just
described are going to be adhered to, and that the system is going to
be performing and behaving as expected.

 ICANN has provisions in the current registry contract that say that
if you don't comply with those services and you're unable to comply
with them in a reasonable time frame, that they can then take the TLD
back off you, regardless of any amount of money that you've paid or
anything like that.  If you are not able to comply with all of the
requirements that ICANN sets out, then ICANN can come in and take
your TLD back from you, and I'm sure it's going to be a lot more
complicated than that, but it does that in there.

 Navigating the ICANN landscape can also be pretty -- a pretty
daunting task.  So you want to make sure that your registry services
provider is familiar with the ICANN landscape, familiar with, for
example, the RSTEP process that was just described, and familiar with
what needs to be done in order to comply with ICANN policies and just
generally keep ICANN happy.

 Stability is also important.  You want to make sure -- obviously,
this is a pretty important asset that you're trusting the running of
to somebody, so you want to make sure that that person or that
partner is going to be around for the long term.

 Taking your TLD and moving it from provider to provider to provider
is generally not going to provide a good experience to your customers
or your end users.  Registrars will get particularly frustrated at
constantly having to connect to different registries and so forth,
and that's going to have a detrimental effect on your channel.

 So you want to make sure that the provider that you choose is
around for the long term.

 Flexibility is also important.  There are -- with all the different
TLDs coming out, there's going to be a various -- various different
business models and various different ways that people are going to
try and differentiate themselves, so you need to make sure that your
registry services provider is prepared to be flexible and work with
you on your different business models and make sure that you are able
to innovate and compete effectively.

 There are many other things.  Focus, having the resources
available, being committed, making sure you're dealing with an
organization that is a registry services provider, that's its core
business, that's what it does, it's not just something that started
on the side to try and become part of the TLD process.  Essentially
you just want to choose a partner that has a proven track record for
dealing with TLDs and can help you navigate this complex landscape.

 Many other things to go on, but I think we're going to run out of
time.

 >>FREDERICK FELMAN:  Awesome.  That was great, Chris.  Anyone have
anything else to add?

 All right then.

 In the interest -- actually, let's do this next question, and then
we'll sort of skip maybe a couple so we can get on to some meatier
topics.  But, first of all, abuse prevention, you know, has been a
very hotly debated topic all along the process.  Especially with
respect to rights protection mechanisms.  In fact, I think there were
two or three groups created.  The STI and the IRT and some others to
even address some of these topics.

 And certainly the GAC has been active.

 And so given that, what are the minimum requirements for rights
protection mechanisms and how would an organization decide what to
implement and how, Tom?

 >>THOMAS BARRETT:  So with the recent guidebook, all TLDs are
required to offer both a sunrise period and a trademark claims
prelaunch service.

 They're all required to have a single point of contact for
potential abuse.

 But this is an opportunity for you to go beyond that, be more
innovative and offer some other rights protection mechanisms.

 You do, in fact, get extra points if you have a way of promoting
WHOIS accuracy, and making rights protection one of your -- your core
objectives.

 I do want to point out that -- what's very important here is that
when you do your budgeting, ICANN has declared that the trademark
clearinghouse, the cost of that will be shared not only by trademark
owners but also by registries and registrars.

 So don't forget to include at least a placeholder in your budget. 
And at this point, that's all it can be, because there is no defined
cost yet to the registries for the trademark clearinghouse, but you
need to make sure that you put something in your budget so you're not
blindsided once those costs are known.

 >>FREDERICK FELMAN:  All right.  And Mike, would you like to add
something to that?

 >>MIKE RODENBAUGH: I probably would be remiss if I didn't speak on
this topic, I think.

 [ Laughter ]

 >>MIKE RODENBAUGH:  Yeah.  Like Tom said, this is really an
opportunity for applicants to go above and beyond and score some
extra points in the guidebook, not to mention posit themselves as
being a safer, more secure registry, which would be attractive, I
think, to a lot of registrants.

