This is precisely issue I addressed in
my comments submitted to ICANN yesterday; the definition of "sponsored community" in this draft of the ICM contract/proposal is structured to narrow the 'community' to only those companies/individuals who have already decided that they want .XXX to become a reality.
What I'm hoping is that by highlighting the preposterous circularity of the revised definition of the sponsored community, we can persuade ICANN to revisit the issue of sponsored community support, and how that support is to be measured and demonstrated, not just for this proposal, but for sTLD proposals made in the future.
Here is the relevant portion of the new definition of "Sponsored Community":
And here's a few snippets from my comments addressing the most obvious and severe of the problems with that definition:
These comments may well fall on deaf ears over at ICANN, but if they hear this repeated often enough, perhaps it will have some effect.
Personally, I find the whole idea of agreeing to something that hasn't been stated yet to be a nonsense construct at its core. How meaningful can my agreement or commitment be if I don't even know what I'm agreeing and committing to?
Hopefully, upon further review of the revised definition, ICANN will be persuaded that it is complete claptrap, too.