[NA-Discuss] Letter to the ICANN Board

[Brendler, Beau]

There's nothing I would change, and you have my personal support and the
support of my organization in this position.

Beau Brendler

-----Original Message-----
From: na-discuss-bounces at atlarge-lists.icann.org
[mailto:na-discuss-bounces at atlarge-lists.icann.org] On Behalf Of Danny
Younger
Sent: Saturday, March 01, 2008 12:22 PM
To: NA Discuss
Subject: [NA-Discuss] Letter to the ICANN Board


Dear members of the NARALO:

I have drafted a letter to the Board for discussion at
our upcoming teleconference.  I would appreciate any
initial feedback to refine this letter as required.

Dear ICANN board directors:

While we are aware that you have been monitoring the
public outrage in response to registrar activities
that have been variously described as "front-running"
and/or "domain reservation" or "cart-hold" or
"cart-reserve" activities, we are of the view that the obligation to
safeguard the operational stability of Registrar Services now requires
the immediate temporary establishment of a consensus policy curtailing
such practices to be taken in accordance with the board's authority
under the provisions set out in section 4.3.4 of the Registrar
Accreditation Agreement, that states:

"A specification or policy established by the ICANN
Board of Directors on a temporary basis, without a
prior recommendation by the council of an ICANN
Supporting Organization, shall also be considered to
be a Consensus Policy if adopted by the ICANN Board of Directors by a
vote of at least two-thirds of its members, so long as the Board
reasonably determines that immediate temporary establishment of a
specification or policy on the subject is necessary to maintain the
operational stability of Registrar Services, Registry Services, the DNS,
or the Internet, and that the proposed specification or policy is as
narrowly tailored as feasible to achieve those objectives."

Please be advised that we have reached this conclusion
based in part upon the following considerations:

1.  The use of "cart-hold" or "cart-reserve" systems
has been actively under discussion within the
registrars constituency since early October 2007 when
three different registrars first advanced the concept
within the context of a straw poll on the impact to
registrants were the AGP to be eliminated
in its entirety (footnote 1) 

-- see
http://gnso.icann.org/mailing-lists/archives/registrars/msg05123.html
http://gnso.icann.org/mailing-lists/archives/registrars/msg05130.html
http://gnso.icann.org/mailing- lists/archives/registrars/msg05131.html
http://gnso.icann.org/mailing-lists/archives/registrars/msg05380.html
http://gnso.icann.org/mailing-lists/archives/registrars/msg05626.html

2. The use of this domain name reservation practice
next came to be adopted by a large-volume registrar
(Network Solutions) on or about 8 January 2008, and
the practice was immediately condemned by the
community at large (with extensive coverage in the
Tech media, the general press, in blogs world wide, on
domain name forums, and on community discussion
lists).
 
3. The actions of Network Solutions has now spawned a
similar project on the part of another large-volume
registrar (register.com), and we have no reason to
believe that other large-volume registrars will
refrain from rapidly setting up comparable efforts.

(footnote -- see
http://help.register.com/cgi-bin/register_help.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.p
hp?p_faqid=2796&p_created=1185549188&p_sid=*Nq5PxZi&p_accessibility=0&p_
lva=&p_sp=cF9zcmNoPSZwX3NvcnRfYnk9JnBfZ3JpZHNvcnQ9JnBfcm93X2NudD01NDImcF
9wcm9kcz0mcF9jYXRzPSZwX3B2PSZwX2N2PSZwX3NlYXJjaF90eXBlPWFuc3dlcnMuc2Vhcm
NoX25sJnBfcGFnZT0x&p_li=&p_topview=1
)


While we recognize that we are unable to point to an ICANN-approved
definition of "operational stability of Registrar Services" (as no such
definition exists within either current ICANN contracts or supporting
materials), we take guidance from the ICANN Policy Document ICP-3 which
posits that activities that do not interfere with the operation of the
DNS are, generally speaking, those that operate within
community-established norms.

Such norms tend to respect a set of long-established
principles such as the principle of least
astonishment.  When registrants currently search for a
domain name at these registrars using normative search practices, they
are clearly astonished by that which results from their efforts:  the
inability to readily register the domain name of their choice with a
more competitive registrar and/or the domain name that they have
selected appearing in the WHOIS with the name of the registrar as the
registrant of record  

(footnote -- see
http://help.register.com/cgi-bin/register_help.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.p
hp?p_faqid=2796&p_created=1185549188&p_sid=*Nq5PxZi&p_accessibility=0&p_
lva=&p_sp=cF9zcmNoPSZwX3NvcnRfYnk9JnBfZ3JpZHNvcnQ9JnBfcm93X2NudD01NDImcF
9wcm9kcz0mcF9jYXRzPSZwX3B2PSZwX2N2PSZwX3NlYXJjaF90eXBlPWFuc3dlcnMuc2Vhcm
NoX25sJnBfcGFnZT0x&p_li=&p_topview=1
).

The community's trust in ICANN's ability to manage the
Domain Name System is at stake.  It is inappropriate
for such registrar activities to proceed unabated in a
policy vaccuum.  Accordingly we call upon the ICANN
board to establish a temporary narrowly-tailored
policy as a stopgap until such time as the relevant policy-recommending
ICANN Supporting Organizations can provide a comprehensive consensus
policy solution.


 
________________________________________________________________________
____________
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