Presumptive Renewal Clause (4.2)

[Danny Younger <dannyyounger@xxxxxxxxx>]

A bit of history...

In October 2007, the GNSO's Contractual Conditions Task Force produced a report 
containing a set of ten "majority supported recommendations," recommending that 
certain steps be taken by ICANN in relation to the terms of gTLD registry 
agreements, or in some cases, recommending no changes. The GNSO Council voted 
at its meeting on 9 August 2007 to send the set of recommendations developed by 
the Task Force to the ICANN Board of Directors
as a consensus policy recommendation.

One of those recommendations #1(c) stated that "There was majority support for 
the concept of a re-bid of registry contracts...".

However, at the November 2007 Los Angeles session the ICANN Board declared that 
it was not yet ready to vote upon the recommendations.

These GNSO consensus recommendations were never again discussed by the Board, 
and current ICANN Consensus Policies do not include any of the recommendations 
tendered by the Contractual Conditions Task Force.

I submit that if the Board was not ready in 2007 to take up the issue of 
presumptive renewal, it surely should now be ready to review the earlier 
recommendations (especially in light of its reiterated commitment to promote 
competition).

A former board member has stated, "The broad and overwhelming consensus of 
internet users is that presumptive renewal is a stupid idea."  I share this 
point of view.

I ask this Board have the courage to take up that which an earlier Board 
declined to consider.  The GNSO recommendations are still on the table, and 
there is no expiry date.  Routinely granting registries presumptive renewal 
remains an anti-competitive mistake that this Board assuredly needs to correct.