 You could do things like WHOIS verification up front.  You can
provide searchable WHOIS functionality which in itself will give you
an extra point.  You could have antiphishing and malware policies. 
So you have to implement what's called a uniform rapid suspension
process that's been developed for trademark issues, but you can also -
- and I would highly recommend also having a policy in place to deal
with fraudulent use of domain names.

 And then the final category in general would be content
restrictions.  You know, particularly if you're a community TLD, but
even if you're a vertical generic TLD, you want -- you probably want
to have some rules around the content in your TLD so that it doesn't
become a dot com or doesn't have a lot of speculation from outside of
the industry.  You may not want pay-per-click pages in your TLD. 
These are all rules that you need to consider in advance.

 >>FREDERICK FELMAN:  Excellent.  Well, thanks, Mike.

 The next sort of question is with respect to security, and there
have been a lot of sessions on security.  In fact, there was a DNSSEC
session earlier today, and it's a very important topic but I think
it's one that we probably can't do justice to in this time period so
we're going to pass by that.

 After that, there is a technical overview of the proposed registry
which is Question 31 that sort of tells the high-level story of the
technical and operational aspects and outsourcing plans and things
like that.  We're also going to move on from that as well.

 Because I kind of wanted to spend a lot of time on this sort of
amorphous section which is the financial capabilities, because this
is really sort of a power-packed section of the guidebook.

 Because really, you know, the fact that you have, you know, audited
and balance sheets and income statements and cash flows and all of
that, you know, that's one aspect but that really implies that you've
spent a lot of time thinking about the business, and sort of what's
behind it, and I was hoping that perhaps, John, you could talk a
little bit about the business planning process behind getting a TLD
started up.

 >>JOHN MATSON:  I'd be happy to answer this question, Fred.

 [ Laughter ]

 >>FREDERICK FELMAN:  Thank you.  I'm sorry for that again.

 >>JOHN MATSON:  No problem.

 So just a little context on the financial questions first so you
can get a sense as to what the evaluators are thinking, or why these
questions are structured the way they are.

 So 45 starts out and says, "What's your entity financials, the one
that's applying?"  So, you know, just to get a sense of what is the
financial capability of the entity that is applying.

 But then 46 is the actual registry pro forma itself.

 So those are two very different things, and just making that clear.

 Then 47, 48, and 49 are breaking down the registry financials in 46
and saying, "How well do you understand your costs?  How well do you
understand your funding and revenue?"  And then finally, "How well do
you understand your contingencies?"

 And so the evaluators are looking to understand:  Do you
competently know and can you forecast and plan for a conservative
financial position?

 And that's -- and really, the encouragement for you is
"conservative," because when you read the notes and the criteria, it
says that, "Is there funding in specified accounts or are you relying
on revenue from operations to run your business in out-years?"

 And I can tell you that if you're running on a low-cost model that
then says in year 2 or 3 I am going to be relying on the revenue from
the name sales of my business, that is going to be viewed in a less
favorable light than someone who says, "I have the full funding for
all three years and the revenue that I will generate is in addition
to that."

 Also, just back on Question 18, you want to be clear that Question
18 in your mission and vision is not asking you to disclose your
revenue plan or how you're going to make money.  That's what you do
here.  And also, when you look at how your volumes and forecast of
the names you're going to sell, how do they compare to prior launches.

 Now, the benchmark that was done -- the benchmark study that I did
before looked at those prior TLDs, and that benchmark study is
available on the ICANN Web site, as well as the Architelos' Web site,
and I want to look at that and see how did prior gTLDs achieve their
name volumes over time and compare your projections against what
those showed, or have other market studies that explain why your
projections are valid.

 Because the evaluators are going to look and see, does this
financial story hang together?

 >>FREDERICK FELMAN:  That's a great answer to the question.  I have
heard a lot of discussions about distribution models, and there was
some talk about that sort of coming into this.  And I was just
curious:  Would anyone like to sort of talk about how you might think
about the marketplace and how you bring your TLD to marketplace and
what you have to worry about there?  Tom?

