In light of the proposed transfer of operation of the .ORG registry, as a current
.ORG registrant, I must say that I am a bit concerned for the rights of many existing
registrants in the new .ORG registry.If one looks, it can be found that many registrants
are small information-sharing groups or individuals, like myself, who registered
a .ORG domain name before such extensions as .NAME, .INFO and other unrestricted
TLDs came into the scene. Because the .COM namespace was rapidly depleted,
many individuals and even some businesses entered into the .ORG namespace at the
beckoning of a registry and registrars who touted .ORG as another viable option over
.COM.
After reviewing many of the .ORG bidders' proposals, I can arrive at no conclusion
that *some* of the applicants intend to protect current .ORG registrants from having
their names revoked or eventually transferred to another party, based solely upon
the premise that the individual or group at hand is/are not a registered not-for-profit
organization.
So, my list of questions for each registry applicant...
(1) Do
you intend to protect existing registrants from revocation of their domain names
based solely upon the premise that the registrant is not registered as a 501(c)(3)
organization or is without some other not-for-profit organization designation?
(2)
Do you intend to amend or add to the UDRP to reflect a new policy that a name can
be transferred to another registrant based solely upon the fact that the existing
registrant cannot prove to the arbitration panel that the domain name in question
is being used for non-commercial activities by a not-for-profit organization?
(3)
Will you continue to support a .ORG registry that is open for registration by the
general public, as recommended in item 2b of the Final Report (version 5.4) on .ORG
divestiture(1), drafted by the DNSO Dot Org Names Council Task Force?
(4) Even
though all of the proposals indicate each applicant's determination to differentiate
the marketing techniques for the .ORG gTLD, if selected, would you (as the new registry
operator) continue to embrace the openness of .ORG as a "generic" gTLD (without registrant
restrictions) as orginally reflected in RFC 1591(2)?
Thank you for taking the time
to clarify these issues for myself and the rest of us littler people.
(1) For the
Final Report (version 5.4) on .ORG divestiture, URL: http://www.dnso.org/clubpublic/nc-org/Arc00/msg00386.html
(2)
For RFC 1591, URL: ftp://ftp.isi.edu/in-notes/rfc3071.txt