[ncdnhc-discuss] Re: guidance on .org

[Chris Bailey]

Dear Milton,

At the face to face meeting of the NCDNHC in MDR a "sponsored, 
unrestricted" .org was supported overwhelming (27 to 2, I think?). It is a 
perfectly valid concept that has been discussed at length and in detail 
here. As you say, the ICANN staff however "have promoted the (false) idea 
that it "cannot be executed."" So why are you proposing that we give in to 
this false idea instead of countering it?

As a group of us pointed out to the public comment, and Duncan Pruett from 
the ICFTU argued there in detail, the concept of a sponsored, unrestricted 
gTLD would require a "Registrar Agreement" just as other sponsored gTLDs 
did. This would need to qualify registrars or otherwise contractually 
constrain their marketing practices in the sale of .org names to develop 
the gTLD as a uniquely non-commercial namespace. You tell us that this 
received the support of IPCC, GA and NCDNHC, but was opposed by the 
commercial registrars. Surely we always knew the commercial registrars were 
certain to strongly oppose (you and I discussed this on this list). So why 
are you now proposing we drop this policy in the face of this expected 
opposition from the commercial registrars?

I suggest you stick to the overwhelming mandate you were given on this 
issue at the MDR NCDNHC. If the Names Council consensus has ended then 
let's start the war for the policies we agreed on.

Chris Bailey


At 12:01 17/12/2001 +0900, you wrote:
>Date: Sun, 16 Dec 2001 20:35:49 -0500
>From: "Milton Mueller" <mueller at syr.edu>
>To: <discuss at icann-ncc.org>
>Subject: [ncdnhc-discuss] guidance on .org
>
>Members:
>
>Let me clarify some of the issues on the
>.org divestiture.
>
>Increasingly, it appears to me that our
>original idea of trying to regulate the
>marketing of the domain by registrars
>is not feasible. Policing and
>enforcing marketing practices is going
>to be expensive and time-consuming. Also,
>many big registrars have resellers, which
>means that the chain of production is even
>more extended.
>
>All in all I think the Shared Registry System
>makes any use of registrars as a choke point
>for enforcing policy economically, administratively,
>and politically impossible.
>
>We can respond to this problem in one of
>two ways:
>
>1) Try to structure the policy as an
>unsponsored, unrestricted domain, with
>strong policy guidance that the registry
>operator be representative of the noncommercial
>community. This might also include requiring
>that a big chunk of the $5 million be used
>to help the new domain owner promote/market
>the org TLD in a new way, focused on the
>community we represent.
>
>2) Try to adhere more closely to the
>classical "sponsored domain" model, grandfather
>existing registrants but use some kind of "charter
>enforcement dispute resolution policy" (CEDRP) to
>weed out any new registrations that are commercial.
>
>One interesting fact about a CEDRP is that the
>sponsoring organization gets to choose its own
>dispute resolution provider(s). Thus, we need
>not rely on WIPO and NAF to do this. Another
>interesting fact is that if there is a CEDRP,
>the UDRP does not apply.
>
>Also, with the stronger sponsorship model, the
>.org domain could have the authority to create
>its own WHOIS policy. This could be privacy-
>enhanced.
>
>I suspect, however, that the B&C and IP
>constituencies would not like allowing .org
>to slip out from the noose of UDRP and WHOIS
>policis, and that it would be politically
>difficult to get a "Strong sponsorship"
>model through the Task Force and Names Council.
>
>We also need to keep in mind that ICANN
>Board, not us, will ultimately chooose the
>winner of the .org domain, and that winner
>may define a restrictive CEDRP and choose
>WIPO or someone worse as a dispute provider,
>or otherwise sell out to Intellectual
>property interests.
>
>Right now I am leaning toward option 1
>here (nominally unsponsored and unrestricted).
>But I am, as always, open to reason and
>persuasion from you.
>
>Please respond quickly. We have only about ten
>working days to get this done.
>
>--MM