RE: [gtld-council] PDP05 - renewals

["Bruce Tonkin" <Bruce.Tonkin@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hello Philip,

The World bank report recommended that an organisation adopt "some
varying degree of the principle of renewal expectancy" and that the
organisation should "strike the right balance between certainty in the
renewal process and regulatory flexibility, and engage in forward
thinking and planning".

The draft recommendations should make clear what is meant by "renewal
expectancy" in the context of the policy for new gTLDs.

For example a registrant of a second level .com domain name essentially
assumes that the domain name licence will be renewed once the renewal
fee is paid.   I believe that the intent in this case is to clarify what
conditions must be met to gain a renewal.  If these conditions are not
met, then it could move into some sort of competitive renewal process
(as per .net or .org).

The assumption here is that we may have many new gTLDs and that it would
be inefficient to begin competitive re-bid processes for each new gTLD.
We should not confuse this discussion with the PDP-Feb06 discussion
which is focussing on existing gTLDs, where some of those gTLDs may be
in a position of market dominance, and where some further conditions may
need to be met for renewal.


Note also that in the .com agreement dated 25 May 2001, there was a
renewal expectancy:

http://www.icann.org/tlds/agreements/verisign/registry-agmt-com-25may01.
htm


Clause 25 B states:

"Following consideration of the Renewal Proposal, Registry Operator
shall be awarded a four-year renewal term unless ICANN demonstrates
that: 

(a) Registry Operator is in material breach of this Registry Agreement, 

(b) Registry Operator has not provided and will not provide a
substantial service to the Internet community in its performance under
this Registry Agreement, 

(c) Registry Operator is not qualified to operate the Registry TLD
during the renewal term, 

or (d) the maximum price for initial and renewal registrations proposed
in the Renewal Proposal exceeds the price permitted under Section 22 of
this Registry Agreement. "


This renewal expectancy was significantly strengthened in the proposed
.net agreement of 1 July 2005:
http://www.icann.org/tlds/agreements/net/net-agreement-new.html


Clause 4.2 states:

This Agreement shall be renewed upon the expiration of the initial term
set forth in Section 4.1 above and each later term, unless the following
has occurred : 

(i) following notice of breach to Registry Operator in accordance with
Section 6.1 and failure to cure such breach within the time period
prescribed in Section 6.1, an arbitrator or court has determined that
Registry Operator has been in fundamental and material breach of
Registry Operator's obligations set forth in Sections 3.1(a), (b), (d)
or (e); Section 5.2 or Section 7.3 

AND 

 (ii) following the final decision of such arbitrator or court, Registry
Operator has failed to comply within ten days with the decision of the
arbitrator or court, or within such other time period as may be
prescribed by the arbitrator or court. 



So the concept of renewal expectancy is not new.  The discussion is
about the terms of that expectancy.


Regards,
Bruce Tonkin