Comments of the Noncommercial Users Constituency

["Milton Mueller" <mueller@xxxxxxx>]

The complete NCUC statement is here:
http://www.ncdnhc.org/policydocuments/ncuc-icann-verisignsettlement.pdf


On this forum, too much comment is focused on the specifics of VeriSign
and in particular the alleged rate increase. We believe that more
general and more important process issues are at stake.

NCUC sees a risk that private bargaining between ICANN staff and its
contractors will replace the policy development process of ICANN's
constituencies. While we do not believe that every change in registry
contracts should be subject to collective oversight, in this case we
believe that ICANN staff has crossed the boundary between contracting
and policy making. 

We also see a dangerous conflict between ICANN's putative oversight
role and its incentive to negotiate generous financial agreements with a
contractor that is at the same time ICANN's main source of revenue.

Accordingly, our comments have three actionable items:

1. We would like to see the "no criticism of ICANN" provisions
stricken from the settlement agreement.

2. We would like to see ICANN's GNSO initiate a policy development
process on the issue of registry renewal expectancy, and produce and
adopt a uniform policy that would apply equally to all registries. 

3. We would like to see a policy development process on the issue of
price caps for registries, and adoption of a uniform policy that would
apply equally to all registries.



Dr. Milton Mueller
Syracuse University School of Information Studies
http://www.digital-convergence.org
http://www.internetgovernance.org