[Fwd: PIR Proposal to ICANN on ProblemsCaused by "Domain Tasting"]

[Milton Mueller]

>>> "Edward G. Viltz" <eviltz at pir.org> 9/14/2006 6:03:28 PM >>>
> In addition, David Maher did in fact reference our proposal in the
>Domain discussion in Marrakech and you may recall I mentioned it
>to the NCUC during my presentation.

Yes, indeed, you both did. Danny was not in Marrakech, I think. Anyway,
my response earlier today tried to focus on the substantive policy and
not on the "why didn't you say this earlier" aspect.

>As to the economics, we believe that our
>proposal is likely to reduce the number of .ORG registrations, and we
>certainly don't believe that the proposed fee will be a "profit
center".

I think there's a strong economic case to be made that the "tasting"
should not be free. However, you may find that the fee reduces the
quantity of tasting but not eliminating it as the value of certain
expired domains may exceed the re-stocking fee. Nothing wrong with this
per se, but it could be most likely to happen in true "typosquatting"
cases.

On the other hand, short of abolishing the grace period altogether it's
not clear what else you can do about this problem other than charge for
it. And typosquatters will somehow find and register expired names in
any case. Free grace period just hyperventilates it.

>If the NCUC has specific ideas in addition to what was expressed
>in the email thread, please ensure Frannie has the benefit of all
>NCUC perspectives to be represented at the Advisory Council
>Summit. We appreciate your support.

Yes, I think "Danny and Frannie" has a certain ring to it and these two
should be deemed an ad hoc NCUC task force -- open for anyone else to
join -- and form a position on this, present it to the list and take it
into the PIR meeting.

Cheers, Ed.