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New gTLD Update
Monday, 20 June 2011
ICANN Meeting - Singapore
 

 >> Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome senior vice president,
ICANN, Kurt Pritz.

 [ Applause ]

 >>KURT PRITZ:Thank you.Thank you very much, and, you know, your
kind reaction from a while ago this morning was really directed at me
but also directed at so many people that did so much work on this
program, both in the ICANN staff and in this room, and those that
aren't able to make it tonight.So if everybody who wants to attend
come on in and if you want to continue talking, you can leave and do
that too.Thanks.

 So what we're going to talk about today is really an information
session again on what the recent developments are for the applicant
guidebook, that guide for new gTLD applicants who wish to delegate a
new top-level domain, to bring this pretty knowledgeable community up
to speed on the latest changes and afford the opportunity to ask some
questions about it.

 I'm joined really ably here today by Karen Lentz, ICANN's manager
of research and content and singularly responsible for the whole gosh
darn applicant guidebook, Michael Salazar, the new gTLD program
director who is charged with the execution work now and has retained
an excellent team of people to work toward that end, and Barbara
Clay, ICANN's vice president of communications, who will discuss the
communications plan.

 So you're safe because we have them and not just me.

 The agenda really is a brief reflection on the community
participation for this program, a description of what the board
approved so we all read through the resolution this morning and I
wanted to briefly review that to give an indication of exactly what
the board said today, and the rationales for those decisions.

 Then Karen's going to take us through the latest changes in the
guidebook.

 Michael is going to describe how ICANN's getting operationally
ready, both to evaluate the applications and then for ICANN to
provide services afterward to the new top -- the new top-level
domains.

 Barbara is going to talk about our communications program that is
launching presently, and then I'll just wrap up with some time line
comments.

 So first, I want to discuss briefly with you and reflect briefly on
the community participation in this program.

 So this next set of slides really is for three things.One, it gives
me the opportunity to demonstrate my mastery of ICANN arcania in the
guise of all these acronyms that we've invented.

 Two, it affords me briefly the opportunity to thank again the vast
numbers of people that volunteered their time and worked really hard
to execute the program.And three, I really want to point out while
we've been at this a long time in this time line, really a lot of
work was accomplished in short periods of time.Bursts of activity
that solved very difficult problems that were raised by the community
and then dealt with in the guidebook so we could get to where we
wanted to today.

 So we -- you know, this really started with the GNSO I think four --
four GNSO chairs ago, right, Bruce?Chuck, Avri, and Stéphane.

 And that group's information -- that group's work was informed by
various working groups.There's an IDN working group that discussed
the delegation of IDNs to ensure that they were delegated along with
ASCII new gTLDs.

 There was a reserved names working group that wrote a substantial
report about how names should be reserved and not.A protection of
rights working group that came to certain conclusions about the
guidebook.And the GAC at that time was actively involved and wrote
their processes about new gTLDs.

 Afterwards, the GAC stayed involved and worked closely with the
board in developing some compromises around geographical names.

 An IDN working group was formed that was chaired by Harald
Alvestrand and Ram Mohan that discussed the delegation of variant
TLDs and also the possibility of delegating either two or single-
character IDNs, and progress was made there.

 At the Mexico City meeting, it was decided to form the
implementation recommendation team, and nowhere in that name does it
say "protection of rights" or "trademark" or anything, but a group of
18 community IP attorneys that met several times in all regions of
the world to first develop a set of rights protection mechanisms and
then deliver the message about those rights protection mechanisms and
inform the public, and after that, the STI group, of course, was
formed to give community ratification to those rights protection
mechanisms.

 Other groups were formed around that time -- right after that time,
too.A high-security TLD team was formed to investigate whether a
certain class of TLDs should be formed where registrants have a
higher expectation of security, and how rules for that might be
written.

 There was a zone file access -- zone file access group that was
chaired by Craig Schwartz where they delivered a product on providing
a simple form for those who were needing zone file data, to access it
simply in an environment where there were so many TLDs.

 I was amazed when I saw this chart how long the JIG, the IDN
working group, has been in place, working on the delegation of single-
character names and elsewhere.

 There's the uniquely named Rec6 working group that discussed
certain objection processes, morality and public order.The guidebook
was markedly changed due to their work.And then I think the work went
on.

 So how come the slides aren't going on?There we go.

 And then vertical integration working group was formed to tackle
that very difficult problem.

 And then a temporary drafting group was formed to discuss registry
contract issues and hold open meetings about issues regarding the
registry contract.

