[ncdnhc-discuss] Re: [bwg-core] IMPORTANT: Need guidance from you regarding .org

[Michael Froomkin - U.Miami School of Law]

It's in the interests of the .org registry / policy body /whatever not to
be in the business of choosing registrars: it's hard work to do well, easy
to do badly, and might carry some anti-trust liability....

cf. http://personal.law.miami.edu/~froomkin/articles/icann-antitrust.pdf



On Thu, 13 Dec 2001, Milton Mueller wrote:

> 
> At today's Names Council meeting, the Council delayed 
> adopting a .org policy statement for two reasons:
> 
> 1) Commercial registrars are concerned about a sponsored
> TLD with control over registrar qualification and marketing
> practices;
> 
> 2) ICANN management (which formally has no policy
> making role) believes that the concept of a "sponsored, 
> unrestricted domain" does not fit into its pre-defined
> contracts, which divides the world into "sponsored"
> and "unsponsored" domains. So they have promoted
> the (false) idea that the idea "cannot be executed." 
> Unfortunately, ICANN as an institution is still so 
> undeveloped that elected Names Councillors and
> even Board members are likely to defer to unelected 
> and unaccountable management.
> 
> These two problems play into each other; i.e., those
> who want to change the consensus policy have 
> seized on ICANN management's objection to use it 
> as an excuse to start over.
> 
> In the next month, some important decisions will have
> to be made about how to modify the .org policy to get
> it through. I will now try to define those issues to
> seek your advice.
> 
> There seems to be strong consensus on the
> following points:
> 
> 1. The governing body for newORG should be
> a non-profit that is broadly representative of
> the noncommercial community
> 
> 2. ORG should remain open, and no current
> registrant should be evicted.
> 
> 3. ORG should be marketed in a way that 
> differentiates and enhances its unique identity,
> not sold as a clone of .com
> 
> Points that command majority, but less 
> unanimous support, include:
> 
> 4. ORG should follow standard ICANN UDRP
> and WHOIS policies (insisted on by IPCC, B&C;
> NCDNHC, GA not happy)
> 
> 5. ORG should be able to qualify registrars
> or otherwise contractually constrain their
> marketing practices in the sale of ORG names
> (opposed by registrars, favored by IPCC, GA
> and NCDNHC). 
> 
> The most important disagreement is #5. 
> 
> We could avoid a lot of debate if we were willing
> to allow any registrar to register names in .org and
> not try to regulate how they market it. In that case
> the policy could be changed to treat ORG as an
> unsponsored, unrestricted domain and we could
> retain all the other points 1-4.
> 
> Tell me what you think. 
> 
> Cheers,
> MM
> 
> 
> 
> 

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