Response to Telnic

["Nevett, Jonathon" <jnevett@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

In responding to three substantive concerns I raised with the proposed
.tel registry agreement
http://forum.icann.org/lists/tel-tld-agreement/msg00003.html, Telnic's
response was limited to the assertion that the Board may have approved
these same provisions in at least one other registry agreement.  The
lack of a response to the substance of my comments is telling.  Telnic,
therefore, must agree that these three provisions are not in ICANN's
best interest. 

 

Telnic's response appears to be that because ICANN has approved a
contract with some inadvisable provisions in the past, it should do so
again in this case.  ICANN shouldn't subscribe to that kind of thinking.
Rather, ICANN should learn from its mistakes and not repeat them.  Is
that fair to the subsequent registries?  Perhaps not, but it is better
than continually making the same mistakes.  And it is no more unfair
than it would be to .aero, .coop, and .museum, for example, if the
proposal is approved as is and those registries had to go through a
review process before their agreements were renewed and .tel and .xxx
wouldn't.  Either way, it is unfair to some registry.  

 

Preserving ICANN's ability to protect the DNS (through competition and
oversight) is what is more important in this instance - not which
registry is treated somewhat unfairly.  We don't know what company may
swoop in and purchase a fledgling (or an existing) registry operator and
how they would act.  ICANN needs sufficient contractual tools to fight
against a potential bad actor.  The proposed agreement with .tel removes
many of the important tools.  For the betterment of ICANN, these three
provisions should be amended before the agreement moves forward.

 

Thanks.

 

Jon