First Competition, Consumer Trust, and Consumer Choice Review

The First Competition, Consumer Trust, and Consumer Choice Review was initiated in October 2015, after the launch of the New gTLD Program, pursuant to amendments to the ICANN Bylaws. The CCT Review was one of the new processes designed to ensure the transparency and fairness of the New gTLD Program.

Interrelationship with SUBPRO

The recommendations contained in the review team's Final Report often address issues or programs that are also the subject of the Policy Development Process for New gTLD Subsequent Procedures (SUBPRO). As a result, the ICANN Board passed many of the recommendations to the SUBPRO Working Group for deliberation and action within that policy development process.

Final Report

The review team issued its Final Report and Recommendations on October 10, 2018. The Final Report contained 37 recommendations for the ICANN Board to consider. Twenty-four of the recommendations were either identified as prerequisites to a new round of gTLD applications, or as "high priority" recommendations that "must be implemented with 18 months of the issuance of the Final Report."

Public Comment

The Final Report received a total of nine public comments during the public comment period. Comments largely came from ICANN bodies and stakeholder constituencies: comments were received from the ALAC and the GAC, as well as from the Business Constituency, IP Constituency, gTLD Registries Stakeholders Group, and Noncommercial Stakeholders Group. Comments were also received from the International Trademark Association, the National Association of Boards of Pharmacy, and John Poole.

ICANN Staff found substantial differences of opinion in the comments regarding the scope, commitment of resources, and relative importance of the recommendations. There were divergent opinions on many of the specific recommendations, and few instances of full consensus.

Board Reception and Recommendation Scorecard

The ICANN Board provided extensive detail on its decision-making process in its resolution adopting the Final Report. The Board accepted six of the report's recommendations for implementation, delegated or directed some recommendations to the relevant supporting organization or working group, and reserved action on some recommendations. The Board summarized its actions in a recommendation scorecard attached to the resolution.

The six recommendations that were accepted tended toward broad outlines of policy guidance, rather than specific policies:

• Recommendation 1: Formalize and promote ongoing data collection.
• Recommendation 17: ICANN should collect data about and publicize the chain of parties responsible for gTLD domain name registrations.
• Recommendation 21: Include more detailed information on the subject matter of complaints in ICANN publicly available compliance reports.
• Recommendation 22: Initiate engagement with relevant stakeholders to determine what best practices are being implemented to offer reasonable and appropriate security measures commensurate with the offering of services that involve the gathering of sensitive health and financial information.
• Recommendation 30: Expand and improve outreach into the Global South.
• Recommendation 31: The ICANN organization to coordinate the pro bono assistance program.*

*Contingent upon the SUBPRO working group deciding to maintain the pro bono assistance program in subsequent rounds

At-Large Advisory Committee. Considers and provides advice on the activities of ICANN related to the interests of individual Internet users (ICANN Bylaws). Not to be confused with the Non-Commercial Stakeholder Group.

Governmental Advisory Committee. Considers and provides advice on the activities of ICANN as they relate to concerns of governments, particularly matters where there may be an interaction between ICANN's policies and various laws and international agreements or where they may affect public policy issues (ICANN Bylaws).