 >>THOMAS BARRETT:  Sure.  I think a key part obviously is your
distribution channel.  Not only are you required to -- you are
required to use ICANN registrars, but that doesn't mean they are
actually your sales channel.  So you need to think that through
carefully.  Registrars are going to be overwhelmed with a number of
new TLDs, and so shelf space is going to be very scarce at the
registrars out there.

 You may decide just to work with a few of them who are willing to
work with you.  You may decide with vertical integration a reality
that you can become your own registrar and try to forge your own
channel that way.  But I think that's a huge consideration.  And it
is worth looking at past TLDs again to see which ones were able to
utilize ICANN registrar channel effectively and which ones do not.

 >> Could you make sure you push your microphone on when we're
talking because it will be hard to hear.  Thank you.

 >>FREDERICK FELMAN:  Go ahead, John.

 >>JOHN MATSON:  Just additionally when you look at the scoring, you
need to score eight points in this section and there are six
questions.  So that means you must get a two on 47, 48, 49 or get a
three on 50.  I think Sara may address some things around 50.  But
you need to think about how aggressive your business plan is or
conservative.  

 And you'll see in there, there is a most likely case and then we
ask you for ranges or the evaluators have to look at ranges of your
contingencies and how you are going to plan for that.

 So you need to do some very robust financial modeling of upside and
downside.

 Also, the new DAG asks for confidence that the information you are
sharing is the same information you shared with your investors
because they want to make sure that they're getting the same story
that you have committed to in your investment discussions.  So
there's no two sets of books in this application process.

 And just the same sort of transparency that's required of ICANN and
this whole process we work within, ICANN is expecting transparency in
this application process.

 >>FREDERICK FELMAN:  All right.  Just so that you guys are aware in
the audience and also on the remote participation, we will start to
take questions in two questions from the audience and elsewhere.

 First of all, if you look at this whole process, it involves a
substantial financial commitment by individuals as well as commitment
from a planning perspective.  So, you know, what exactly will people
have to do to demonstrate their financial commitment to ICANN, Chris,
as they start to apply?

 >>CHRIS WRIGHT:  So in interest of time, I will try to keep this
brief.  So there is a number of business considerations to think
about with respect to the financial commitment.  Obviously, the
answer to question 18 comes into this a bit as in what your TLD is
all about, who your target audience is and what your policy is.  What
is the potential number of people that can register in your namespace
and then how many of those people do you think you will actually
convert.  And that sort of comes back to the value of your namespace
and so forth.

 Clearly there are a lot of -- there is a big technical cost, there
is a big technical commitment, and that sort of comes back to what we
were talking about before about outsourcing or taking it in-house and
doing it yourself.

 Channel was also touched on.  How are you going to get these out to
market?  Are you going to compete with that shelf space as
registrars?  How much money are you going to throw at that?  How much
of your resources are going to take to get your TLD be the one that
the registrars are selling or get the registrars on board?

 Marketing, how are you going to make the end users buy your TLD as
opposed to somebody else?  So there is obviously a financial
commitment required there.

 Something that we haven't talked about yet, contention.  So if
you're not the only one that's applying for this TLD and you end up
going off to auction, there is going to be potentially significant
amount of funds required for that.  So you definitely need to make
sure you've considered that.

 Obviously describing all of this to ICANN is going to be inherently
difficult.  So potentially you need to consider just what are the
financial costs involved with actually applying?  We all know it is
$185,000 for the application fee to ICANN.  But there is a
substantial cost in initially developing your application and then
potentially engaging the services of various other organizations to
do trademark checks, background checks, check for if your string
conflicts with something or talking to registry service providers
about getting registry services or marketing dollars or helping you
write all this up and present it to ICANN in a way that's going to
pass.  There's potentially a spend there.