 And presently, there's three groups still going on, right?There's
the board interaction with the GAC that continued yesterday.And if
you read all the materials -- and later on, we'll talk about the
homework that the GAC has assigned to the board and the board and GAC
working together as the program is launched.

 The joint applicant support working group is working very hard to
ensure that a program is in place in time for the first round, so
that applicants from developing countries who need it can get
financial aid or technical advice or the like.

 And then a session just ended, the IDN -- it's called the VIP team,
so one of the last acronyms we're going to create.Actually, I think
Mike has the last acronym.To discuss how variant TLDs could be --
could be delegated.

 So a long period of time, but short bursts of very intense,
difficult work, where substantial work product was created.You know,
we were sitting in with the board last night just going through
documents and as we were scrolling through pages and pages of stuff
that had been written, and all of it really substantial, we just --
some of us just started laughing, amazed at the amount of work that's
been undertaken and done by the community.

 So again, I'll never get over that amount of work that was done by
you all.

 So the -- I'm only going to spend a second on new gTLD program
goals, because I hope they're self-evident but it's all about user
choice, it's about competition, it's about innovation, it's about
bringing new services to registrants, for the benefit of communities,
for IDN users, and for increased commerce and new jobs, and most
importantly, to work in the public interest.

 This opening commercial part is almost over.

 Certainly there were some really intended results.There are some
really intended results of the new gTLD program, right?A safer
environment with new trademark protections, malicious conduct
mitigation measures.

 There's been a collaboration over scaling the root zone and
ensuring these TLDs are launched in a safe, secure, stable manner.

 The creation of dispute resolution processes that take disputes out
of the ICANN world and lets parties work them out in international
fora that's friendly to all regions.

 Several other implementation instances for the protection of
registrants such as registry transition procedures, so registrations
and domain names continue to resolve if a registry experiences a loss
of control.And then also insights applied to other areas, so many of
the improvements her for gTLDs have been applied to registrars in
that environment.

 So that's that.But the new gTLD program is just a teeny-weeny bit
like the space program, right?There's some unintended benefits
too.You know, it's not as sophisticated or technically complex, but
in doing all this work, we've actually created new processes and ways
of going about our day-to-day jobs that I think has made this ICANN a
whole better place.

 We created the, you know, very effective cross-functional cross-
stakeholder working groups that got the consensus.We created this
process for the board and GAC, working together outside of ICANN
meetings, to discuss and make progress on substantive issues that,
you know, personally I think really revalidate the government role,
the effective government role, and the ICANN model, and proves that
up.

 There's been increased transparency mechanisms about how we post
things on the Web site, how we do public comment summaries, react to
public comments, and turn them into actions in the policy
implementation.

 There's new groups and participants in the ICANN model from large
multinational corporations that are now involved.Governments are more
actively involved.The at-large has become very significantly involved
in the new gTLD process.And as a result, in ICANN all told.

 So that's a significant shift, I think, for ICANN.

 And then finally, the ICANN staff is working more closely with the
technical community.You know, I gave a presentation to the RSSAC for
the very first time.I was all nervous in front of those smart guys,
you know, but found that in order to reach agreement on root zone
scaling or other technical issues, outreach and better ICANN
relationships with the RSSAC are -- and IETF, there's ICANN staff now
more closely linked with the IETF.So that's all unintended benefits
that were -- that we're going to go on with.

 So what did the board approve this morning?

 Well, it approved the launch of the new gTLD program, as you
know.It approved a time line for launch that we'll talk about right
at the end of this session.It approved -- or it recognized, at least,
that a risk assessment has been done.The ICANN board risk committee
has, over periods of months, looked at risks associated with the new
gTLD introduction and developed mitigations -- mitigation measures,
or approved mitigation measures for each one of those risks.

 ICANN's published two communications plans and is poised, you know,
with press conferences today and news releases to launch that
communications program.

 Later this week, ICANN will consider and approve a budget for FY12
that includes a separate carve-out for new gTLDs.

 The board approved continuing on with the applicant support work
and committed to reaching a conclusion there and demonstrated its
passion for doing that in time for the first round.

 It alluded to, but has not published yet, the rationales for its
decision.So one of the improvements we've seen in transparency over
the last several months is the ICANN board publishing more complete
rationales for its decisions.

 The new gTLD program is really a host of decisions about trademark
protections and registry transition and root zone scaling, and so
you'll see -- you'll see published with the board minutes, I think --
what?It's posted!

 But you won't be able to read it in one day.

