Donuts' Comments on Registry Agreement

[Jon Nevett <jon@xxxxxxxxx>]

Donuts Inc. wishes to express support for the newly published Registry 
Agreement.

Most applicants did not seek changes to the Registry Agreement from the version 
contained in the Applicant Guidebook (AGB).  Further, for the most part, 
applicants did not appreciate the initial process ICANN used for proposing 
changes. The AGB agreement was derived through a set of community discussions 
over many months.  A set of last-minute changes, accompanied by a warning that 
extended debate would delay the program, was unwelcome to say the least.  The 
potential for additional and unwarranted delay upsets the billions in global 
investment made in reliance on ICANN’s assurances of a predictable, transparent 
process. With that said and in our opinion, when taken as a whole, this new 
draft agreement is acceptable, with changes that benefit applicants and the 
ICANN community.

The published draft agreement resulted from the hard work of a group of 
applicant volunteers that entered into good faith discussions with ICANN staff 
to accommodate requested changes. The group enjoyed the gifts of collaboration, 
open-mindedness and flexibility and arrived at the new version of the 
agreement, now ready for consideration through this public comment process. 
Depending on one's perspective, parts are better than the AGB version and parts 
are worse. Likely, that is the sign of a successful negotiation.

We believe the following positives in the draft agreement outweigh the concerns 
about the new amendment process (which is far better than the versions first 
published by ICANN earlier this year). The draft agreement provides clearer 
policies on reserved names and registry use of names; clarification on 
implementation of Rights Protection Mechanisms; a prohibition on ICANN from 
assessing registry fees until delegation (as opposed to time of contracting); 
confidentiality rights for trade secrets; clarified provisions related to 
change of control and assignment; and a process to address conflicts with local 
and national law.  These changes, combined with the existing safeguards in the 
Registry Agreement, will make new gTLDs far safer for consumers than most 
existing TLDs.

New gTLDs were scheduled to be delegated at least four months ago, in January 
2013.  The program has been delayed for far too long, and at great harm to 
applicants and to the anticipated benefits the program will bring, as well as 
to the program itself. ICANN has permitted this delay to be caused, in part, by 
those who never supported the program in the first place and are using delay 
tactics as a strategy. As such, we support adoption of this new agreement and 
look forward to signing it forthwith.


Jonathon Nevett
Co-Founder & EVP, Donuts Inc.