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

[Alan Greenberg <alan.greenberg@xxxxxxxxx>]

My proposal said that it would be made public. But note that this 
(disclosure and contract requirement) is not for all resellers, but 
those resellers (direct or nested) that are controlled/owned.
Given that ICANN compliance does not have law-enforcement search or 
discovery abilities, whistle-blower or third-party ability to 
complain is an important component of compliance.
Alan

At 23/06/2010 05:08 AM, Jeff Eckhaus wrote:
> 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