 The rationale associated with all these decisions the board's
made.It's also posted a rationale in those few areas where there's
still disagreement with the GAC.

 And then the board also approved and recognized the operational
readiness plans that have been done to date.

 So I talked briefly about the rationale for board decisions and got
ahead of myself, but you'll see rationales for each one of these
decisions that was necessarily made as part of the new gTLD program
approval.And, you know, I bracketed the economic study and vertical
integration rationale -- rationales because we've already been
published at an earlier time.

 So I just want to talk about a couple other things before I step
aside for Karen.

 One is the Board/GAC cooperation in this that I kind of think is
remarkable.

 My formatting got off.

 So, you know, we started with, you know, 12 different issue areas
that the board -- that the GAC raised in their indicative scorecard,
which was -- you know, in all the paperwork we get, it's another
document, but really a unique piece of work that defines where the
GAC really wanted action taken on the applicant guidebook and
specified these areas of study, and those -- of those areas, there
were 80 specific subissues.Not all differences.Some required
clarification and, you know, through an exchange of documents and
teleconferences that -- between subject matter leads and the face-to-
face meeting in Brussels and subsequent calls and revisions to the
guidebook and then a new set of conference calls and new face-to-face
meetings with the GAC that were held in San Francisco, so much
substantial progress was made in resolving -- you know, I would
personally say nearly all of those issues, but a lot of those issues.

 And -- but here on this slide, you know, in true ICANN style, we
focus on the differences and say, "Wait.You know, you didn't agree
with us, but, you know, I must say on all those 12 issues, with the
exception of a couple, we are now in agreement."And only in the case
of trademark protections, where there -- the GAC issues were
essentially a list of about 30 different issues, you know, we're left
with four differences.And in those areas, yesterday if you attended
the GAC meeting you know what I -- you know, I heard some things, but
mostly I heard that people that were really passionate about
protecting trademarks and registrants argued about their theory about
the best way to go about it.

 And so everybody was on the same side of that.

 So at the end of the day, I think the Board/GAC consultation was
remarkable.It's kind of unfortunate that, you know, to me that the
GAC and the board are both groups that, you know, they never
celebrate their victories, so when one side would make a concession,
nobody stood up or clapped, you know, except for me quietly in the
back of the room.But rather, they just went on.

 But, I mean, I think one of the things -- one of the steps we need
to take in ICANN, working with the GAC and other groups, is to take
some time and say -- you know, look back on the remarkableness of the
work and the fact that agreement was reached in areas where we didn't
think that agreement was possible.

 So there's work left to do with the GAC.We have many areas of
agreement.We have some areas of difference.And we have areas where
the GAC has said, "You know, we're going to compromise on this issue
but we would like you to do some additional work."Some of that work
is going to take place with the GAC and the board together.Some of
the work is going to take place by the board or ICANN staff.Some of
the work will take place before applications are accepted.Some of the
work will take place after the first round.

 But these are the things that the GAC has left for ICANN, and ICANN
has agreed to.

 One is to flesh out the language around the new GAC advice
procedure and the new GAC early warning procedures that the GAC is
going to work on language, so that they can clearly communicate the
intent of their advice to the board.

 Two is that the GAC wanted governments to be able to object and
have dispute resolution processes available to them for free, and
ICANN responded back that that might break the bank but we'll --
ICANN would pay for one objection per government.

 And so the GAC is not certain about that, but what they've said is,
"In your communication program, make sure you tell governments that
this is available to them and how it works."

 The GAC asked us to complete documentation on root scaling and the
steps taken to ensure that the whole system around the root zone
continues on in a stable manner.

 There are certain questions about community TLDs going forward and
how they can amend their agreements, and the GAC wants to have a
voice in that, so certainly they could.

 And then there is trademarks, you know, where the GAC has
compromised.They said, "Well, we'll compromise on some of these
issues on the first round, but we'd like you to do a postlaunch study
to determine the efficacy of these trademark protections, and when
you contract with a trademark clearinghouse, we want you to put
certain things in place so that if we want to change later -- you
know, if we want to change IP claims to addressing only perfect
matches of, or exact matches of, trademarks we want to later switch
to exact match plus a key term, that the clearinghouse has
demonstrated its capability for doing that and tells you how."

 So gratefully, I think, you know, the board's accepted those tasks,
and as a way to resolve a lot of the differences between the board
and the GAC.

 So, you know, at the end of the day, you know, I think that's great.

