Fwd: [council] FYI - ALAC letter sent to Board on Domain "Reservation"

[Robin Gross]

Begin forwarded message:

> From: "Denise Michel" <denise.michel at icann.org>
> Date: March 25, 2008 9:44:13 AM PDT
> To: "Council GNSO" <council at gnso.icann.org>, liaison6c
> <liaison6c at gnso.icann.org>
> Subject: [council] FYI - ALAC letter sent to Board on Domain
> "Reservation"
> Reply-To: denise.michel at icann.org
>
> http://atlarge-lists.icann.org/pipermail/alac_atlarge-
> lists.icann.org/2008q1/003290.html
>
>
> Dear ICANN board directors:
>
> While we are aware that you have been monitoring the
> public outrage in response to registrar activities
> that have been variously described as "front-running"
> and/or "domain reservation" or "cart-hold" or
> "cart-reserve" activities, we are of the view that the
> obligation to safeguard the operational stability of
> Registrar Services now requires the immediate
> temporary establishment of a consensus policy
> curtailing such practices to be taken in accordance
> with the board's authority under the provisions set
> out in section 4.3.4 of the Registrar Accreditation
> Agreement, that states:
>
> "A specification or policy established by the ICANN
> Board of Directors on a temporary basis, without a
> prior recommendation by the council of an ICANN
> Supporting Organization, shall also be considered to
> be a Consensus Policy if adopted by the ICANN Board of
> Directors by a vote of at least two-thirds of its
> members, so long as the Board reasonably determines
> that immediate temporary establishment of a
> specification or policy on the subject is necessary to
> maintain the operational stability of Registrar
> Services, Registry Services, the DNS, or the Internet,
> and that the proposed specification or policy is as
> narrowly tailored as feasible to achieve those
> objectives."
>
> Please be advised that we have reached this conclusion
> based in part upon the following considerations:
>
> 1.  The use of "cart-hold" or "cart-reserve" systems
> has been actively under discussion within the
> registrars constituency since early October 2007 when
> three different registrars first advanced the concept
> within the context of a straw poll on the impact to
> registrants were the AGP to be eliminated
> in its entirety (footnote 1)
>
> -- see
> http://gnso.icann.org/mailing-lists/archives/registrars/msg05123.html
> http://gnso.icann.org/mailing-lists/archives/registrars/msg05130.html
> http://gnso.icann.org/mailing-
> lists/archives/registrars/msg05131.html
> http://gnso.icann.org/mailing-lists/archives/registrars/msg05380.html
> http://gnso.icann.org/mailing-lists/archives/registrars/msg05626.html
>
> 2. The use of this domain name reservation practice
> next came to be adopted by a large-volume registrar
> (Network Solutions) on or about 8 January 2008, and
> the practice was immediately condemned by the
> community at large (with extensive coverage in the
> Tech media, the general press, in blogs world wide, on
> domain name forums, and on community discussion
> lists).
>
> 3. The actions of Network Solutions has now spawned a
> similar project on the part of another large-volume
> registrar (register.com), and we have no reason to
> believe that other large-volume registrars will
> refrain from rapidly setting up comparable efforts.
>
> (footnote -- see
> http://help.register.com/cgi-bin/register_help.cfg/php/enduser/
> std_adp.php?
> p_faqid=2796&p_created=1185549188&p_sid=*Nq5PxZi&p_accessibility=0&p_l
> va=&p_sp=cF9zcmNoPSZwX3NvcnRfYnk9JnBfZ3JpZHNvcnQ9JnBfcm93X2NudD01NDImc
> F9wcm9kcz0mcF9jYXRzPSZwX3B2PSZwX2N2PSZwX3NlYXJjaF90eXBlPWFuc3dlcnMuc2V
> hcmNoX25sJnBfcGFnZT0x&p_li=&p_topview=1
> )
>
>
> While we recognize that we are unable to point to an
> ICANN-approved definition of "operational stability of
> Registrar Services" (as no such definition exists
> within either current ICANN contracts or supporting
> materials), we take guidance from the ICANN Policy
> Document ICP-3 which posits that activities that do
> not interfere with the operation of the DNS are,
> generally speaking, those that operate within
> community-established norms.
>
> Such norms tend to respect a set of long-established
> principles such as the principle of least
> astonishment.  When registrants currently search for a
> domain name at these registrars using normative search
> practices, they are clearly astonished by that which
> results from their efforts:  the inability to readily
> register the domain name of their choice with a more
> competitive registrar and/or the domain name that they
> have selected appearing in the WHOIS with the name of
> the registrar as the registrant of record
>
> (footnote -- see
> http://help.register.com/cgi-bin/register_help.cfg/php/enduser/
> std_adp.php?
> p_faqid=2796&p_created=1185549188&p_sid=*Nq5PxZi&p_accessibility=0&p_l
> va=&p_sp=cF9zcmNoPSZwX3NvcnRfYnk9JnBfZ3JpZHNvcnQ9JnBfcm93X2NudD01NDImc
> F9wcm9kcz0mcF9jYXRzPSZwX3B2PSZwX2N2PSZwX3NlYXJjaF90eXBlPWFuc3dlcnMuc2V
> hcmNoX25sJnBfcGFnZT0x&p_li=&p_topview=1
> ).
>
> The community's trust in ICANN's ability to manage the
> Domain Name System is at stake.  It is inappropriate
> for such registrar activities to proceed unabated in a
> policy vaccuum.  Accordingly we call upon the ICANN
> board to establish a temporary narrowly-tailored
> policy as a stopgap until such time as the relevant
> policy-recommending ICANN Supporting Organizations can
> provide a comprehensive consensus policy solution.
>
> [Submitted to Board via At-Large Advisory Committee Board Liaison,
> Wendy Seltzer]
>
>
>




IP JUSTICE
Robin Gross, Executive Director
1192 Haight Street, San Francisco, CA  94117  USA
p: +1-415-553-6261    f: +1-415-462-6451
w: http://www.ipjustice.org     e: robin at ipjustice.org



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