Reconsideration

Reconsideration is one of ICANN's Accountability Mechanisms. This option is provided in the ICANN Bylaws Article IV, Section 2. Any person or entity materially affected by an action (or inaction) of ICANN may request reconsideration of that action by the ICANN Board.

Matters Subject to Reconsideration

Requestors may submit reconsideration requests if they have been adversely affected by:

(i) One or more Board or Staff actions or inactions that contradict ICANN's Mission, Commitments, Core Values and/or established ICANN policy(ies);

(ii) One or more actions or inactions of the Board or Staff that have been taken or refused to be taken without consideration of material information, except where the Requestor could have submitted, but did not submit, the information for the Board's or Staff's consideration at the time of action or refusal to act; or

(iii) One or more actions or inactions of the Board or Staff that are taken as a result of the Board's or staff's reliance on false or inaccurate relevant information.

The ICANN Empowered Community (EC) may submit a "Community Reconsideration Request" if approved under the rules listed in the "EC Mechanism" Annex of the Bylaws; and if the matter relates to the exercise of the powers and rights of the EC as defined by the Bylaws. Annex D outlines the process through which "Decisional Participants" may petition the EC to submit a Community Reconsideration Request.

Applicability to Objections to Applications, New gTLD Program

The reconsideration process was available for challenges to expert determinations rendered by third party dispute resolution service provider (DRSP) panels in the New gTLD Program, if the panels or staff failed to follow established policies or processes in reaching the expert determination. In other words, the substance of an expert determination could not be challenged, but a failure in procedural requirements could be.

Excluded from Reconsideration

The Bylaws expressly exclude the following subjects from the reconsideration mechanism:

• Disputes relating to country code top-level domain ("ccTLD") delegations and re-delegations;
• Disputes relating to Internet numbering resources; and
• Disputes relating to protocol parameters.

Process

Under the current Bylaws, the Board Accountability Mechanisms Committee (BAMC) reviews and considers the requests. In previous versions of the reconsideration process, the Board Governance Committee was responsible for the full review process (with no referral to the ICANN Ombudsman as described below). If the committee determines that the reconsideration request fails to meet the requirements specified in Article 4.2 of the Bylaws, or is "frivolous," it can summarily dismiss the request on that basis. Dismissal on the sole basis that the request is frivolous is rare.

If the reconsideration request passes through the initial review, the BAMC refers the matter to the ICANN Ombudsman for investigation. In the event that the Ombudsman must recuse themselves, the BAMC will investigate on its own. The Ombudsman may employ the services of experts to assist with their investigation. In addition, the BAMC may request additional information from the requestor, third parties, ICANN staff, and anyone else it deems relevant to the inquiry.

The Ombudsman (or the BAMC on its own behalf) completes a substantive evaluation of the reconsideration request. Following the completion of the substantive evaluation, the BAMC shall review and consider all information gathered in the written record, including supplemental information from any of the sources described in Sections 4.2(m)-(o).

The BAMC then submits a non-binding recommendation to the full Board for its consideration. The Board makes the final determination on the reconsideration request.

Urgent Requests

The requestor may request urgent review of an action or inaction by the Board if they believe that "timing requirements of the process set forth in...Section 4.2 are too long." An approved request for urgent review causes the entire process to operate under expedited time frames. Only actions by the Board are subject to urgent review.

Summary Table of Requests

The following table presents the reconsideration requests submitted to ICANN, their subject matter, and their disposition.

• "Deny" in the "Recommendation" and "Board Action" columns means that no action was taken regarding the reconsideration request (i.e., the request was denied).
• The "Dismissed?" column designates whether the request was summarily dismissed under the then-current standards for dismissal. In many cases, even if the committee's recommendation noted that a request could be summarily dismissed for procedural reasons, the reviewing committee would still address the substance of the request. In such cases, the "Dismissed?" column will read "No*" and the notes column will identify the justifications for dismissal.
• The requests are numbered by ICANN in order received by year. No requests were received in 2003, 2007, 2008, and 2009.