 And then obviously you need to consider all the typical things you
consider when you write a business plan.  What's your long-term
goals?  When are you expecting to get a return?  Have you been
realistic with your projections?  What's your best case, your worst
case, et cetera?  There is a pretty substantial financial commitment
here that needs to be made and you do need to make sure that you
understand it is a lot more than just $185,000.  And if that $185,000
is scaring you, you don't even want to look under the covers as what
the rest of the money is that you are going to need.  So, yeah,
thanks.

 >>FREDERICK FELMAN:  And, in fact, you have to actually put in an
irrevocable line of credit or a deposit down for three years of
operation.  So they are going to look at your financials and make
sure you have the wherewithal to actually make it through your three
years and you will put your money where your mouth is proverbially.

 Now, are there any other things that people would like to add to
with respect to this before I move onto the next section?  Then,
lastly -- the last question before we get on to your questions is the
technical operations, the critical registry operations.  They are
sort of the nuts and bolts of any registry.  So what's the best
approach for answering question Number 50, Sara?

 >>SARA LANGSTONE:  I am going to be brief here because we don't
have a lot of time.  This really covers five critical areas of
registry operation, your DNS resolution, the operation of your
provisioning service and your WHOIS, the registry data escrow
reports, the maintenance of the properly assigned zone in accordance
with all the DNSSEC requirements, essential.  It all maps back to how
secure your registry, and its operations are going to be for your
registrars and for your registrants.

 It is really important because you get three points here.  And as
Fred talked to, you need to be able to provide a letter of credit or
an irrevocable cash escrow for three years worth of operating these
five critical areas.  

 If there is one point that I could make here, I have to stress you
can't mess with this stuff.  If any of these goes wrong, once your
award has been made, then it puts your registry operator designation
at risk.  It's got to go beyond just getting the TLD awarded.  You
have to be able to operate these five critical areas.

 That's it.

 >>FREDERICK FELMAN:  All right.  So it's now time to take your
questions, so there are microphones at the front of the room.  And so
if you would like to come forward and ask a question, I'd welcome you
to come forward at this time.  Or if we also have questions at the --
on the online system, Carole I think might have an opportunity to
read them as well.  We will start with one from online and we will
often from there.

 >> CAROLE CORNELL:  Thank you.  The first is from Danny Younger. 
The guidebook advises that an intergovernmental organization, IGO, is
eligible to file a legal rights objection if it meets the criteria
for registration of a dot INT domain name.  Are applicants being
provided with an authoritative list of the IGO acronyms/abbreviations
that are protected under Article, I think it is, 6 of the Paris
Convention for the Protection of Industrial Property?

 >>FREDERICK FELMAN:  Wow, that's a very technical first question.

 [ Laughter ]

 And I don't know that I'm qualified to answer that.  I would
actually probably rely on staff unless someone else has an answer to
that.

 >>MIKE RODENBAUGH:  There is definitely a section of the guidebook
that links to the various lists that compose the overall pool of
reserved names.  I'm not sure about Danny's specific reference to the
IGO list, but I would imagine that there is at least a link there.

 >>FREDERICK FELMAN:  I would imagine as well.  I could paw through
it, but it is 300 pages and I'm not sure I could do that right now.

 Yes, sir?  Please state your name and your affiliation.

 >>DIRK KRISCHENOWSKI:  Dirk Krischenowski from dotBERLIN.  There
are quite a lot of companies still out there which might apply for
dot brand or dot trademark or dot company name.  And they still have
a problem to figure out if the application might be a standard
application or a community-based application.  There are some brands
which are obvious worldwide on the market.  There are some very local
ones.  There are big companies which associate with communities with
a few hundred thousand people or small companies with five people or
so.  That's a question which is not answered by the guidebook.  And
even very big, large companies have this question.

 >>FREDERICK FELMAN:  I think Tom would like to answer that.

 >>THOMAS BARRETT:  My initial impression is the whole reason they
need to do the community route.  If they own a trademark in that
brand, then it won't be contested.  And there is no advantage in
claiming a community of people that use Canon cameras, for example,
or IBM computers.

 >>DIRK KRISCHENOWSKI:  But still there's a question where we have
already discussed in the last couple of years of competing
applications, like Sun and Son or whatever.  And that might be an
advantage to an application of a company if they have a community
application.