 So I'm going to thankfully get off the stage now for a while but
I'm going to turn the clicker over to Karen, who is going to take us
through some of the guidebook change -- the most important guidebook
changes that have been made.

 >>KAREN LENTZ:Okay.Good afternoon.I will be describing the changes
that have taken place in the guidebook since the previous ICANN
meeting in San Francisco, which spans a couple of versions.

 There was a discussion draft version that we posted in April, got
comment on, and then turned around and published another version on
May 30th, which is the version that the board passed a resolution on
this morning.

 The applicant guidebook is organized according to a certain
logic.There is a -- starting off with the introduction of the various
stages of the process, and then the subsequent modules which roughly
correspond to additional stages of the process that an application
might go through.

 So starting with Module 1, some of the significant changes recently
concern the background screening process that applications go
through.Applicants list their key individuals, such as directors,
officers, or shareholders in the application.

 There was some discussion, a few meetings ago, about to what extent
that information should be made public, so what we've arrived at is
that the names of the individuals will be posted along with the
applications.The rest of the information would not be published.Any
personally identifying information.

 Also on the topic of background screening, we added a few
additional areas where applicants are checked for issues in their
background such as cybercrime or consumer protection issues.

 Also, Module 1 takes you through the process and there's been some
detail and clarification on how application comments are used at
various stages of the process.There's some new provisions on customer
support, in keeping with the work that's underway now to get those
resources in place for applicants.

 Also, we've incorporated the GAC early warning and GAC advice
processes, so that it's clear where those fit in in the various
stages of the process.

 And then finally, there is a provision on changes to the guidebook
going forward.It's expected that, you know, new standards will be
adopted or new policies will come about, and so the guidebook will
continue to evolve to keep up with those developments and ICANN, of
course, will publish and communicate all of those changes.

 Module 2 concerns the evaluation procedures.All applications go
through a pretty rigorous evaluation.

 Module 2 contains the questions and criteria that are used for
scoring.A lot of changes have been made to that.Mostly in the form of
clarification, responding to questions that we got in public comment
and other forums about, "What does this mean and what does this --
what would it take to get this type of score?"

 So we've tried to clearly differentiate the different -- different
scoring levels that are used in the criteria.

 There have also been some substantive changes on some of the
questions, particularly rights protection abuse prevention and
security.The questions and scoring are written to provide awesome
incentives for applicants to adopt certain procedures that are seen
to be beneficial.

 Also added to the application form are some additional questions
concerning the mission and purpose of the application.There are some
questions going to what the applicant expects will be the benefits of
their particular application and what might be some of the costs and
what measures are being adopted to reduce those.

 So there's a new set of questions that has been included in the
application, although it's important to note those are not part of
scoring, but are there to inform a later cost/benefit study on the
experience once these TLDs are operational.

 Also in Module 2, we incorporated some advice from the SSAC on
orphan glue records.They did some analysis on those and came up with
a recommendation that registries should be required to remove orphan
glue records when they're presented with evidence that they're
present in connection with malicious conduct.So that has been
incorporated there and in the registry agreement.

 Finally, one of the -- one of the areas of evaluation is geographic
names, to ensure that government support is there where -- as
appropriate for certain types of geographic names.

 There had previously been some language providing guidance on what
level or type of government support might be expected for various
types of geographic names.In discussions with the GAC, it came out
that it's really a matter for each national administration to
determine what the appropriate level is, and so that's been -- the
guidebook has been amended to reflect that with the advice to
applicants that they seek counsel on that within the jurisdictions
that are relevant to their application.

 Module 3 concerns objection procedures, and the change to this has
been to add a new -- a new section, and to kind of differentiate a
couple of different things.

 We've incorporated the procedure by which the GAC may give advice
to the ICANN board and how that -- how we expect that that could
occur in the context of advice concerning particular applications
that were received.

 So the module has incorporated that GAC advice procedure, but it's
intend to do clearly differentiate that procedure from the
independent formal objection filing and dispute resolution procedure
which is open to any third parties who have standing to object to a
certain application on certain defined grounds.

 So that's how the module has been updated.There have been a few
revisions to the standards for making determinations on particular
types of objection, one on the community objection having to do with
how an objector could establish detriment, which is part of the
standard that's been the subject of quite a bit of comment and
discussion about how that standard should be put together.And then
also the limited public interest objection standard has been enhanced
by some work and recommendations done by the Rec6 working group.

 Also in Module 3, we have incorporated, as Kurt mentioned, some
limited fee exemptions for governments who wish to participate in the
objection process and also for ALAC.