Reconsideration Request	Subject	Dismissed?	Recommendation	Board Action	Notes
99-1: Eric Brunner & Bob Gough	Proposing the creation of a separate Indigenous Intellectual Property Constituency	No	Deny	Deny
99-2: Gene Marsh	Inclusion of Top Level Domain Association in the Names Council	Yes	Deny	Deny	The original request did not include the required information, and a request from ICANN to Marsh to provide additional information went unanswered. Request was also time-barred.
99-3: Mr. Perelman	Allowing the registration of ?.com and ~.com	Yes	Deny	Deny	There was no action by the Board that could be reconsidered.
99-4: Karl Auerbach	Revocation of the agreement between the Dept. of Commerce, ICANN, and Network Solutions	No	Deny	Deny
00-1: Russ Smith	Reconsideration of the decision to cancel 800+ accidentally registered domain names with trailing hyphens (i.e., abc-.com)	No	Deny	Deny	For a brief period of time, NSI's software enabled people to register names with trailing hyphens, which was contrary to both RFC and existing policy.
00-2: Nigel Roberts	Contents of request withheld by request	Probably	No Recommendation Issued	Did not act	Both the request and ICANN's response are not published, at the request of Mr. Roberts
00-3: Paul Wilson obo APNIC	Inclusion of term "globally specified applications" in IANA Functions Contract	No	No Recommendation Issued	Did not act
00-4: Bret Fausett	ICANN's failure to timely publish board meeting minutes from April 6	No	Revise Bylaws	Bylaws for publication of meeting minutes revised after public comment
00-5: James Trefil obo Adam Corelli	Requestor lost a UDRP case and appealed in court; wanted the link to the UDRP decision removed from ICANN's website	No	Deny	Deny
00-6: A. J. L. de Breed	Rejection of an application for a New TLD under the 2000 program because it was accompanied by a $1,000 check, rather than the required $50,000 fee	No	Deny	Deny
00-7: D. Alexander Floum	ICANN Staff posted its evaluation of Floum's company, IODesign, as part of IODesign's application for a new TLD. The evaluation categorized IODesign's technical and business readiness as "poor." Floum wanted that evaluation to be removed.	No	Deny	Deny
00-8: Ivan Vachovsky 00-9: Roy Goldberg 00-10: Paul Stahura 00-11: Sarnoff Corporation 00-12: The .TV Corporation 00-13: Image Online Design, Inc. 00-14: SRI International00-16 Telnic Limited 01-2: .Kids Domains, Inc.	The listed reconsiderations requests all dealt with applications under ICANN's 2000 New TLD pilot program which did not succeed. All of them asked for reconsideration of those applications.	No	Deny	Deny	The committee, in its recommendations regarding all of these requests, prefaced their analysis of the specific request with a general overview of the selection process.
01-1: Beltraide	Request to reconsider delegation of .biz, because of confusion with the .bz ccTLD	No	Deny	Deny	"ICANN could not responsibly reject proposals for new TLDs merely because the applicants have requested TLDs that include letters also found in country-code TLDs such as <.bz.>"
01-3: Monsoon Assets Limited (BVI)	Request to reconsider non-selection of Monsoon's application for the New TLD pilot	No*	Deny	Deny	Reconsideration request was not timely submitted and did not substantiate its claims
01-4: Verio	ICANN's changes to the RAA prohibiting the use of WHOIS information for unsolicited marketing communications	No	Refer to DNSO, but make no changes at present	Accepted recommendation
01-5: Michael Froomkin and Jonathan Weinberg	Withdraw ICP-3 from the ICP Series	No	Deny, but adopt formal process of Board approval of designation to ICP	Followed recommendation
01-6: Russ Smith	Arguing for increasing publicity of materials relevant to UDRP procedures, standards, and rules	No	Forward suggestions to UDRP Providers	Approved the committee's suggestion	Responsibility for training third party neutrals rests with UDRP service providers, not ICANN
01-7: Edward Hasbrouck	RAA for .aero should be revised	No	Deny	Deny
02-1: David Ogden	Denial of registration of pops.int by the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants	No	Reverse Decision	Reversed Decision
02-2: Russ Smith	Enforce transfer obligations to comply with transfer policies	No	Deny	Deny
