RE: [gnso-vi-feb10] Regarding the Nairobi Board Resolution

["Michael D. Palage" <michael@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Kurt,

 

While I personally have no problem with the Nairobi resolution appearing in
DAG#4, I find ICANN's refusal (Board/Staff) to answer legitimate questions
put forward in good faith from this group deeply troubling on many levels.

 

First, the ICANN Board in connection with its Nairobi resolution changed the
status quo, by imposing zero cross ownership. Under Paragraph 4 of the
Affirmation of Commitments (AoC) "ICANN commits to perform and publish
analyses of the positive and negative effects of its decisions on the
public, including any financial impact on the public, and the positive or
negative impact (if any) on the systemic security, stability and resiliency
of the DNS."  Additionally, Paragraph 7 imposed upon ICANN a commitment to
"to provide a thorough and reasoned explanation of decisions taken, the
rationale thereof and the sources of data and information on which ICANN
relied."

 

Now as the ICANN Board is well aware there are a number of commercial
interests that are potentially negatively impacted as a result of the
Nairobi resolution.  To date I have seen no data or information upon which
ICANN relied upon in passing this resolution. If it does exist can ICANN
please provide me a copy of this data/information. If this data/information
does  not exist, I would respectfully request that ICANN reconsider its
refusal to answer the legitimate questions that this Working Group properly
submitted to them.

 

I am not trying to be difficult, but I believe that ICANN has certain
obligations set forth in the AoC and refusing to answer legitimate questions
in response to a resolution in which they provided no rationale or
information deeply troubling. Can you please reconfirm that ICANN
(Board/staff) has no intention of answering the legitimate questions that
this Working Group initially put forward.

 

Best regards,

 

Michael

 

 

 

 

 

From: owner-gnso-vi-feb10@xxxxxxxxx [mailto:owner-gnso-vi-feb10@xxxxxxxxx]
On Behalf Of Kurt Pritz
Sent: Wednesday, May 12, 2010 2:20 PM
To: Gnso-vi-feb10@xxxxxxxxx
Subject: [gnso-vi-feb10] Regarding the Nairobi Board Resolution

 

Members of the Vertical Integration Working Group:

This is the first contact I have had directly with you as a group - I want
to start by thanking you for the interest and hard work put into the
vertical integration issues. I have attended several of the calls and read
the mail list. A tremendous amount of thought has been devoted to developing
a vertical integration model for this new gTLD marketplace. 

Some time ago, representatives of the group forwarded a set of questions to
the ICANN Board regarding the Nairobi Board resolution on the vertical
integration issue. The working group authored the set of specific questions
to clarify the meaning of the resolution in order to inform the work of the
group.

The Board discussed the questions posed by the group and considered a set of
possible answers. In the end, the collective Board members' opinions
indicated that the Board will not provide advice for your group in response
to the questions.  The Board took note that the task set out for the GNSO -
and through it, for the working group - was to develop a policy
recommendation regarding the vertical structure of the name registration
marketplace, starting with a "blank sheet of paper." The Board comments
indicated that the resolution was crafted, in part, to give the GNSO the
widest possible latitude in crafting a structure.

The Board also indicated that the next version of the proposed Guidebook and
the gTLD implementation will be guided by the Nairobi Board resolution,
unless superseded by a GNSO recommended, Board approved policy. 

I realize some time has passed since the questions were originally posed and
am gratified that the working group has continued to prosecute this task
with all possible vigour. After considering this issue myself, I think the
sense of the Board on this issue is correct. The policy advice on this issue
should come from the consensus of the constituent groups, and should not be
influenced by the input of the ICANN's directors. 

Again, please accept my thanks for the hard work to date and also my
willingness to respond to questions or issues on any of the vertical
integration discussion points.

 

Sincerely,

 

 

Kurt

 

Kurt Pritz

ICANN