Fwd: [gnso-vi-feb10] Joint Proposal

[Avri Doria]

Hi,

The attached is a contribution that Milton, Michael Palage and I have made to the Vertical Integration working group.

Since some of the positions may raise curiosity among members of the NCSG, let me explain my views as they contributed to this contribution.  Also I figure that although I am not 'representing' the NCSG in the working group, it is my responsibility as an appointed member of the NCSG-Excutive Committee to explain myself and open myself up to questions on what I am doing in that and other ICANN groups I participate in.

1. As came out in the extensive discussion we had on the NCUC members list, I believe that Cross-ownership and vertical Integration are separate though related phenomena.  While Milton and I had/have our differences about matters of fundamental principle, definition and such we did reach agreement on this point.

2. I am somewhat ambivalent on what percentage of cross ownership (0-100) is best.  I also think that determining when this is a problem is not within ICANN's expertise or purview and is best left to other external entities - and while my trust of national authorities is tepid at best, they do seem an appropriate address for such concerns.  15% as the maximum that a Registry can own in a Registrar or vice versa is admittedly an arbitrary value, but it corresponds to the prevalent condition in today's status quo - though that status quo is not applied with parity between Registrars and Registries. As always I believe parity should be a presumption in all policy formation.

3. Whether 40% ownership is a reasonable value to serve as the definition of market power and whether that value is of the global market or of a specific national or regional market is also an arbitrary consideration that is beyond the ability of ICANN to decide.    We had a lot of conversation between the authors as to whether this was a reasonable value to offer - ranging from discussion of different values or whether there should be a value listed in the proposal at all.  I think we are all open to further discussion on this (as well as most points for that matter). 

4, For me personally the section on the vertical integration ability, ie. to distribute its own gTLDS, in single registrant and in community/cultural/linguistic gTLDs was a prime issue.  First it was important to me that the Single Registrant pattern apply as much to non-commercial as to commercial applicants and hence the inclusion of membership organization in the notion of Single Registrant.  In terms of the community/cultural/linguistic TLDs, I wish we had been able to offer a set of conditions for enabling these and for defining when VI should be permitted or how it should constrained (if at all), but we did not reach any sort of consensus among the authors on these issues and the deadline for submitting a proposal is today.  For example while I saw a role for UDRP (although perhaps modified to deal with the notion of non transferability in a single registrant TLD and of course any other fixes it may need) in such gTLDs, others did not and there is doubt as to whether NCUC would be comfortable with my position on this point.  What is critical is that there be flexibility for these gTLDS and that the notion of second level domain names being distributed for free or for a gTLD to use ccTLD distribution techniques be a possible consideration.  While the co-athours all agreed on the need for flexibility we also all agreed that arriving at a set of conditions and methods to support this would be challenging.

5. Because the name distribution chain is no longer the binary one of Registry-Registar, but rather one of Registry Service Provider (backend) - Registry Operator (front-end) - Registrar - Reseller and includes hybrids of these types as well as international organization, non commercial and commercial entities, etc, the ICANN one size fits all Registry contract and one size fits all RAA are not necessarily the best solutions.  I like the idea of a Registration Authority Master Agreement that has multiple sections for multiple responsibilities.  I also think this makes it easier to accommodate any recommended changes that the GNSO/ALAC WG on new gTLD Applicant Support or the Cross Community Group on categories (ccg-101)  may recommend.

I am more then happy to discuss any of the issues in this document on this list or elsewhere, especially in connection to the SG or Interest-group/constituency statements on the VI PDP that may be coming out in the near future.

a.


Begin forwarded message:

> From: "Michael D. Palage" <michael at palage.com>
> Date: 11 April 2010 12:18:34 EDT
> To: <Gnso-vi-feb10 at icann.org>
> Subject: [gnso-vi-feb10] Joint Proposal
> 
> Hello All,
>  
> Attached is the proposal which is being jointly submitted by Avri, Milton and myself to the working group for consideration.  We look forward to formally presenting this concept to the group on tomorrow’s call, and answering any questions that you may have.
>  
> Best regards,
>  
> Michael Palage (on behalf of Team MMA)



Note: While Team MMA obviously stands for Michael, Milton and Avri (or is that Milton, Michael and Avri) some in the VI WG seem to have mistaken if for Mixed Martial Arts given the sometime bellicose proclivities of the authors


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