[NA-Discuss] DRAFT statement on .pr
Alan Greenberg
alan.greenberg at mcgill.ca
Fri Oct 14 19:29:35 UTC 2011
Beau, it would be useful to include in the statement the current
state of the issue with regard to ICANN, IANA and the courts.
That is, is there a current dispute/process underway to address this
and if so, what is the state.
Alan
At 14/10/2011 01:10 PM, Beau Brendler wrote:
>Hello, all. Here is the statement on the .pr controversy prepared by
>Eduardo with comments by Garth and final revisions by me. Please
>read and give feedback promptly. I'd also like Eduardo to look over
>it carefully to make sure there are no editing errors introduced.
>
>STATEMENT OF THE NORTH AMERICAN AT-LARGE REGIONAL ORGANIZATION ON
>THE MISAPPROPRIATION OF THE .PR DOMAIN
>
>The North American At-Large Regional Organization wants to bring the
>ICANN community's attention to a serious concern regarding
>management of Puerto Rico's country code top-level domain, .pr,
>following a June 2011 lawsuit filed by The University of Puerto Rico
>against the domain's manager alleging misappropriation of public
>funds and inappropriate ownership claim of the domain, among other
>allegations.
>
>Background
>In 1988, the U.S. National Science Foundation established a program
>to expand use of the Internet outside the United States by
>establishing a domain registration that would allow each country
>connected to the network to offer access the Internet through that domain.
>
>Within that program, the University of Puerto Rico, through its
>Gauss Research Laboratory in the Natural Sciences department,
>requested the domain ".pr" (institutional research number 8818283,
>"Support for the Participation of the University of Puerto Rico in
>the NSFNet"). This proposal was approved in 1989 and administration
>of the .pr domain was designated to the "Gauss Research Laboratory"
>with the university as manager.
>
>In 2006, the .pr ccTLD's manager contacted the Internet Assigned
>Numbers Authority to request a name change in the sponsoring
>organization, from the University of Puerto Rico to a corporation
>with the same name, including the abbreviations "INC. i.e. Gauss
>Research Laboratory, Inc." As a result of this change, Gauss
>Research Laboratory Inc. was permitted to remove the .pr ccTLD
>operations outside the university campus, as well as redirect any
>funds generated by domain purchases.
>
>Results of IANA Decision
>It is apparent IANA, in its decision, considered the request for a
>name change in the sponsoring organization to be an administrative
>task, not a re-delegation of the ccTLD. However, according to the
>lawsuit, the ccTLD manager took action as if a full re-delegation
>had been made, allowing him to move the operation outside the
>university. Critically, in 2007, Gauss Research Laboratory, Inc.
>filed a change in corporate status from non-profit to for-profit
>with the Department of State of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico.
>
>Therefore, IANA's decision effectively resulted in the hijacking of
>a public resource from a non-profit educational institution to a
>for-profit corporation.
>
>The NARALO is concerned the apparent "re-delegation" of the .pr
>domain represents a potential abuse of public trust and
>misappropriation of Internet resources.
>
>In addition, while the controversy over Puerto Rico's country-code
>domain may seem unusual, findings presented in the final report of
>the ccNSO Delegation and Redelegation Working Group
>(http://ccnso.icann.org/workinggroups/final-drd-report-02may11-en.pdf)
>clearly indicate it is not.
>
>NARALO applauds and supports the ccNSO working group's desire,
>stated in that report, to "create an environment for making
>consistent and predictable decisions regarding the delegation,
>re-delegation and retirement of ccTLDs while enhancing
>accountability and transparency."
>
>Therefore, at the 2011 ICANN meeting in Dakar, NARALO will present
>the facts and allegations in this case, as well as examples of
>similar cases, in hopes of prompting a multi-stakeholder discussion
>and approach to create such an environment worldwide.
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