02-3: Tony So	Reversing deletion and loss of control of So's domain name	No	Subsequent events made the issue moot, so no action required; however, recommend a redemption grace period policy for registrants	Followed recommendation regarding a grace period
02-4: EthanKatsch	Dissolution of the Independent Review nominating Committee	No	Deny	Deny
02-5: Dotster, Inc.	Board resolution modifying agreement with Verisign to allow "Wish List Service"	No	Deny	Deny
02-6: VeriSign, Inc.	Board resolution 02-100	No	Modify Condition C to better meet the needs of consumers; no other action	Approved recommendation
04-1: Bret Fausett	Failure to post minutes of board meeting within timeline	No	Post was a day late; board should consider audio recordings of meetings; recommend staff training re: timelines	Approved recommendations
04-2: Danny Lee Younger	ga@dnso.org listserv archives not working	No	Problem was resolved before request was addressed	No action	Apologizing for delays in responding, staff noted that "We currently receive tens of thousands of pieces of spam for each legitimate request for reconsideration sent to reconsider@icann.org."
04-3: Network Solutions, LLC	Alleged approval of alterations to Verisign Registry Agreement	No	No recommendation	N/A	It seems possible that this request was overtaken by events surrounding the Site Finder litigation
05-1: Bret Fausett	Another missed deadline for posting of meeting minutes	No	Posting was late, although minimal impact b/c the affected public comment period deadline was extended; however, recommend real-time scribing of board meetings	Approved recommendation
05-2: Edward Hasbrouck	May 3, 2005 special meeting of the board was closed to outside observers	Yes			Ombudsman advised the committee that this request was no different from a complaint to the Ombuds office. Deemed frivolous.
06-1: Network Solutions, LLC, et. al.	Board approval of Verisign Settlement in February 2006	No*	Deny	Deny	Reconsideration requests are void if there was opportunity for requestors to make their opinions known to the board during public comment or other opportunities. Request also fails to substantiate or support its claims.
06-2: Danny Younger	Board approval of Verisign Settlement in February 2006	No*	Deny	Deny	"The Committee concludes that there are no grounds to proceed, as each of the grounds is either: (i) not an appropriate subject for reconsideration; (ii) already considered by the Board, or (iii) could have been brought to the Board's attention prior to the 28 February 2006 approval."
06-3: Marilyn Cade	Protesting ICANN GC decision that she could not run in a mid-term election for a vacated board seat. Cade resigned from the NomCom in order to run for the seat.	No*	Deny	Deny	Bylaws are "unambiguous" regarding former NomCom members' eligibility to be selected for board service; requestor fails to state a claim that would be subject to reconsideration
06-4: ICM Registry	Board rejection of Registry Agreement with ICM for .xxx	No	No recommendation - Request Withdrawn by ICM, October 2006	N/A
10-1: Michael Palage	Late publication of board meeting minutes	No	Posting was 10 hours late, so limited impact; but, recommend amendment of Bylaws requiring posting of board resolutions within 2 days, and preliminary report within 7 days.	Approved recommendation	Palage, in the public comments to the proposed Bylaws amendment, expressed disappointment
10-2: .JOBS Charter Compliance Coalition	Approval of amendments to .JOBS Registry Agreement, permitting noncompanyname.jobs registrations & proposing a phased allocation of such names	No	Deny, but ICANN staff to closely monitor the rollout of these new names to ensure the registry complies with its charter	Approved recommendation	"…the BGC is not at all clear that it has a full picture of how Employ Media intends to implement the Phased Allocation Process.""
10-3: Michael Palage	Resolution approving description of High Security Top Level Domain program in the Applicant Guidebook	No*	Deny	Deny	No support for reconsideration based on the grounds listed in the Bylaws. BGC found that "Information that is not yet in existence cannot be considered “material information” for the purposes of the Reconsideration process.""
11-1: Michael Gende	Staff failure to assist Mr. Gende in obtaining zetamusic.com	No*	Deny	Deny	Failure to state a claim related to ICANN's mission.