The European Commission filed a comment on the recently updated ICANN’s New gTLD Auction Rules.
To summarize the European Commission is “deeply concerned about the implications that the Auction Rules in the
gTLD program may have for the protection of public policy interests, competition, openness and innovation.”
“ICANN should implement Auction Rules that are consistent with its Bylaws, its non-for profit status, the objectives of the new gTLD Program and the Applicant Guidebook to promote competition, diversity, innovation and consumer choice.”
For anyone that has interest the comment period with ICANN closes today at 23.59 UTC.
Here is the statement by the European Commission:
We are deeply concerned about the implications that the Auction Rules in the gTLD program may have for the protection of public policy interests, competition, openness and innovation. ”
“As a general principle, ICANN should implement Auction Rules that are consistent with its Bylaws, its non-for profit status, the objectives of the new gTLD Program and the Applicant Guidebook to promote competition, diversity, innovation and consumer choice. As expressed in several comments already submitted during the comment period, the current Auction Rules are advantageous for portfolio applicants rather than for small, innovative and community applicants, which is at odds with the “diversity and innovation” policy that ICANN seeks to promote.
It would be desirable to give these applicants a more even playing field when they come up against larger portfolio holders in the contention process. Also, ICANN’s auction rules has not yet proven convincing to the community and deserves being revisited in light of the input received.
2. Relevant GAC advice
The European Commission regards positively the explicit mention in the Auction Rules of the need to “resolve any applicable GAC advice” prior to the participation in the auction process, as part of the applicant’s “eligibility” criteria, but regrets the lack of reference to “community applications” or applications with community support, despite the reiterated GAC advise. In this regard the European Commission seizes this opportunity to recall the following passages of recent GAC advice:
* “The GAC advises the board that in those cases where a community, which is clearly impacted by a set of new gTLD applications in contention, has expressed a collective and clear opinion on those applications, such opinion should be duly taken into account, together with all other relevant information.” (Beijing Communique)
* “The GAC reiterates its advice from the Beijing Communiqué regarding preferential treatment for all applications which have demonstrable community support, while noting community concerns over the high costs for pursuing a Community Objection process as well as over the high threshold for passing Community Priority Evaluation”.…
