[RAA-WG] Third possibly final draft of RAA comments

[Danny Younger]

John,

(1)  Let's start with the beginning of this document
where it states "The At-Large Advisory Committee
hereby submits".  As we all know, not a single member
of the ALAC has offered substantive comments to this
WG, nor have they discussed revisions to the RAA on
the ALAC list.  If this isn't their work-product, why
are you giving them credit for this submission?  Why
not just honestly state that this is a submission from
the members of the RAA WG (none of which included a
single ALAC member)?

(2)  If you seek to argue that registrants should be
explicit beneficiaries of the RAA, then you will need
to offer a compelling argument sufficient to allay the
fears of 1000 individual registrars and ICANN itself
that removal of the no-third-party benficiaries clause
will not lead to the prospect of derivative lawsuits. 
I don't think that you can successfully make that
argument.  If the goal is to ensure protections for
the consumer interest, then you should be referring to
point #5 in the ICANN Affirmation of Responsibilities
that states:  "TLD Management: ICANN shall maintain
and build on processes to ensure that competition,
consumer interests, and Internet DNS stability and
security issues are identified and considered in TLD
management decisions, including the consideration and
implementation of new TLDs and the introduction of
IDNs."  The Board through the above language has
already agreed that protecting the consumer interest
is a "value".  I would not recommend crossing the line
by pushing a position that will open the door to a
slew of consumer-driven lawsuits.

(3) In the context of proposed revisions to the RAA we
have no business recommending alternate registration
models.  That is advice for the GNSO to debate, it is
not a matter for the registrars and ICANN to take up
in the context of their two-party contractual
negotiations.

(4)  ICANN has already defined "internal procedures to
monitor registrar compliance"; it already "accepts
public reports of problems and non-compliance".  So
why are we including this language?

(5)  Re:  "The Registerfly case showed that ICANN has
no process to identify registrars that are failing to
comply with the RAA, or to get early notice of a
registrar whose service is deteriorating or failing". 
Not true.  Over 70 letters were sent to the ALAC Forum
prior to the Registerfly meltdown on the topic of
Registerfly misadventures.  Yes, the ALAC ignored
these letters and miserably failed to do their job,
but we have suffiecient evidence that the letters that
ICANN received were taken into account.  The evidence
is by way of the now redacted/removed R-Team
discussion list.  We also know that certain registries
alerted ICANN to the fact that this registrar failed
to maintain its account balance.  Further, ICANN
already does "conduct regular assessments of the
compliance of each registrar" through audits that have
already been discussed with the community.  This
language should be eliminated as it only demonstrates
that the ALAC is not paying attention.  Next, ICANN
doesn't need to "establish an online method to accept
comments about registrar behavior" as it already has
such a method -- this has already been pointed out to
Vittorio.  ICANN already has a ticketing system, and
ICANN already extracts aggregated information. 
References on this topic have already been provided to
this WG.  If you keep this language, you will again
demonstrate that the ALAC is clueless.

(6) re: abuses of the "ICANN accredited" logo.  Show
me the examples of such abuse.

(7)  Re:  standardized description of registrant
rights -- what exactly are these rights?  wouldn't it
be helpful to have them enumerated?  If the WG
actually wants to be helpful, then why not analyze for
example the auDa Registrar Code of Conduct that sets
out a series of consumer expectations that should be
fulfilled by way of proper registrar conduct.  The
language proposed is less than helpful... it's almost
pointless if you expect the supplier community to
define consumer rights.

(8)  As previously discussed, we don't need a separate
document to define the "actual meaning of the
registrant, administrative contact, technical contact
and billing contact".  The RAA has a definitions
section.  If definitions are needed, then that's where
they belong.

(9)  The language "Insofar as is practical, contact
data should be checked for accuracy at the time of
collection" is too weak.  Change to: contact data will
be checked and verified for accuracy prior to the
registration being sponsored.

(10)  As Consensus Policy language will be included in
the new RAA, we don't need any "reminder clause" on
transfers as Vittorio has proposed.

(11) Why is Vittorio stating  "We ask that the GNSO
Transfer Policy include specific requirements to
enable transfer of domain names. In particular, if the
the losing registrar does not respond to a transfer
request in a fixed amount of time, that should
constitute consent to the transfer"?  This is already
covered by the following language in the Transfers
Consensus Policy:  "The Registry Operator shall
complete the requested transfer unless, within five
(5) calendar days, Registry Operator receives a NACK
protocol command from the Registrar of Record." 
 
(12)re:  "ICANN should appoint a separate entity,
targeted with the task of conducting compliance
assessments"  -- Why?  ICANN already has a compliance
department.  So why do we need a separate entity?

(13)  Re:  "The assessments should be conducted at
least once a year"  -- assessments by the compliance
department are already conducted on a yearly schedule.
 What do we gain by adding this pointless language?

(14)  As earlier indicated, the accreditation of
resellers is a really stupid idea as you are dealing
with tens of thoudsands, perhaps hundreds of thousands
of resellers.  Accreditation implies enforcement. 
ICANN doesn't have the resources to audit the entire
reseller community nor the will to do so.  The though
of attempting to "rate" this horde of resellers is a
ludicrous proposition.

I need to get back to my day job now... will continue
the discussion at the earliest opportunity.  This
draft is far from complete in my view, but it's a good
first effort at redaction.


       
____________________________________________________________________________________
Need a vacation? Get great deals
to amazing places on Yahoo! Travel.
http://travel.yahoo.com/