Harmonization

[Danny Younger <dannyyounger@xxxxxxxxx>]

On 10 January 2006, by a vote of 15-0, the ICANN Board
resolved to pursue an initiative to harmonize gTLD
registry agreements:   

"these negotiations are intended to result in revised
new registry agreements for those TLDs, including
extended expiration dates and other revised terms to
come into line with ICANN's other recent registry
agreements".

In view of the non-discriminatory treatment clause
within the ICANN bylaws and the relative ease of
dealing with contracts in synch, we can readily
understand the Board's rationale for moving forward in
this manner.

The problem, of course, is that harmonizing earlier
points-of-contention (clauses incorporated into the
.net and .com agreements over the opposition of the
broad Internet community) has raised the hackles of
the general public.

The public understands that a presumptive right of
renewal is a "bad idea".  One only needs to look at
the performance of the .pro registry (that has only
5423 domains under management) to understand that
there are occasions where a rebid is clearly
warranted.

The public understands that contract rebids have
resulted in lower consumer costs.

The public understands that lifting price caps on a
monopoly is foolhardy in the extreme.

The public understands that allowing for unfettered
traffic data mining without a full examination of the
public policy issues raised is irresponsible.

The public, however, doesn't understand why ICANN
can't seem to grasp that which should be self-evident.

Why perpetuate contract clauses that enjoy no public
support just for the sake of contract harmonization?

ICANN now needs to do something it has never done --
admit to a mistake and take corrective action.

ICANN needs to start by reversing itself on the .com
agreement and by putting itself back onto a track that
enjoys bottom-up consensus-based policy support as
developed by its own policy-recommending organ, the
GNSO.

ICANN flip-flopped on the .xxx agreement; it can
certainly have a change of heart regarding the .com
contract.  

Start over.  Clean up the mess in .com registry
agreement and then harmonize the other registry
contracts.  







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