 Sorry about that.

 Module 5 -- I'm skipping over Module 4 because there's really --
that's been stable for a while, so there's nothing really significant
to highlight there.

 Module 5 is the -- concerns the last stages of the process, how an
application that's been successful transitions to becoming an
operational new TLD.And so Module 5 also includes the registry
agreement.A couple of changes here.There's been some clarifications
to the obligations that registries have to investigate reports and
complaints and requests that they get from law enforcement or
government agencies having to do with illegal conduct that may be
occurring in a TLD.

 There has been some addition -- an additional provision concerning
the registry's obligation to provide data for economic studies that
may be done once the round -- the application round has completed and
we're looking at the -- you know, weighing the effects that that has
had.

 The registry agreement also includes the fees that are
applicable.There's been a change to that.There's a transaction-based
variable component which was previously based on a number of
registrations threshold which was changed to a volume-based threshold.

 There's also been some clarification on the process that's used for
releasing country names at the second level in gTLDs.There were quite
a few questions on that in the last round of comments that we got.

 And, finally, there's a confirmation about ICANN's intention to
respect court orders that came out of the discussions with the GAC
about scenarios where a government may have given its approval to an
application and that at some point has a dispute with the applicant
resulting in some sort of court proceeding.

 Finally, also attached to Module 5 and the registry agreement are a
number of other documents having to do with trademark protection and
how the registry operates going forward.And so a few of the changes
here, there's an expectation for a trademark clearinghouse which will
enable rights holders to register marks in one central place and then
have that data be accessible to all of the new TLD registries that
want to use it for their prelaunch services.

 There's been a broadening of the types of rights that are accepted
in the clearinghouse.There's been some clarification on
costs.Basically, the costs are born by the parties using the
services.So the trademark holders would pay at the time that they
enter the clearinghouse, and the registries would pay while they're
using the data for sunrise or trademark claims services.

 The URS is a rapid -- uniform rapid suspension system which is
intended to address clear-cut cases of abuse and provide a quick
means to suspend those names where that can be established.So we've
simplified and streamlined that, reduced some of the time frames for
the various stages and also simplified in terms of using form
complaints and limited words and that sort of requirements.

 Proof of use has been clarified.Use can be shown with a declaration
and sample of how the trademark is being used.

 There has also been a limited loser-pays pro physician for the URS
if there is a complaint where a number of domain names are at issue.

 Finally, in the post-delegation dispute resolution procedure, this
is a procedure that a trademark holder could bring against a registry
operator if they fear that the registry operator is affirmatively
engaging in some infringing activity.

 The clarification there is that ICANN -- the remedies that would be
imposed by ICANN as a result of that type of proceeding would be in
line with what was recommended by the panel who was hearing that
complaint.

 I think that's the end of my section.I would like to make one
additional comment, which is that through this process over the
years, I've really come to value the public comment process for the
type of dialogue that it makes possible and the intelligence that
people bring to solving some really difficult problems.I found it
actually -- started to look forward to getting comments and finding
that process really exciting.It's been an honor for me to be involved
in crafting this program with all of you.So thank you for that.

 [ Applause ]

 And I'm going to turn it over to Michael Salazar who will take you
into operational readiness.

 >>MICHAEL SALAZAR:Thank you, Karen.

 So, Kurt, I'm a little confused about what we accomplished
today.Was it the easy part or the hard part?And what part do I have
left going forward?All of it?Yeah, thanks.

 So I want to cover a couple of areas regarding operational
readiness.Now that we have an approved guidebook, these are
effectively key components of the program.The first two components
are really focused on the applicant while the third is really just an
update.

 So the first component being the TLD application system, or TAS;
the second, the applicant service center, or the ASC; and finally the
service providers update.And I have no idea why there is an acronym
associated to that particular topic.We like acronyms apparently.

 So what is TAS?TAS is the driving system for the application
program.It is where we are going to manage the entire application
processing program.It is where applicants will register and submit
their applications, where evaluation panelists will access that data
to conduct their analysis, provide the results.And it is where we
will track progress of those applications through every step in the
process.

 So it is built on something called a business process management
platform, or BPM platform.And the reason why we chose that platform
was that it allowed us to configure or automate business processes
such as the ones I've just described.

 Another key component of this is that, if you can see up on here,
there is a screen shot of one of the screens, the applicant landing
page.It will provide updates as to where you are within the
application process for a given application.And it allows us to send
auto reminders to the applicant so that you, as an applicant, are
aware of what tasks that you have to complete or are aware of what
important dates are coming up.

