Unethical Registrar Warehousing and Speculation (unformatted)
My apologies, my previous comment came through with html formatting, here's the unformatted text: I respectfully request that ICANN fulfill your obligation of Section 2.3.2 of the Registrar Accreditation Agreement (RAA ) to: 2.3.2 not unreasonably restrain competition and, to the extent feasible, promote and encourage robust competition; ...by clarifying the language of Section 3.7.9 to EXPLICITLY FORBID the unethical and unfair practice of Warehousing and Speculation by Registrars. Currently, at least one Registrar, Tucows Inc., is by the admission (boast?) of their President/CEO Elliot Noss, adding to their "portfolio" 6000 to 8000 expired domain names per month, which at this writing would be somewhere in the neighborhood of 168,000 to 224,000 domain names, since they adopted this policy. He says: "We believe we are one of the leading portfolios in the world. Please remember we pick up 6000 to 8000 more names each month from expiring domains. We made the decision two years ago to acquire expiring names that we believe add value." The entire quote from a February 7th, 2008 Investor conference call, is available below: http://seekingalpha.com/article/63693-tucows-inc-q4-2007-earnings-call-transcript?source=yahoo&page=-1Section 3.7.9 as it currently reads is clearly meant to outlaw this practice, but apparently Tucows chooses not to read it that way, therefore ICANN must add more explicit language to the RAA and enforce the current provisions of 3.7.9 and 3.7.5. Any and all names that have expired and been re-registered by Tucows Inc. or any other Registrar without being released as specified under section 3.7.5 must also be released to the available pool. Section 3.7.5 of the current RAA clearly states that expired names be cancelled and released to the pool of available names. See below for current ICANN policy on deletions: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- http://www.icann.org/registrars/eddp.htm Expired Domain Deletion Policy Posted: 21 September 2004Beginning on 21 December 2004, Section 3.7.5 [of the RAA] will be replaced with the following language: 3.7.5 At the conclusion of the registration period, failure by or on behalf of the Registered Name Holder to consent that the registration be renewed within the time specified in a second notice or reminder shall, in the absence of extenuating circumstances, result in cancellation of the registration by the end of the auto-renew grace period (although Registrar may choose to cancel the name earlier). 3.7.5.1 Extenuating circumstances are defined as: UDRP action, valid court order, failure of a Registrar's renewal process (which does not include failure of a registrant to respond), the domain name is used by a nameserver that provides DNS service to third-parties (additional time may be required to migrate the records managed by the nameserver), the registrant is subject to bankruptcy proceedings, payment dispute (where a registrant claims to have paid for a renewal, or a discrepancy in the amount paid), billing dispute (where a registrant disputes the amount on a bill), domain name subject to litigation in a court of competent jurisdiction, or other circumstance as approved specifically by ICANN. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------This Expired Domain Deletion Policy was amended in 2004 to further clarify the "extenuating circumstances" in which the name will not be cancelled. None of those extenuating circumstances are related to the Registrar wishing to "add to their portfolio." This is an egregious breach of the Registrar role which is to manage the domain names. The Registrar is duly compensated through registration fees. They do not own the domain names any more than any Registrant owns them. The practice of siphoning off the most desirable names instead of releasing them to the available pool or, at the least, public auction, puts the Registrar at a ridiculously unfair advantage, and makes a mockery of the role of Registrar as stewards of the resource. Why on earth should a Registrar, who is chartered with administrating a public resource, be given a completely unfair advantage in obtaining that very resource for itself with no competition whatsoever??? Clearly that is the agenda of Tucows Inc. and possibly other Registrars.For further evidence see this comment by Tucows Domain Portfolio General Manager, Bill Sweetman: Q. Does being a registrar give you the right to keep domains that its customers fail to renew? A. Yes. Full context here: http://namebio.com/NameBioBlog/2008/04/17/tucows-admits-to-warehousing-domains/Please rectify this situation without further delay by changing the language of Section 3.7.9 to this: 3.7.9 Registrar shall be prohibited from warehousing or speculation in domain names. Expired domain names will be released to the available pool as specified in 3.7.5 Respectfully, Patrick Quinn |