<div dir="ltr"><div class="gmail_default" style="">Dear Kathy,</div><div class="gmail_default" style="">Thank you for your vigilance. It is crucial that ICANN protect the carefully negotiated terms that were so unexpectedly dismissed. The role of the Non-Commercial Users Constituency is to safeguard the use of the domain system. (And the use of the word "community"!) Small organizations (and tribes) depend on representation in these deliberations. NCUC has served as an important protection for universal rights in the digital world.</div><div class="gmail_default" style=""><br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="">I will send a proper statement, but I had trouble logging in as my password had been hacked. I am awaiting my new password.</div><div class="gmail_default" style=""><br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="">I greatly appreciate your work in this matter.</div><div class="gmail_default" style="">DeeDee Halleck</div><div class="gmail_default" style="">Founder Deep Dish Television</div></div><br><div class="gmail_quote gmail_quote_container"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Tue, Jul 22, 2025 at 9:33 AM Kathy Kleiman <kathy@dnrc.tech> wrote:<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><u></u>
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<h3><span style="font-weight:normal">All, </span></h3>
<h3><span style="font-weight:normal">I share my post yesterday in
CircleID. If you read it and are concerned, then if you/your
organization could write a very short comment (in addition to
our NCSG comment), it will make a big difference as we debate
this issue in the Implementation Review Team after the comments
close. </span></h3>
<h3><span style="font-weight:normal">Best and tx, Kathy </span></h3>
<h3><a href="https://circleid.com/posts/an-open-letter-to-the-icann-community-not-the-community-priority-evaluation-we-intended" target="_blank">An Open Letter to the ICANN Community: Not the
Community Priority Evaluation We Intended</a> </h3>
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<td colspan="2"><span>By <a href="https://circleid.com/members/1624" title="Kathy Kleiman" target="_blank"><strong>Kathy Kleiman</strong></a>
</span> <span>American
University Washington College of Law</span> </td>
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<li>July 21, 2025</li>
<li>Views: 309</li>
<li><a href="https://circleid.com/posts/an-open-letter-to-the-icann-community-not-the-community-priority-evaluation-we-intended#comments" target="_blank">Comments: 1</a></li>
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<p>To the ICANN Community,</p>
<p>Today, I share a warning about serious changes to the Community
Priority Evaluation (CPE) of the New gTLD Applicant Guidebook.
They are not driven by public comment, but by a few voices
within the SubPro Implementation Review Team—and they are very
likely to lead to disastrous misappropriation of well-known
community names, including those of Tribes, Indigenous Peoples
and NGOs around the world.</p>
<p>The reason why is that we (the ICANN Community)
envisioned.CHEROKEE for the Cherokee Nation and other tribes,
peoples and NGOs, not a group that loves their Grand Cherokee
and Jeep Cherokee cars and jeeps. <em>But the policy written by
the SubPro PDP Working Group (2016-2020) and accepted by the
GNSO Council and ICANN Board recently was deeply changed—and
replaced with a scoring system that eliminates the ability of
well-known communities to stop unrelated groups, or a fraction
of their community, or a group completely opposed to them from
using the same name as a new gTLD, provided the applicant has
some semblance of internal organization and activity<strong>.
This change will result in the misappropriation of
well-known community names and great harm that we never
intended when we wrote the policy.</strong></em></p>
<p>The Subsequent Procedures PDP Working Group (meeting 2016-2020)
was fairly balanced in its recommendations for both the
applicant and communities that might oppose the CPE application.
I share some of the language showing the independence of the
Community Experts on the CPE panel to research and other
communities and tribes to send comments and letters of
opposition and raise concerns—all to be taken into account in
the CPE evaluation. <em>Final Report, 2020</em><sup><a href="https://circleid.com/posts/an-open-letter-to-the-icann-community-not-the-community-priority-evaluation-we-intended#fn1" id="m_-3309718295935584776ref1" target="_blank">1</a></sup>.</p>
<p>Unfortunately and very recently, a few members of the SubPro
Implementation Review Team (“IRT”), a group charged with
implementing policy, not rewriting it, made change after change
to the language, terms and scoring of the Community Priority
Evaluation (“CPE”) rules. In April, they stripped out carefully
negotiated policies and balances to create an unfair advance for
applicants—including by new rules telling the CPE Panelists to
greatly limit the use their expertise and independent research
skills and not to weigh heavily external opposition and comments
they may receive.</p>
<p><strong>The changes are buried in Module 4: Contention Set
Resolution, 4.4 Community Priority Evaluation, pages 133-150,
of the final draft of the Applicant Guidebook now out for
public comment.<sup><a href="https://circleid.com/posts/an-open-letter-to-the-icann-community-not-the-community-priority-evaluation-we-intended#fn2" id="m_-3309718295935584776ref2" target="_blank">2</a></sup></strong></p>
<p><em>If you look at the new CPE scoring system—called Community
Priority Evaluation Criteria (Section 4.4.7, p.139 in draft
AGB)—in the edited versions (“redlines” that I share from the
