Fwd: [council] Fwd: Redemption Grace Period and associated rights

Thu Sep 25 21:23:37 CEST 2008

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 <alan.greenberg at mcgill.ca>
> Date: September 25, 2008 8:20:40 AM PDT
> To: Council GNSO <council at gnso.icann.org>
> Cc: ALAC Working List <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 <at-large at atlarge-lists.icann.org>, ALAC
>> Working List <alac at atlarge-lists.icann.org>
>> From: Alan Greenberg <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.
>>
>> 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.
>>
>> 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-supplement-20feb02.htm
>> http://www.icann.org/en/meetings/accra/redemption-topic.htm
>> 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     e: robin at ipjustice.org

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