Re: [gnso-vi-feb10] VI proposal

[Alan Greenberg <alan.greenberg@xxxxxxxxx>]

Jeff, you addressed your question at Brian, but I 
will give my thoughts on this.
As I have said both privately to you, and 
publicly, I generally support the concept of 
ICANN accredited registrars acting as gTLD 
registries or RSPs under certain conditions which 
would certainly include (but not be limited to) 
not trading, directly or indirectly, in their own TLDs.
But I do not feel comfortable doing that now, 
prior to thoroughly identifying what *detailed* 
other conditions are required to ensure that 
there can be a high level of confidence that the 
public interest will be served. This is, in my 
mind, a situation there the devil *is* in the details.
As mentioned in my previous note on this subject 
(http://forum.icann.org/lists/gnso-vi-feb10/msg01709.html), 
I suspect that significantly strengthened 
ICANN-Registrar contracts with appropriate 
penalties and auditability would be a component 
of this. I see no other way to ensure that needed 
safeguards are in place without the need to grow 
ICANN compliance operations by one or more orders of magnitude.
In ICANN, we talk about Registries and Registrars 
both being "contracted parties". But those 
contracts are vastly different. As a small 
example, can you imagine a registrar having to 
follow a process equivalent to the RSTEP process, 
including public comments, before the registrar could offer a new service?
If we could get some level of consensus that the 
Board/staff default is not preferred to the 
proposal that Brian last transmitted, perhaps we 
could then start looking at what we can do to 
address the exceptions that many want (and I 
include your desire to allow registrars to 
operate as Registries/RSPs as one of these 
exceptions) prior to the final AG being issued.
Alan


At 10/06/2010 12:08 AM, Jeff Eckhaus wrote:

> Brian,
>
> After reading the updated Afilias signed 
> proposal I had a question for Afilias and for PIR.
> Reading previous correspondence between Afilias, 
> PIR and both ICANN, GAC and the US House of 
> Representatives, members of Afilias and PIR made 
> adamant statements regarding the issues of 
> co-ownership, which do not reconcile with the current proposal.
> In the following letter to Peter Dengate Thrush 
> from Hal Lubsen CEO of Afilias , 
> http://www.icann.org/correspondence/lubsen-to-dengate-thrush-12oct09-en.pdf 
> Mr. Lubsen states the following:
> To reiterate our position, Afilias, Neustar and 
> PIR welcome registrars as registries for new 
> TLDs, and believe they should be permitted to 
> own new TLD registries and/or providers of 
> technical back-end registry services, provided 
> they abide by the current rules and are 
> restricted from selling second-level domain 
> names in their own TLD. Further, we believe 
> ICANN has failed to make an informed argument for removing that restriction.
> In this letter from David Maher of PIR to Hon. 
> Hank Johnson of the US Congress , 
> http://www.icann.org/correspondence/maher-to-johnson-24sep09-en.pdf 
> Mr Maher states the following:
> Statements were made that the registries sought 
> to prohibit registrars from owning and competing 
> as back end registry service providers. This is not correct.
> The registries support competition in the market 
> for new gTLDs and firmly believe that all 
> qualified back-end registry service providers ? 
> including providers aaffiliated with ICANN 
> accredited registrars - should be permitted to 
> compete to serve new and existing gTLDs
> Similar statements were made in a letter from 
> the Registries written by David Maher to the GAC 
> http://www.icann.org/correspondence/maher-to-karklins-25sep09-en.pdf
> These statements were made very recently and are 
> very strong statements supporting competition 
> and the position that Neustar made and continues 
> to support. That there is no evidence of harms 
> if a co-owned entity does not distribute the 
> TLD. A position that many in this group, myself 
> included have moved towards as a compromise and a path forward.
> I know this is not a courtroom and you are not 
> on the stand, and I am not even a lawyer, but I 
> would like to know and maybe you could explain 
> to the WG, why there is a such a drastic change 
> in position from Afilias and PIR from the 
> statements above and your long held position.
> Thanks
>
> Jeff Eckhaus
>
>
> ----------
> From: owner-gnso-vi-feb10@xxxxxxxxx
> To: Gnso-vi-feb10@xxxxxxxxx
> Sent: Wed Jun 09 18:36:21 2010
> Subject: [gnso-vi-feb10] VI proposal
> Reposting the updated proposal which reflects 
> the members of the Working Group who have 
> indicated their respective support for the 
> positions in the proposal.  Could revise acronym to JRACKBOATDESK.