DotConnectAfrica thinks it is going to get the .africa gTLD, following its successful Independent Review Process case against ICANN.
In a press release today, the company hailed last week’s ruling as a “resounding victory”.
DCA CEO Sophia Bekele is quoted as saying:
Going forward, we now expect ICANN to accept the binding IRP outcome, refrain from any further plans to delegate .Africa to the ZA Central Registry who should now be removed immediately from the new gTLD program; and cooperate fully with DCA Trust to ensure that the IRP Panel ruling is implemented so that .Africa can be delegated to DotConnectAfrica Trust
That’s right, Bekele reckons the IRP win means ICANN has to kick rival .africa applicant ZACR — which has already signed a Registry Agreement for the string — out of the new gTLD program.
Needless to say, it doesn’t.
The IRP panel refused DCA’s demands that ZACR be kicked out, and by ruling against DCA on a number of other counts, it essentially signed its application’s death warrant.
Bekele goes on to make three startling assertions about the case that have little to no basis in the IRP panel’s ruling:
During the IRP, DotConnectAfrica Trust clearly established three major findings: that ZA Central Registry lacked any valid endorsements for the .Africa string that it applied for; and that the purported Governmental Advisory Committee Objection Advice against our .Africa application was not by consensus; and that the ICANN Board had seriously erred in accepting the GAC Advice. The truth has prevailed and we are absolutely happy with the IRP Panel decision.
“I also give thanks to God for helping to correct this act of victimization that was committed against DCA Trust,” she added.
I’m not making that up. She really said that.
In Bekele’s opinion, DCA “established” three major findings, but “alleged” would be a better word. The IRP panel largely disagreed with or ignored the claims.
First, there’s nothing in the IRP’s decision that shows ZACR “lacked any valid endorsement” for its .africa bid.
ZACR has the unambiguous support of the African Union and says on its web site it has backing from 78% of African nations. The IRP declaration doesn’t even mention these endorsements, let alone question them.
Second, the IRP panel does not say that the GAC’s advice against DCA’s application lacked consensus. It says it lacked fairness and transparency, but did not dispute that it had consensus.
Third, the IRP did not conclude that ICANN should not have accepted that GAC advice, just that it should have carried it a bit more due diligence.
Finally, there’s nothing in the IRP’s declaration that gives DCA a chance of winning the .africa gTLD. In fact, the panel specifically decided not to give DCA that chance.
The closest the panel came to addressing any of DCA’s myriad accusations of ICANN wrongdoing is described in its ruling:
DCA Trust has criticized ICANN for its various actions and decisions throughout this IRP and ICANN has responded to each of these criticisms in detail. However, the Panel, having carefully considered these criticisms and decided that the above is dispositive of this IRP, it does not find it necessary to determine who was right, to what extent and for what reasons in respect to the other criticisms and other alleged shortcomings of the ICANN Board identified by DCA Trust.
So what happens to .africa now?
ICANN’s board of directors will discuss the IRP declaration at its next meeting, July 28, so we don’t yet know for certain how things will proceed.
However, some things seem safe bets.
The IRP panel suggested that ICANN should continue to refrain from delegating .africa, which has been on hold since May 2014, to ZACR. I think it likely that ICANN will follow this recommendation.
It also seems possible that ICANN may decide to reconsider (that is, consider again, rather than necessarily overturn) its decision to accept the GAC’s consensus objection to DCA’s .africa bid.
The panel’s key criticism of ICANN was that it failed to seek a rationale from the GAC for its objection. So ICANN may decide to seek such a rationale before reconsidering the advice.
The panel also told ICANN that DCA’s application, which had been rejected, should re-enter the application process.
Assuming ICANN accepts this recommendation (and I think it will, given the political climate), the first step would to be for DCA to finish its Initial Evaluation. ICANN rejected the DCA bid, based on GAC advice, before the IE panels finalized their evaluation DCA’s application.
Part of the IE process is the Geographic Names Review, which determines whether a string is “geographic” under ICANN’s definition and whether the applicant has the necessary support — 60% of national governments in .africa’s case — to be allowed to proceed.
DCA does not have this support, and it knows that this means its application is on life support.
It had asked the IRP panel to rule that ICANN should either give it 18 months to try to gather support, or to rule that it already has the support, essentially trying to lawyer itself into a position where it had a shot of winning .africa.
But the panel rejected both of these demands.
While DCA seems to have given up trying to convince people that its 2009 letter of support from the AU is still valid, it still holds that a 2008 letter from the executive secretary of the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa shows the requisite 60% support.
I don’t know whether this letter was ever formally withdrawn, but UNECA is today listed as a ZACR supporter.
However, even if the Geographic Names Panel ruled that DCA had passed its 60% threshold, the application would still fail the geographic review.
The rules state that “there may be no more than one written statement of objection” from an affected government, and DCA received GAC Early Warnings from 16 national governments as well as the AU itself.
No matter what DCA says in its press releases now, its application is still doomed.
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