[gnso-dow123] Extract from GNSO Council minutes on current ICANN staff findings on the transfers policy

["Bruce Tonkin" <Bruce.Tonkin@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hello All,

Below is an extract from the GNSO Council minutes published at:
http://www.gnso.icann.org/mailing-lists/archives/council/msg00777.html 

That covers Kurt Pritz's report to Council on the current state of
analysis on the effectiveness of the new transfer policy.

Regards,
Bruce Tonkin


Kurt Pritz reported that after the 3 months of the transfer policy a
draft report is being prepared stating the registrant, registrar and
registry experiences.

The focus of the report:

1. Authentification and verification methods - their success

The transfer policy - complaints
- Failure in making transfers because registrars were locking all names
and it was difficult to unlock them
- Opportunity of fraud, theft and hijacking of names - one real
circumstance and 2 unsubstantiated cases

2. Dispute resolution process

- procedure that was required by the registries in case there was a
dispute whether a transfer should be made or not.
In the first 3 months there was only one instance where it was invoked,
instead what appeared was that ICANN staff worked regularly on
addressing registrant complaints on the transfer process.
Most complaints were that the registrant wanted to transfer and could
not because the name was locked.
The purpose behind the dispute resolution process and the fee associated
with it was that the fees would inflict some amount of pain for those
not complying with the transfer process and it was a self policing
mechanism. The fact that ICANN staff was doing the dispute resolution
worked around the fee. A topic to be addressed at a later stage to
examine whether the Dispute resolution process could be made more
affective.

3. Undo mechanism

The registries were required to implement an undo mechanism to assure
that unauthorized transfers could be reversed. This appeared to be
effective, the only complaints were about timeliness. and this would be
the subject of further study.


Statistics

Analyzing a sample of the comments and emails concerning the Transfer
Policy: 

Over half complaints state that transfers should be easier to make than
the new transfer policy allows. 

Between a third and 40% of the comments to date complain that losing
registrars lock domain names so that they cannot be transferred or
resellers use some other form of nacking the transfer. 

Approximately 10 % commented that the whole process should be faster. 

Less prevalent complaint was the quality of the Whois data, especially
at the reseller level interfered with transfers. Correction to the Whois
data would help the process itself.

Approximately 18% suggested altering the form of authorization to make
it more effective. 

The other (smaller percentage of) comments included different sorts of
suggestions, for example: adding additional lock identifications, types
of authorization, and the fact that the forms of authorization are
screened by some spam filters. 

Approximately 18 % comments said the transfer policy might increase
susceptibility to name theft. 

The Transfer Policy three-month review report will be released shortly.
These statistics may change somewhat based upon a more complete review
of information.