[NCSG-Discuss] 25 March 18:00 UTC - NCSG & RrSG Call on RAA Debacle

[Robin Gross]

Dear All:

Please mark your calendars for a call between members of both NCSG &  
RrSG on Monday 25 March 18:00 UTC for 1 hour.

The call's discussion topic is the Registrar Amendment Agreement  
(RAA).   NCSG members can talk with members of the registrar  
negotiating team and other registrars about the recent developments  
in the negotiations and next steps for this process.  Below is a copy  
of the RrSG Statement on the issue.  I share concerns about the  
impact on the bottom-up multi-stakeholder model from ICANN's proposal  
that it have unilateral right to amend the contracts that govern  
online activity (see: Jeff Neuman's take here).

Any NCSG member is welcome and invited to participate in the joint  
call (details to follow).

Thanks,
Robin

=======================================================================
http://www.internetnews.me/2013/03/08/registrar-negotiating-team- 
issues-statement-on-raa/

Registrar Stakeholder Group Negotiating Team (Registrar NT) statement  
regarding RAA negotiations:

After nearly 18 months of negotiations with ICANN over a new  
Registrar Accreditation Agreement (RAA), formal negotiations have  
concluded. The posting of a “proposed” 2013 RAA by ICANN for public  
comment signals that ICANN staff believes that negotiations have  
concluded and the remaining issues will not be resolved.

The Registrars’ NT disagrees. To be clear, this is NOT the outcome  
that registrars wanted, and they remain ready and willing to continue  
negotiations.

Prior to the Toronto ICANN meeting (October 2012), all parties  
acknowledged that they were very close to agreement on all remaining  
issues.  The process appeared to be reaching a favorable conclusion  
and when ICANN CEO Fadi Chehadé communicated his desire to have RAA  
negotiations wrapped up by the end of 2012, registrars felt it was an  
ambitious timeframe, but one worth pursuing for the benefit of all  
parties.

When negotiations finally resumed in February 2013 much to the  
surprise of registrars, the few remaining issues were not the only  
items under discussion. ICANN staff presented a list of 10 brand new  
items for inclusion in the agreement, under the pretext of enhancing  
the “public interest.” Furthermore, these new items came along with  
an arbitrary deadline and decision to link the 2013 RAA to the new  
gTLD timeline.

Among these new demands was a Registrant Rights and Responsibilities  
document (R3), a temporary privacy accreditation program and a  
requirement that registrars accept and implement recommendations of  
the WHOIS Expert Working Group, which had yet to be formed and whose  
work is just beginning.

Although registrars were surprised by these new demands, registrars  
worked in good faith with ICANN to accommodate its intentions. For  
example, registrars consulted with their members to fine-tune the R3  
document to make it easier to understand and readily translatable in  
other languages.

Some of the other new items for inclusion transcend the RAA and could  
affect the entirety of the multi-stakeholder model.  For example,  
ICANN insisted on including a proposed Revocation (or “blow up”)  
Clause that would have given them the ability to unilaterally  
terminate all registrar accreditations. After major pushback, ICANN  
staff relented and in its place proposed giving the ICANN Board the  
ability to unilaterally amend the RAA. This is identical to what  
ICANN inserted into the proposed new gTLD registry agreement–a clause  
met with strong opposition not only from the Registry Stakeholder  
Group but from the broader ICANN community.

The effect of such a clause in the primary agreements between ICANN  
and its commercial stakeholders would be devastating to the bottom- 
up, multi-stakeholder model.  First, it will effectively mean the end  
of the GNSO’s PDP, as the Board will become the central arena for all  
controversial issues, not the community. Second, it creates an  
imbalance of authority in the ICANN model, with no limits on the  
scope or frequency of unilateral amendments, and no protections for  
registrars and more important registrants.

In addition to the new items for inclusion there was a surprise  
announcement that all new gTLD registries must only use registrars  
that have signed the 2013 RAA, a transparent effort by ICANN to  
arbitrarily link the new gTLD program to the outcome of RAA  
negotiations. This requirement would create separate “classes” or  
“levels” of registrars, which is unprecedented in the DNS industry.   
There can and must be only one meaning of “ICANN-Accredited.”

All of the items that have been agreed to over the past 18 months  
would, by themselves, produce an RAA that is vastly improved over the  
current 2009 version. If adopted, that RAA would significantly raise  
performance requirements for every ICANN accredited registrar and  
bring dramatic improvements to the domain name ecosystem. Nearly all  
of the Law Enforcement requests that were endorsed by the GAC have  
been included, as well as the major items that were requested by the  
GNSO are included in that RAA. That RAA would bring registrant  
verification. That RAA would bring enhanced compliance tools.

Registrars must emphasize that the key differences between that RAA  
and the one currently proposed by ICANN are not issues raised by Law  
Enforcement, GAC or the GNSO but by ICANN staff.

It now moves to the greater ICANN community to review these competing  
draft RAAs, and registrars look forward to those public discussions.   
We welcome engagement with all stakeholders on the new 2013 RAA, and  
what it means for registrars, registrants, and the management of the  
DNS as a whole.

========================

Also another registrar view on the "Mishandling of the Registrar  
Negotiations" here.





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



-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.ncuc.org/pipermail/ncuc-discuss/attachments/20130319/1829000c/attachment.html>