RE: [gnso-vi-feb10] New proposal variant

[Jeff Eckhaus <eckhaus@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Alan,

I have one question on the proposal below. When you state that resellers must 
be disclosed, is this a public disclosure so that everyone can see this or that 
it is submitted to ICANN on a confidential basis? 


Thanks


Jeff

________________________________________
From: owner-gnso-vi-feb10@xxxxxxxxx [owner-gnso-vi-feb10@xxxxxxxxx] On Behalf 
Of Alan Greenberg [alan.greenberg@xxxxxxxxx]
Sent: Wednesday, June 23, 2010 1:51 AM
To: VI
Subject: [gnso-vi-feb10] New proposal variant

I would like to propose a variant. It could be applied to a proposal that 
allows registry/registrar integration for marketing TLDs other than those 
offered by the registry (such as JN2) or perhaps to allow the "Afilias et al" 
proposal to allow such relationships. The proposal provides more specificity to 
my previous statements that VI rules could be relaxed if the registrars 
involved in the VI relationship were bound by explicit contractual conditions.

In essence, it puts disclosure and reporting requirements on the registrar and 
its partners (partners being loosely defined) and explicitly commits them to 
not deal, directly or indirectly, in their registry's own TLDs.

Any registrar involved (with >15% ownership or control) must disclose the 
details of:
- Their family of registrars - owned or controlled (same definition) by them, 
or co-owned/controlled.
- All owned/controlled resellers that they deal with, directly or indirectly.

All of these entities will be bound by direct contract with ICANN to abide by a 
set of rules (which among others proscribe dealing with the domain(s) offered 
by the registry arm). The ownership/control relationships will be made public. 
There would be a requirement for ongoing reports certifying compliance and 
strict, severe penalties for non-compliance.

Among other things, this would contractually restrict two cases which previous 
proposals have not addressed.

a) Consider the scenario where J owns registry X and registrar Y. X and Y are 
both owned by J but are not otherwise related. As such, the registry agreement 
signed by X can in no way bind Y. This variant now binds Y to specific 
disclosure and reporting terms associated with VI.

b) Registry X and registrar Y have some sort of >15$ ownership or control. Y 
has a controlled reseller R. R also resells for a completely unrelated registry 
P. Under prior rules, R could market the X TLDs (routing registrations through 
P). This variant precludes such marketing arrangements.

In summary this proposal variant puts new contractual marketing restrictions, 
disclosure and reporting terms on those registrars who want to play in the VI 
sandbox. It also requires contracts with controlled resellers. These are just 
agreement to restrict marketing, disclosure and reporting requirements, and not 
monetary, so they do not form a new class of "contracted party". One could 
think of this as a form of certification of such resellers.

The overall intent is not to eliminate any potential gaming - nothing can do 
that. But it does give ICANN compliance a basis to recognize potential 
infractions and, if found, it gives them tools to achieve compliance.

This proposal variant is being suggested without being fully fleshed out, but 
given the timing, I thought it should go out earlier rather than later.

Alan