.PRO Renewal comments of Leap of Faith Financial Services Inc. (April 1, 2010)

[George Kirikos <gkirikos@xxxxxxxxx>]

Comments on .PRO Renewal Registry Agreement
Submitted By: George Kirikos
Company: Leap of Faith Financial Services Inc.
Company URL: http://www.leap.com/
Date: April 1, 2010

We oppose the renewal of the .pro agreement. In particular, this is a classic 
example of a prospective TLD operator promising one thing, failing at what they 
promised, and then seeking to redo their contracts. ICANN has allowed this to 
happen for years, and the time for this to cease is now.

The Board should reject the new contract, and instead put out an open tender or 
Request For Proposal (RFP) process for redelegation of the .pro TLD. The 
current registry operator could be amongst those involved in the RFP/tender 
process, but would not be guaranteed success. The new registry operator should 
be the one that most benefits consumers/registrants, with the main decision 
criteria being the lowest cost provider for a given set of performance 
standards.

These are the same criteria for nearly every other procurement contract, in 
business, academia, and the government sector. It's time for ICANN to stop 
being an ad hoc "club" where the rules are rewritten every week, and it should 
instead begin to operate in the public interest using procedures that are 
standard best practices for procurement throughout the known universe.

I agree with the comments of Adrian Kinderis, in that the registry operator 
knew what they were getting into when they signed their agreements. I echo his 
question "Why is it permissible to have these clauses changed based on their 
inability to deliver a desirable result?"

If ICANN does not tender/RFP the .pro registry operations, it will be a 
continuation of the past failures of ICANN to look out for the public interest.

Sincerely,

George Kirikos
http://www.leap.com/