IRT on April 14, 2025<sup><a href="https://circleid.com/posts/an-open-letter-to-the-icann-community-not-the-community-priority-evaluation-we-intended#fn3" id="m_-3309718295935584776ref3" target="_blank">3</a></sup>, and April 30, 2025<sup><a href="https://circleid.com/posts/an-open-letter-to-the-icann-community-not-the-community-priority-evaluation-we-intended#fn4" id="m_-3309718295935584776ref4" target="_blank">4</a></sup>, and a special redline combining
both sets of edits that I created<sup><a href="https://circleid.com/posts/an-open-letter-to-the-icann-community-not-the-community-priority-evaluation-we-intended#fn5" id="m_-3309718295935584776ref5" target="_blank">5</a></sup>), you will see the hands of the CPE
Panelists are newly “tied” and they cannot engage in the
research and application of their knowledge that the adopted
policy requires.</em> Sadly, under the new changes:</p>
<ul>
<li>Fact-checking is limited solely to “information provided by
the applicant”—see <em>Combined Version</em><sup><a href="https://circleid.com/posts/an-open-letter-to-the-icann-community-not-the-community-priority-evaluation-we-intended#fn4" id="m_-3309718295935584776ref4" target="_blank">4</a></sup>, footnote 11, page (effectively
barring the Panelists from reaching out into the real world
for context, background, and investigation of other
communities and tribes with the same name).</li>
<li>“Majority ” is now defined only by the applicant—“according
to the size of the identified community of the applicant”
(Combined Version, footnote 7, page 5)—and not according to
the size of the much larger community, tribe or people that
also may be associated with the name (and for a much longer
period of time).</li>
<li>Scoring (CPE Evaluation) now ranks the Applicant’s view of
itself much higher than the rest of the world’s view of it. <em>“Established
Presence,” meant to be an external check, was recently
rewritten to require applicant only to demonstrate “an
external awareness of the identified community…prior to the
opening of the application submission period.”</em> But you
can be aware of a group and not agree they are the right
representative of a community’s name.</li>
<li>Similarly, while “Nexus” should provide balance, here too
the scoring weights what the applicant believes, not what the
world knows.</li>
</ul>
<p>And these are just a few examples. Under this new
language—newly shared with the community and not arising from
public comment—self-identified communities will win CPE. What a
prize for the applicant (no auction) and what a tragedy for the
peoples, tribes and NGOs of the same name and for far longer
than the applicant!</p>
<hr>
<p><em>Overall, if these rules are adopted, we can predict that
letters and comments of heartfelt opposition against CPE
applicants will pour into ICANN, only to be systematically
ignored by the Panel because of these recent changes to
scoring and evaluation criteria. </em>As shared above, this
April editing came not from accepted policy, but from a few
strong voices on the SubPro IRT.</p>
<p><strong><em>I fear disastrous misappropriation of the
well-known names of peoples, tribes and communities if
recent changes to CEP text and scoring are not reversed, and
the original language is not restored.</em></strong></p>
<p><strong><em>If you agree, I ask you to write a small set of
comments—and share you how to do it below—as it will make a
different.</em></strong></p>
<p><strong><em>Thank you for reading and caring,</em></strong></p>
<p><strong><em>Kathy Kleiman, Co-Founder ICANN’s Noncommercial
Users Constituency</em></strong></p>
<hr>
<p><strong>To Submit a Comment in ICANN’s Open Proceeding on the
Final Draft of the Applicant Guidebook, due July 23<sup>rd</sup>.
</strong></p>
<ol type="A">
<li>Go to the public comment link for this proceeding, [<a href="https://www.icann.org/en/public-comment/proceeding/final-proceeding-for-proposed-language-for-the-draft-next-round-applicant-guidebook-agb-30-05-2025" target="_blank">https://www.icann.org/en/public-comment/proceeding/final-proceeding-for-proposed-language-for-the-draft-next-round-applicant-guidebook-agb-30-05-2025</a>]</li>
<li>Hit “Provide your Input” (if you never done this before, you
will need to use your ICANN account and password (the one for
meeting registrations)—or create a new account).</li>
<li>Under INSTRUCTIONS, go to the Fourth Question:
<strong><em>4) Is the language in draft Module 4: Contention
Set Resolution consistent with Board-approved
recommendations, and are the concepts introduced therein
consistent across the AGB? Please note that comments
should be made on issues that have not been previously
addressed via Public Comment or in discussions with the
IRT.</em> </strong>
Choose “No,” and then explain your concerns and reasoning.
Referencing<em> Section 4.4 “Community Priority Evaluation”</em>
or <em>Section 4.4.7 “Community Priority Evaluation Criteria</em>”
will be useful to the report writers.</li>
<li><strong>Then hit “Publish.”</strong></li>
</ol>
<p>Thank you!</p>
<p>[Endnotes and links on the CircleID post at <a href="https://circleid.com/posts/an-open-letter-to-the-icann-community-not-the-community-priority-evaluation-we-intended" target="_blank">https://circleid.com/posts/an-open-letter-to-the-icann-community-not-the-community-priority-evaluation-we-intended</a>]</p>
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</blockquote></div><div><br clear="all"></div><div><br></div><span class="gmail_signature_prefix">-- </span><br><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_signature"><div dir="ltr"><img src="https://ci3.googleusercontent.com/mail-sig/AIorK4zXKqiGYHhuX-gbryw2TtbO-dLUJFFVyVjFp7rr8axiZ3ts-0UvBgUwI7P7K8nRngxiiJ97iQA" width="200" height="152"><br></div></div>