RE: [gnso-whois-wg] Why OPoC Must have Relationship w/ Registrar/ICANN not just Registrant

["Milton L Mueller" <mueller@xxxxxxx>]

Pardon me for checking into this controversy late, but I was in San Juan and 
was under the strong impression that we had decided that the OPoC only had a 
relationship with the registrant. We certainly rejected the idea of accrediting 
OPoCs, so that whole notion can be dropped from the picture. We did discuss the 
acknowledgement issue, and as I recall the registrars didn’t like the idea, but 
the discussion was inconclusive. The consensus, as I recall, was that the main 
remedy for an OPoC who abets or is a bad actor is through some kind of Type 1 
access. 

 

   _____  

From: owner-gnso-whois-wg@xxxxxxxxx [mailto:owner-gnso-whois-wg@xxxxxxxxx] On 
Behalf Of Adam Scoville
Sent: Friday, July 06, 2007 2:35 AM
To: Milton L Mueller; gnso-whois-wg@xxxxxxxxx
Subject: [gnso-whois-wg] Why OPoC Must have Relationship w/ Registrar/ICANN not 
just Registrant

 

I think some who didn’t attend the San Juan meeting have asked why an agreement 
with the registrar or ICANN is necessary. 

 

To summarize, a relationship only between the OPoC and the registrant is 
insufficient for the following reason: if the registrant of the domain is in 
some way a bad actor, a wronged third party needs the OPoC to perform its 
functions in order to communicate with the registrant, and to be able to 
identify the registrant sufficient to bring the right legal action against the 
right person in the right place. (If that can’t be done, there is no law on the 
Internet.) 

 

If the OPoC doesn’t perform its functions, under this scenario, the only party 
the OPoC is responsible to is the bad actor. Moreover, the OPoC may complain 
that the contract the registrant gave her never required her to perform the 
responsibilities we set out. So perhaps the registrant has breached the 
Registration Agreement by failing to require the right responsibilities of the 
OPoC… but all that gives is another reason the registrant is bad, which is no 
help in the original goal of communicating with or bringing legal action 
against the registrant. 

 

Two ways of binding the OPoC would be accreditation (i.e. ICANN verifies the 
OPoC’s credentials and OPoC agrees to perform it’s responsibilities as a 
condition of accreditation) or acknowledgement (i.e. when nominated as an OPoC, 
the OPoC must in some way acknowledge to the registrar that it is the OPoC and 
its responsibility to perform the specified OPoC functions).

 

Perhaps with acknowledgement there is no indication ahead of time that the OPoC 
will do its job (as in accreditation), but at least a contractual relationship 
exists (the OPoC must respond to a query, and acknowledge—agree—that it must 
perform its set of responsibilities).

 

- Adam


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