[At-Large] The Case for Regulatory Capture at ICANN | Review Signal Blog

[Olivier MJ Crépin-Leblond]

Dear Evan,

thanks for your response to my prior email. I think that we are aligned
in wishing that the ALAC represents the interests of Internet Users and
not solely Registrants. So I'd like to point out a few things below:

On 26/06/2019 15:16, Evan Leibovitch wrote:
> On Wed, 26 Jun 2019 at 05:05, Olivier MJ Crépin-Leblond <ocl at gih.com
> <mailto:ocl at gih.com>> wrote:
>  
>
>     I agree with you that the price of domain names for end users to
>     register is too high.
>
>
> That statement, in a nutshell, explains one of the most fundamental
> things wrong with ALAC.
>
> Confusing end-users with registrants happens far too often within ALAC
> for our own good. Their interests are not identical and really never
> have been. And it is the source of genuine conflicts of interest that
> happen within ALAC, not bogus ISOC conspiracy theories.

There is no confusion in the sentence I wrote: until the moment when an
Internet User has registered a domain, they are an Internet User. Once
they have registered the domain, they become a Registrant, but also
remain an Internet User.

> ICANN has always operated on the BS premise, propagated by the
> domain-selling industry,  that every person and entity on earth is a
> potential registrant who simply hasn't yet been convinced to buy one.
> Besides being simply wrong, this approach has infiltrated ALAC culture
> to the point where we're defending the interests of registrants rather
> than end-users.  And in price caps we have an absolutely classic example.

That is incorrect. The fact that the ALAC primarily defends the
interests of end users that are not registrants, is a major point of
disagreement that the ALAC has with NCUC who defends the interests of
Registrants. I heard it again this week that one of the rules for
joining NCSG is to have registered a domain name. It is a tick box that
is included in the NCSG individual application form (
https://members.ncsg.is/individual_application ) and in the NCSG
organisation application (
https://members.ncsg.is/organization_application )

Reading the ALAC Statement relating to price caps, I have to repeat it
again: the Statement concludes that "So, we are essentially grappling
with competing considerations and uncertainties. After balancing the
same, we do not find support for a particular position regarding the
removal of price caps."

How does this equate to "the ALAC is defending the interests of
registrants rather than end users"?

Kindest regards,

Olivier


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