Dot Health Limited which is a Famous Four’s application to operate the new .Health top-level domain (gTLD), today announced the creation of a Governance Council that will allow the world health community to provide input on the .Health TLD.
The Governance Council will be called upon to monitor, advise, and recommend best practices for the .Health gTLD.
It is expected that the Governance Council will be comprised of practitioners, scientists, researchers, and others involved in health industries, including not only medical health but also other areas of health.
The Governance Council will be called upon to advise dot Health Limited on best practices for the .Health gTLD, including Abuse Prevention and Mitigation (APM) Seal reporting system, intellectual property rights protection, gTLD rules, reserved second-level domain names, certification or authentication programs, and ensuring compliance with ICANN rules.
“The .Health Governance Council will be an essential part of the .Health gTLD,” explained Charles Melvin of Dot Health Limited. “Health is a powerful and important concept. From the beginning, we have believed that the .Health gTLD should be the premier digital space on the Internet for the health industry, and so, to accomplish this, we are calling on industry leaders to participate in the Governance Council and help shape .Health.”
Interested parties are encouraged to visit www.governancecouncils.com/health to express interest in participating.
Dot Health Limited representatives explained that expressions of interest would be accepted at this site for several months, with ongoing communications sent to interested parties prior to the Governance Council launch.
Officials also noted that ongoing Governance Council activity is subject to award of the .Health gTLD by ICANN.
There are four applicants for the .health new gTLD’s including DotHealth.
There is also an application by another party for the new gTLD .healthcare, .Med and .Hospital
There are also several formal objections filed for the proposed new gTLD .Health.
I read with interest “The Governance Council will be called upon to monitor, advise, and recommend best practices for the .Health gTLD.”
Question 1: Once an application is validated by ICANN, the applicant must stick to the rules established prior to being validated so what is the use of a Governance Council if rules cannot be changed?
“Participants understand that there is no intention to hold in-person meetings for the purpose of conducting Governance Council and/or Board business. However, it is understood that a Board, in conjunction with the associated registry, may one day elect to conduct a face-to-face meeting. Participants acknowledge that this is a possibility and agree to make accommodations at their sole expense if necessary.”
Question 2: if Council does not meet…what is the use of establishing a Council?
Thank you.
Jean
They certainly can make some policy suggestions on who can get a .health domain and hold virtual meetings.
In person meetings are not practical if you have participants from all around the world, unless you have ICANN’s budget
So it would be like offering a personality to join such a group in exchange of making policy suggestions on who can get a .health domain. Isn’t this supposed to be in the application itself already?
Since .HEALTH is not allocated yet and an application cannot be modified…I still don’t get it.
Jean
I assume this has been announced to overcome some of the objections, filed to the extension, I guess its a commitment by Famous Four if they get the extension.
The application states:
“The Applicant believes that the success of the gTLD will be determined largely by the sector’s key global stakeholders. These stakeholders will be interested in registering a domain and additionally be motivated to protect their sector from detrimental practices. The Applicant believes that stakeholders should have the opportunity to influence the gTLD and the way it is governed. Accordingly, the Applicant is establishing a Governance Council (“GC”), consisting of key stakeholders that will serve as an advisory body.”
This is in the application which was submitted for approval. If an applicant believes that stakeholders should have the opportunity to influence the gTLD and the way it is governed, then a Community application should have been submitted and such Council would certainly have had a role in the “construction” of the application, and prior to its submission…but not after.
I still don’t get it. Possibly Charles Melvin, could explain a little more.