 So over the next few months, we will be releasing some TAS
resources.Just to let you know where TAS is today, we're actually
wrapping up testing this week.We expect to have a full working
version of the tool available next week or within the next couple of
weeks.

 Once we have that done, we are going to record some demos and do
some Webinars.We understand that -- we've gotten a lot of questions
about what TAS is going to look like and how is that going to work
with filling out your application.So we're going to do some Webinars
to make sure you have some comfort over what that registration
process looks like and what the application submission process looks
like.

 We will also provide some user guides -- some detailed user guides
and quick-start user guides.So I don't know, if you're like me,
whenever I buy anything like a stereo or computer or TV, you get the
really detailed guide and the quick-start guide.I pretty much just go
to the quick-start guide.We will make both available for you.

 The second area is the applicant service center, or the ASC.The
goal is to make sure we are able to provide support to applicants
that is timely, that is consistent, and that is transparent.

 We will be working on a program that will also be
multilingual.Sorry, kind of lost my train of thought there.It will be
multilingual and multiregional.In fact, what we've done so far is
we've hired our customer service lead, Trang Nguyen.

 Trang, if you want to stand up and wave to the crowd.

 So Trang has been hired.She has been on board since April.And Trang
is tasked with building the ASC.In fact, we actually have a request
for proposal that's been posted on our Web site to hire -- or find a
global customer service center provider to help us achieve our goals.

 We are also going to build a number of self-help tools.So the
purpose of the self-help tools are that applicants can get answers to
their questions fairly quickly.

 You shouldn't have to wait for an answer to come through the ASC.We
hope that all of the information is available either through a
frequently asked question or through a knowledge search database.And
we are also exploring some online forums.

 So what's available now?The frequently asked questions.We have an e-
mail that's been available for quite some time, the newgtld@icann.org
e-mail.And we've received a lot of questions about the program to
date.In fact, a lot of those questions which we've answered have
helped form the basis for the FAQs and for the knowledge search
database that we are building.

 I strongly encourage you that if you have questions about the
program, that you start asking those questions as soon as possible.A
lot of what that will do will help drive what other additional
guidance we may need to provide to you to help you with the
application process.

 The service providers update.So there are a number of evaluation
panels that we have -- that we have to staff with global service
firms.So the process for identifying the evaluation service providers
started in February of 2009, and we've gone through a process of
identifying a set of qualified global service provider firms.We short
listed the list of the responses, and we put them through an oral
presentation exercise.We actually asked them some pretty tough
questions about what their skill sets were, what their global
presence was, what approach would they take to evaluate the
particular application for the particular panel, so for geographic
names or string similarity.

 And we now have our short list -- or I should say, our final
candidates.We are in the process of negotiating contracts with
them.And as soon as we have those contracts negotiated, we will
announce who those firms are.

 And I just lost the rest of the presentation.Okay.So I guess I'm
done.

 [ Laughter ]

 So the last slide is we are posting requests for proposals for a
number of other service providers.I have talked about the customer
service center RFP.We are going to post the background screening RFP
in the next few weeks.And then we're going to continue to look for
other service providers to fill the needs that we need here.So if you
know anybody, please let them know that we are going to have RFPs
posted on our Web site to provide services.And that is all I have.

 Barbara, I believe, is coming up to talk about communications.Thank
you.

 >>BARBARA CLAY:Hello.I'm delighted to be here to discuss the
communications plan that we will be implementing beginning today, as
Kurt mentioned earlier.There we are.

 We have some pretty ambitious goals for where this communications
plan is concerned.Whenever your target is global awareness, to make
everybody on the planet aware of an opportunity, that's a pretty high
standard to set.So we are going to hit the ground running in doing
this essentially with those goals that you see but with four key
components to the communications effort I will get to on the next
slide.

 We do want to aim at businesses rather than at end Internet users
at this stage because obviously the average user is not going to
apply.And we want to communicate clearly, colorfully, concisely and
creatively.

 One of the key things about launching such a big, ambitious plan is
to ensure that you get your audience engaged.So, you know, we can't
do this with -- apologies to my beloved ICANN -- with the kinds of
jargon that has meaning within this community.So our communications
program is going to be in plain language, in the six U.N. languages
because this is a very international effort but it is also -- its
goal is going to be to engage people, to get them involved in why new
gTLDs are so incredibly good for the world.This is launching
immediately as that slide says.This was the board's decision last
night.

