Bret Fausett has it right:

In what has to be one of its most jaw-dropping repudiations of the value of public input ever, the ICANN Board has disapproved the .TRAVEL wildcard proposal two weeks before the public comment period was scheduled to end.

Folks, it doesn't get any more clear than this what ICANN thinks of your input.

Here's the public comment announcement, dated November 9, 2006:

Under the terms of the Registry Services Evaluation Policy, following receipt of the RSTEP report, the ICANN Board will determine whether the proposed Registry Service creates a reasonable risk of a meaningful adverse effect on Stability or Security. ICANN invites public comments on the RSTEP Report through 18:00 UTC (10:00 PST) on 7 December 2006.

And here's the Board's resolution of November 22, 2006:

Review of .TRAVEL Wildcard Proposal

Whereas, Tralliance Corporation submitted a request for a new registry service called search.travel under the Registry Services Evaluation Policy. The proposed service would insert a wildcard into the .TRAVEL zone.

Whereas, ICANN conducted its review of the request and determined that although there were no significant competition issues, the proposal might raise significant security and stability issues and referred the proposal to the Registry Services Technical Evaluation Panel for further evaluation.

Whereas, on 2 November 2006, the Registry Services Technical Evaluation Panel review team completed its report on the search.travel proposal. The report was posted for public comment.

Whereas, based on the report of the Registry Services Technical Evaluation Panel, input from the Security and Stability Advisory Committee, At-Large Advisory Committee and other public comments, ICANN has concluded that the proposal creates a reasonable risk of a meaningful adverse effect on security and stability.

Resolved, (06.85) that the Board agrees that the Tralliance Corporation search.travel wildcard proposal creates a reasonable risk of a meaningful adverse effect on security and stability and directs staff to inform Tralliance that the proposal is not approved.

All of which has the folks at Tralliance wondering what happened:

Tralliance President Ron Andruff said Thursday his company had yet to be informed of a decision and noted a public-comment period wasn't scheduled to end until Dec. 7. An ICANN spokesman had no immediate explanation.

Of course there was no immediate explanation. What on earth could they say?

Two additional points: First, I gather the Board members were not told that the public comment period had not ended. Which tells us (a) that the staff keeps the Board in the dark and (b) that the Board doesn't see looking into the public comments as a much of a priority--they sure didn't notice anything was missing, did they?

Second, the public record here is rather light on the technical findings on which ICANN based its conclusions. Indeed, there don't appear to be any, do there?

Will the Board reverse itself at its next meeting, or wait for the reconsideration request and then the lawsuits?