Wampum

I read this to the ICANN Board this morning, after more prep work than I care to recall.

Good morning. My name is Eric Brunner-Williams, and I am speaking to you on behalf of the initial signatories of the Step-by-Step proposal. I represent one of the signatories as the principal of the native, aboriginal, and indigenous cultural and linguistic top-level domain project, one of many similar efforts to preserve living languages and cultures.

Along with linguistic and cultural and city and regional tld projects, we have started the Step-by-Step proposal.

We held a workshop on Monday which was well attended and we have had discussions with the relevant stakeholders, which are continuing.

After detailed discussions with many interested stakeholders, I am now presenting the Step-by-Step proposal to you, the board.

The Step-by-Step proposal is an early window, nothing more, and nothing less. We are convinced that while the still unresolved issues are relevant, a fair number of applicants fall under the RADAR and do not affect these open issues.

Applicants seeking to enter this early window should commit to the highest level of protection regarding these open issues:

• credible registration and compliance policies,
  
• recognition of legitimate protection of ip rights, and
  
• anti-phishing mechanisms,
  

through a shared binding code of conduct, implemented on a scalable platform.

The Step By Step proposal, while allowing some applications to move forward, harms none.

An early window tests the system.

Stakeholders having legitimate concerns about open issues, will be able to flag applications which do not conform to their standards, removing those applications from the early window.

Linguistic and cultural, regional and city applications mentioned in the draft of this proposal are examples. The early window is would be open to any application which is willing to commit to the higher levels of protection I mentioned previously.

We invite discussion with the board and the ICANN community. An online fora is available at stepbystep.tel.