[ncdnhc-discuss] guidance on .org

[Milton Mueller]

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