Fwd: [council] Redemption Grace Period and associated rights

[Mary Wong]

On a slightly different note, I'm not aware of an easily-available list of registrar practices, such as Robin mentions (if anyone knows of one, I'd be grateful for the link/reference!) Aside from working with ALAC on the specific Redemption Grace Period issue, should NCUC try to push for at least a central repository/directory where users can look up, compare and evaluate registration costs and practices?
 
Cheers
Mary
 
Mary W S Wong
Professor of Law
Franklin Pierce Law Center
Two White Street
Concord, NH 03301
USA
Email: mwong at piercelaw.edu 
Phone: 1-603-513-5143
Webpage: http://www.piercelaw.edu/marywong/index.php 
Selected writings available on the Social Science Research Network (SSRN) at: http://ssrn.com/author=437584 


>>> Robin Gross <robin at IPJUSTICE.ORG> 9/30/2008 1:37 PM >>>
Hi Adam,

I meant the registration of the domain name expired without the person's having realized it.  Some registrars are better than others at letting customers know when a registration will expire.

It would be interesting to know what different registrars charge customers during the "redemption" period - that would be a useful piece of info when shopping around for a registrar.

Robin



On Sep 26, 2008, at 1:36 AM, Adam Peake wrote:



Robin, Hi.

What does "inadvertently lapsed re-registration" mean... Didn't understand the terms of the agreement with the registrar. Forgot. Missed the emails and perhaps faxed reminders (one of my registrars sends me a fax when I don't reply and expiry date nears.)

Once out of the automated re-registration system and a person's involved the registrar will be incurring quite heavy costs. And if your friend's name is a short string or real word/words then seems the registrar might be being helpful with their warnings about possible future costs (perhaps,don't know the name, etc.)

That said, I do think there need to be checks made that earlier consensus policy has been implemented and registrants made aware of renewal and delete policy.

And I support ALAC's efforts to begin a PDP process on redemption grace and hope the NCUC will also in the GNSO.

Adam  (personal opinion, not yet an ALAC member.)





NCUC:

As I told Alan Greenberg on the GNSO call this AM, NCUC is interested to work with ALAC on this initiative (see email below) on the Redemption Grace Period.

Just recently, this problem was brought to my attention by a friend who was being pressured by a registrar for high fees to get his domain name back in this period.  After the domain name (which had been held for many years) inadvertently lapsed re-registration, the registrar wanted to charge him $85 to get his domain back.    My friend balked at the high price and asked if he could wait for it to be available again to the public and register it at a competitive price ($14), but was told it could be up to 90 days before it will be made available to the public again by the registrar.  He said the registrar was intentionally trying to stoke his fear that he would lose his domain if he did not pay the $85 to renew it in this redemption period.  The registrar told him someone else could get the domain the minute it is available to the public and then he'd have to pay thousands of dollars to get it back.

It seems like some registrars are able to extort exorbitant fees out of domain name registrants by virtue of their position of the domain name distribution chain.

Are there others in NCUC interested in this issue of the redemption grace period and with working with ALAC and others to address it?

Thanks,
Robin


Begin forwarded message:



From: Alan Greenberg <<mailto:alan.greenberg at mcgill.ca>alan.greenberg at mcgill.ca>
Date: September 25, 2008 8:20:40 AM PDT
To: Council GNSO <<mailto:council at gnso.icann.org>council at gnso.icann.org>
Cc: ALAC Working List <<mailto:alac at atlarge-lists.icann.org>alac at atlarge-lists.icann.org>
Subject: [council] Fwd: Redemption Grace Period and associated rights


As per my announcement today at the end of today's Council meeting, following is the solicitation for support and help sent to the ALAC and At-Large.  It is not a definitive description of the issue, but rather a hopefully understandable summary for this who do not spend their days thinking about domain registration processes.

The overall intent is to end up in an environment where registrants have a reasonable, predictable way to recover an expired domain regardless of whether the reason for expiration was lack of appropriate action on the part of the registrant, registrar or an act of some other third party. My understanding is that this was the original intent prior to the domain industry becoming such a large business in its own right.

The ALAC is certainly interested in hearing from any constituencies who support the initiative, and in particular, any individuals who can help us craft the request for an Issues Report.

Alan




Date: Wed, 24 Sep 2008 01:37:26 -0400
To: At-Large Worldwide <<mailto:at-large at atlarge-lists.icann.org>at-large at atlarge-lists.icann.org>, ALAC Working List <<mailto:alac at atlarge-lists.icann.org>alac at atlarge-lists.icann.org>
From: Alan Greenberg <<mailto:alan.greenberg at mcgill.ca>alan.greenberg at mcgill.ca>
Subject: Redemption Grace Period and associated rights

Four weeks ago, Danny Younger raised the issue of the Redemption Grace Period (RGP) with the North American RALO. A copy of his e-mail can be found at <https://st.icann.org/alac/index.cgi?redemption_grace_period_danny_younger>https://st.icann.org/alac/index.cgi?redemption_grace_period_danny_younger.

