Re: [gnso-vi-feb10] What do we mean by "single registrant"?

[Avri Doria <avri@xxxxxxx>]

Hi,

Yes I understood that from Jeff's message  
http://forum.icann.org/lists/gnso-vi-feb10/msg00672.html which was reiterated 
in http://forum.icann.org/lists/gnso-vi-feb10/msg00670.html. 

What I tried to say then (of course just my opinion in reply  : 
http://forum.icann.org/lists/gnso-vi-feb10/msg00672.html ) though perhaps 
unsuccessfully is that the policy we send forward should cover all new gTLDs 
and all applicants though until we understand the new policy we won't 
understand what we need to do to establish parity for incumbents.  I accept 
that parity be established.

I think  that figuring out  how this would be worked out in terms of the 
details, wherein the devils reside, would take longer.  i think it is ultra 
complex because it is not just Neustar we need to worry about but all of the 
existing registries and registrars with their varying contractual conditions.  
I worked on a contractual conditions PDP once with some of you and I remember 
the pain - and that was just registries.  I also remember working on RAA 
changes, another bit of pain remembered.  So I am a bit shy about accepting 
that we can get new contractual conditions resolved very quickly.  But it could 
happen, what do I know? I agree it has to happen.

So, if we were to reach consensus on a policy that applied to all applicants 
(including those who happened to be incumbent) that could be sent for approval 
while we were working out details on exactly how this would apply to 
incumbents, I thought that was, perhaps, a necessary efficiency.  If, however, 
working out all of the details must be done first to reach rough consensus, 
then i guess we either better hurry or the policy change beyond 0CO will just 
have to wait until we finish the detailed work.

To reiterate, i personally agree that in principle, Ry and Rr incumbents should 
be included in any solution for new gTLDs in so far as they are applicants and 
in so far as we come up with a policy other then 0CO that goes beyond VI 
limited to SR and CCL and similar variants, but the details may take a bit more 
work.  But if that work is required for a rough consensus solution, then it is 
required for a rough consensus solution, what can I say?  I just hoped we could 
make an in principle decision on the policy in phase 1 and get to the nitty 
gritty  of how current contractual conditions are changed for the incumbents in 
the intervening time - but still before applications opened.

This says nothing about confirming whether we have the correct issues report 
and PDP mandate in order to make recommendation about changing contractual 
conditions in our current charter.  I cannot count the times Jeff has 
admonished me in the past on the care that one needed to take in any PDP that 
would modify contractual conditions.

a.


On 7 Apr 2010, at 19:45, Richard Tindal wrote:

> 
> Avri
> 
> I agree with much of what you say below.
> 
> Regarding a specific point you made  --  the second-phase approach for 
> incumbent registries.     Jeff N has been making a relevant observation that 
> I'm not sure is well understood.  Some existing registry agreements (such as 
> the .BIZ agreement) can be interpreted as saying the registry cannot be a 
> registrar in any TLD.   That contract probably prevents Neustar from being a 
> registrar in ANY TLD.     
> 
> So even if we proposed a rule that allowed Neustar to be a registrar in a new 
> TLD the old (.BIZ) contract would prevent Neustar from doing this.  This is 
> one reason why Jeff and others are asking for the existing contracts to be 
> looked at concurrently.     
> 
> RT
> 
> 
> 
> 
> On Apr 6, 2010, at 11:31 PM, Avri Doria wrote:
> 
>> 
>> 
>> On 5 Apr 2010, at 22:07, Eric Brunner-Williams wrote:
>> 
>>> What concerns me more than the policy itself is the
>>> apparent abandonment of consistency. We have the Board becoming
>>> erratic, EOI ex nihilo at Seoul, Zero VI ex nihilo at Nairobi, and
>>> some here expressing views inconsistent with the Council's past, and
>>> unchanged present policy. These are not without risk.
>> 
>> 
>> Consistency for consistency sake is often considered foolish consistency.  
>> And to force consistency of the new with the old is to enforce the status 
>> quo.  
>> 
>> In this case, the Board has already broken with the old de-facto policies 
>> and created a new status-quo.  Now we have to decide are we willing to live 
>> with that and to become consistent with the new policy of Zero 
>> Cross-Ownership 0CO (we already had Zero Vi - 0VI - through the enforcement 
>> of the equivalent access clause - that is nothing new).  I think the new 0CO 
>> policy would involve a certain amount of  divestiture for those entering the 
>> new TLD market, which I am sure many would consider foolish and unwanted.  
>> Though I expect that most could still work around these restrictions with a 
>> RSP-Registrar relationship using a Registry middleman.
>> 
>> While creating a new set of policies for the new batch of gTLDs, some of the 
>> policies may initially be inconsistent with previous policies.  That is why 
>> I have recommended that we use a  second phase of this WG to make changes in 
>> the policies governing the incumbents so that they may become consistent 
>> with the new policies - at least to the extent that they ever were really 
>> consistent with each other.
>> 
>> And yes, allowing for VI in the case of SR and certain community based 
>> cultural/linguistic gTLD registries will be an innovation that may need some 
>> consistency based cleanup work.  And yes, anytime something new is done 
>> there is a certain amount of risk that it may take a bit of work to get it 
>> right.  But I hope that this is not a reason to ignore the public need for 
>> such arrangements and the appropriateness of such arrangements.  As has been 
>> argued before, when there is no registrar that can handle a community based 
>> cultural/linguistic gTLD, it is wrong to require one.  And further when 
>> there is no reason for the transfer services of ICANN for a SR gTLD, it is 
>> wrong to require that people pay for the structure to support these services.
>> 
>> There are possible applicants I have spoken to who hope to be able to offer 
>> free registration to their membership for various political and freedom of 
>> expression reasons.  To bar such offerings or to make them pay for services 
>> they don't need because of the status quo would be, to my mind, the wrong 
>> way for ICANN to discharge its obligation to behave for the good of the 
>> community.  And to bar them for consistency sake would, at the very least, 
>> seem to me to be foolish consistency.
>> 
>> a.
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>