 >>THOMAS BARRETT:  Right.  They would be arguing their community of
people that buy Sun computers, whatever their product is.

 >>FREDERICK FELMAN:  Or user of the technical product potentially. 
There is a specification actually within the questionnaire, and I'm
just sort of trying to paw through it to find it.  But I wrote some
notes which are, how is the community delineated specifically?  So
that actually is required.  So you must specify what attributes make
up individuals in that community.  You must demonstrate actually it
is structured.  You must demonstrate your relationship with that
community; and it asks for a verbal answer, how you'll actually
identify the registrants of that community and make sure that
registrations will occur within it and how you'll maintain your
accountability to that community.  

 And those are some of the questions that are asked in the guidebook
with respect to identifying how you are, in fact, a member of that
community.

 >>MIKE RODENBAUGH:  I could just add one thing on there.  You do
have to elect whether you are going to go as a standard or community-
based application.  And Dirk raises some good points.  There may very
well be some advantages particularly if you know you have a
likelihood of contention.  It just goes to trying to clear and figure
that out and strategize up front as soon as possible.  

 But for dot brands, there's also the notion of being a single
registrant TLD which has finally been defined in the latest iteration
of the guidebook and essentially allows you to -- so long as you are
going to register all of the names to yourself or your company or
your business partners, then you, for example, do not need to use
ICANN-accredited registrars and you have some relief from some of the
other obligations in the guidebook.  So it's yet another option that
dot brands can explore.

 >>FREDERICK FELMAN:  All right.  I think we have another question
online from Carole.

 >> CAROLE CORNELL:  The next question is:  What happens if a new
company applies without any financial history?

 >>FREDERICK FELMAN:  Who would like to take that?  John?

 >>JOHN MATSON:  That is contemplated, and it is expected that there
will be companies that do apply without -- they have just been
formed.  They just have to provide that information in their
application clearly stating what the condition is, how they were
formed.

 >> CAROLE CORNELL:  The follow-on to that is:  What if the
ownership structure stake changes post the evaluation phase?  I know
we will have to inform ICANN, but does it negatively impact the
application?

 >>JOHN MATSON:  That one would be difficult to comment on.  That's
why ICANN is asking you to provide the information.  Obviously, if
after the application a decision is made, before going to auction,
two parties may decide to come together and change the formal
ownership structure, again, background checks would have to be done. 
There are all kinds of things that would happen in that material
change that would have to be evaluated.  So it could have a
significant impact.

 >>FREDERICK FELMAN:  It seems to me, if I recall correctly also,
shell companies are specifically discouraged as well in the
application process.

 Was there another question?

 >> CAROLE CORNELL:  I just have one, and this has to be the last
question because of the time.

 >>FREDERICK FELMAN:  Perfect.

 >> CAROLE CORNELL:  It says:  Can you provide an estimate of how
much on top of the 185 fee will be required for a new gTLD?

 >>FREDERICK FELMAN:  Does anyone want to answer that?

 >>MIKE RODENBAUGH:  I'll answer it with the quintessential lawyer's
answer "it depends" obviously on your business model and lot of other
factors, not only yours but the business models of others in your
industry, whether you are likely to fall into a contention set. 
There's simply all sorts of answers.

 But safest bet is it is going to be at least 2x that number and
considerably more in many cases.

 >>FREDERICK FELMAN:  Yes, you know, I've heard a lot of numbers. 
If you go ahead and you create your financial statements, you're
going to look at that and you're going to have to at least come up
with three times the amount of your annual operating budget for a
continuity perspective.

 So I wanted to thank everyone and sort of wrap this up at this
point, especially as we're transitioning to the next session, which
is the open forum.  First of all, thanks to my panelists who have
done an excellent job.  Thanks to ICANN for arranging this session
and staff including Carole and Karla and also to the scribes and
translators and to the audience, I really appreciate you coming out
during lunch today.  So thank you.

 [ Applause ]