In essence, about six years ago, the RGP was proposed and implemented to allow a registrant to recover a domain name after it had expired and been deleted by the registrar. The reason for the deletion could be that a registrant did not receive the required notices of expiry, or they were not sent, or they simply forgot. Under the RGP, when a registry (such as VeriSign for .com) receives a request to delete a name, it is put in a hold status for 30 days. During this period, the name does not resolve, and if nothing else had caught the registrant's eye before, this usually will. During this time, a registrant can recover the name for a fee. The fee is currently set $40 but can and generally is marked up by the registrar.

The RGP was implemented voluntarily as a Registry Service by all of the non-sponsored gTLDs.  A registrar is not required to offer the RGP however, so the existence of this registry service did not guarantee that a registrant who neglected to renew could effectively use the RGP. It was hoped that as Registrar contracts were renegotiated, the requirement to make the RGP available would be added, but this did not happen. A consensus policy could have been created which would force them to offer the service, but this also did not happen.

>From the point of registries, domains automatically renew, but the registrar can reverse this retroactively during the "auto-renew grace period" (ARGP - typically 45 days).

Since that time the situation has changed in that registrars have generally added conditions in their registrant agreements that give the registrar the right to transfer or sell or auction an expired domain to some other party (the so called "direct transfer" right). Often, during the AGRP, they may monetize the domain temporarily to see if it attracts much traffic and therefore has commercial value. During this time, they *may* be willing to sell the domain back to the original registrant. The price may depend on how much traffic they saw in the interim. Once a value is determined, the domain may be kept by the registrar (perhaps via a related company), or sold or auctioned. Since the domain is never actually deleted at the registry (it still maintains its original creation date), it never gets a chance to enter the RGP.

As complicated as this may sound, it is the short version. There was an excellent tutorial on these practices given at the Lisbon ICANN meeting in March 2007. A transcript can be found at <http://www.icann.org/en/meetings/lisbon/transcript-tutorial-expiring-25mar07.htm>http://www.icann.org/en/meetings/lisbon/transcript-tutorial-expiring-25mar07.htm.

The NARALO has agreed that this is a good project to take on, and has requested that the ALAC pursue it. The issue was on the ALAC meeting agenda of September 9, but unfortunately time ran out before we got to it. However, since that meeting there have been a number of conversations that indicate that this is an issue of importance and that there is sufficient interest among At-Large that ALAC should pursue it.

In summary, we are looking for a way to ensure that registrants have a reasonably and fairly priced way to retain a domain name, even if it had inadvertently expired in the recent past. We are essentially looking at it from two main perspectives:

- Impact on registrants who lose control of their domain name, potentially with significant financial or other impact; and
- Impact on users who can no longer access web sites and services that they rely on.

If we an find sufficient interest in At-Large and the RALOs to support this project, I would like to see the ALAC request an Issues Report from ICANN staff, which is the first step in initiating a Policy Development Process (PDP). Following the delivery of the Issues report, the GNSO Council would need to vote to decide to initiate a PDP. Informal conversations indicate there may be reasonable support for this on Council; assuming ICANN staff decide that this is an issues within the scope of the GNSO, initiation requires only a >33% vote.

If we work quickly, I believe we can formally decide to proceed at the ALAC's October 14th meeting, and issue the request for the Issues Report in Cairo.

I solicit general statements of support from ALSs and RALOs, and a few volunteers to help work on the request. Volunteers must either be knowledgeable in the issues being discussed, or be willing to learn very quickly.

Alan

PS For this who want to understand more of the history of the RGP, you can refer to:
<http://www.icann.org/en/registrars/redemption-proposal-14feb02.htm>http://www.icann.org/en/registrars/redemption-proposal-14feb02.htm 
<http://www.icann.org/en/registrars/redemption-supplement-20feb02.htm>http://www.icann.org/en/registrars/redemption-supplement-20feb02.htm 
<http://www.icann.org/en/meetings/accra/redemption-topic.htm>http://www.icann.org/en/meetings/accra/redemption-topic.htm 
<http://www.icann.org/en/minutes/prelim-report-14mar02.htm#RedemptionGracePeriod>http://www.icann.org/en/minutes/prelim-report-14mar02.htm#RedemptionGracePeriod 







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>http://www.ipjustice.org  e: <mailto:robin at ipjustice.org>robin at ipjustice.org 







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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