 But I know that some questions have come up today about why is it
going to take so long to have the communications program fully in
force?One of the reasons is that we are looking at June and July
which is summer in many countries and we want our audience fully
engaged.But it is also the fact in order to do a global campaign like
this, we needed to have -- need to have the time to get, you know,
things like contracts in place with agencies and all and to do a
proper job of it.

 So we are starting out actually today with a real bang because as a
news story today, we are already seeing that there is tremendous
interest in new gTLDs.We've got -- we're on the home page of the
BBC.We've got major stories in all the international wire
services.Many, many, many news stories out there today, and that's
indicative of how compelling a story this is going to be from a press
standpoint.

 Let me just go up to my only other slide, which is the four
components of this program.Number one point is that we are going to
be taking, if you will, a road show to the various regions.And while
we will have communications running in every region for each one of
the months of this period, we are going to have focus in individual
regions through a road show concept.So we will address existing
conferences, for instance.We will create events of our own as
appropriate in some countries.But to really gin up the level of
knowledge and understanding in individual regions requires that you
devote quite a bit of dedicated effort to that region at some point.

 What's not on that list, but I think in light of everything that
has been occurring here in Singapore, it is important to note that we
will be focusing a lot of attention on developing nations as well.The
challenges from a communications standpoint can be bigger in those
countries, not always but sometimes.We will be developing plans on
how to maximize our impact in those countries.

 In terms of the focus on social media, I think I'm talking to the
right crowd here in terms of saying that social media is an
incredibly powerful way to reach people.So we are going to be very
sharp and very much sharpening our efforts to engage people via
social media around the world.

 Mainstream press coverage, I've just touched on except for that
"mainstream" word because that's actually a very important word in
this context.We tend to speak, you know, to our community, and we
have a very broad understanding of a lot of the concepts behind the
new gTLD program.But the people that we're trying to reach may
not.You know, probably don't in most cases.So we want to move this
out of the tech sphere and much more into the broad mainstream
audience so that people who haven't really followed ICANN, haven't
followed new gTLDs, can get engaged and understand it.And that starts
with the press coverage that you see today.This is not tech reporting
-- just tech reporting that we are seeing.It is the mainstream
press.That's a good sign.

 Lastly, global advertising.We do think this is an effort that
requires outreach from an advertising standpoint around the
world.This is one of the reasons we needed the longer period of time
in order to get this plan up and running fully.It is up and running
today but will be gaining momentum over the next few months.

 And we hope to launch the global advertising campaign in September,
and that will be a very key element in terms of how we raise global
awareness.Advertising works.It's a good investment of our time and
effort to get the word out.

 So I'm going to leave it at that for now and hand it back to Kurt.

 I understand, Kurt, we are going to have some questions
afterwards.So we would be happy to hear those as well and
respond.Thanks.

 [ Applause ]

 >>KURT PRITZ:Thank you, Barbara, Karen, and Mike.I hope to be as
eloquent as Karen some day.

 I just want to review with you timelines.This one is looking
backwards, so we don't really need to look at it.But I wanted to post
it in the presentation for the record's sake.It was the plan leading
up to the consideration in Singapore that was done a few months ago.

 And then this is a reasonable facsimile of the timeline that the
board posted today.So I wanted to make sure it was clear with
everybody what the intended plan is, and that is that the
communications plan essentially kicks off today given some of the
spinup time for the global and regional efforts that Barbara
described plus our goal of ensuring that everybody who wants to
understands about the possibilities, opportunities and risks about
the process before it's launched.

 The communications strategy, the communications campaign or period
will extend through the launch of the process.But applications will
be received starting on January 12th, which is essentially the first
real available day after the close of the holidays.And then the
application window will close three months later.

 The rest of the time spans are really dictated by what's already in
the guidebook, so we anticipate that the published results of the
first initial evaluation round will be made in November.And then the
rest of the time frames are described in the guidebook, and you can
refer to that for that.

 But the steps after that are execution of an agreement with ICANN,
going through the pre-delegation testing and then the IANA function
delegation process.And then we also want to note our continuing
commitment to meet the commitments we've made in the Affirmation of
Commitments to conduct a review of the new gTLD program 12 months
after the new gTLDs are operational.

 So I just wanted to close with that timeline and thank
everybody.We're available -- we're available to take questions up
until the top of the hour when the session is scheduled to end.And I
just want to leave up or I'll put back later that there's already
been new gTLD sessions here:Sort of a new gTLD 101 that was attended
by 120, 130 people on Sunday.And then just finished was a session on
IDN variants.We want to delegate variants to flesh out the new gTLD
experience.

 But coming up on Wednesday, there's a trademark clearinghouse
discussion where implementation details of the clearinghouse will be
discussed among experts in registry operations, trademarks and the
like.Thursday there's a getting-ready session.That's really attended -
- or the panel is community members.And then another session about
the joint applicant support working group for support of new
applicants from developing countries, sort of a summit there.

 So please attend those sessions and look at the calendar because
there's a lot of other items going on, too.It is a pretty darn cool
meeting and a great place with, I think, the best ICANN food ever so
that already makes it a success.

 So I wish I had the right words to thank everybody for their
participation in this.Many of us are going to go on and keep
implementing this program and partake in it.And all of us together
will be working here on the next big thing, and there's lots of work
to be done to make this ICANN work.So thank you very much.

 And I'll take questions -- or the team will take questions.

 [ Applause ]

 Hi, Adrian.

 >> ADRIAN KINDERIS:My name is Adrian Kinderis.First of all, Kurt,
fantastic job.I feel like my Christmases have all come at once.I just
had a quick questions with the timeline.Can you bring that timeline
slide up for me, please.

 >>KURT PRITZ:No, that's too much transparency.

 >>ADRIAN KINDERIS:The November 2012 timeline you have there on
initial evaluation results, is that initial evaluation?Because I was
always of the understanding that "initial" was just a quick check
before you then went off to standard evaluation.It seems that's a
long window for the initial evaluation.

 >>KURT PRITZ:So, the initial evaluation means you would be done.So
then you would have passed technical and operational evaluation.And
we think the majority of applications, you know, will not be objected
to or will be subject to contention.So that's done, and then you
would enter into the contract execution process.

 >>ADRIAN KINDERIS:You are pretty much then good to go.Thank
you.That's good clarity.

 >>KURT PRITZ:So if that's it?Hey.

 >> ANNALISA ROGERS:Hi, Kurt.My name is Annalisa Rogers.I have a
question.After the application window closes, is there a time period
where ICANN publishes who has applied or what strings may have been
applied for?

 >>KURT PRITZ:That's right.It is in the guidebook.It is expected to
be about a two-week time frame between the closure of the window.We
will publish all the applications at the same time, so that will be
the first time they are all public.

 And your name?

 >>ADRIAN KINDERIS:I'm Adrian Kinderis.I'm under instructions from
staff.So just on -- would you have to wait for a board meeting in
order to get your delegation?

 >>KURT PRITZ:So the -- so I'm going to try to spin this up but have
to go back and get a better answer.But the board is intending, as I
recall, not to approve every single delegation but rather, you know,
provide oversight for the process.

 So I'll say that the board's not going to approve every
delegation.It may approve the results -- I think it is going to
approve the results -- Dan, do you want to help me?It is going to
approve the results of the evaluation when they're done.

 He's looking it up.We will provide clarification.

 >>ADRIAN KINDERIS:Thank you, sir.

 Karen knows.

 >>KAREN LENTZ:So as Kurt said, it's not the intention that the
board would have to approve the delegation in every case.As it's
spelled out in Module 5, there are certain conditions that might
trigger a word review, you know, if there was an objection or if the
applicant has negotiated material changes to the agreement or there's
been some material change.Those are just some possible things that
might cause that.

 In general, if it is a standard application, has met all the
criteria, has not been -- you know, an exception in any sort of way,
that that would be able to be approved without explicit approval from
the board for the individual applications.

 >>KURT PRITZ:Thanks, Karen.Hi, Jeff.

 >>JEFF NEUMAN:Hello.Jeff Neuman.Thank you, Kurt, for everything you
have done and for getting this to where we are now.

 Quick question on -- actually Michael had a list of all the service
providers that were -- we need to get.I didn't see on there the
emergency backend registry operators.I think that's -- so the
question I had is:What's your timeline for selecting those or having
an RFP for those so that we can get some more information on the
continued operations instrument?

 >>KURT PRITZ:How come that wasn't on the list, Mike?

 I'll report to you that Karla and I actually had a meeting in the
front row there while others were speaking about release of either an
RFP or an RFI with certain constraints around it to make sure we get
the right amount of information.So we're looking forward to releasing
that in the next week or two.We are trying to figure out -- I'm going
on vacation.And we are trying to figure out how to get that released
while I'm gone.So I'm sorry about that omission.

 Okay, well, thank you very much for coming everybody.And for all
your time.

 [ Applause ]