[ga] [Fwd: [At-Large] URGENT: Statement on Domain Name Front Running]

["Jeffrey A. Williams" <jwkckid1@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

All,

  Indeed a sad day for many users as well as registrants.  On the
good side however, there is still a outside chance that Domain
Name tasting in all it's ugly forms, will actually be eliminated if
and when the RAA contracts are amended to ban such a practice
and hold Registries and Registrars duly accountable in the most
stringent manner as I have outlined for our INEGroup members
review and resolution body recommended.

  In the interim, for hosting companies and other Domain Name
supporting companies and organizations whom desire to have more
specific and effective methods of dealing with Domain Name Tasting
the Tasters themselves, the Registries and Registrars that are harboring

this likely fraudulent practice, we will be providing said effective
methods
and means by which those users and/or registrants can take control for
themselves in order to protect them from being duped into such a
demonstrably disagreeable if not fraudulent practice accordingly.  We
at INEGroup are currently finalizing testing these technical means and
methods and currently are in the quality control phase of same.

  It is safe for me to say from what I have tested myself, that some
if not most of these technical user based means and methods will
have a significant effect of the overall financial impact on Registries
and Registrars as well as some commercial web sites commerce
revenue.  I would conservatively estimate that impact will be in the
billions of US$ and Euro's accordingly.

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: [At-Large] URGENT: Statement on Domain Name Front Running
   Date: Thu, 13 Mar 2008 16:46:53 +0100
   From: At-Large Staff <staff@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
     To: Asia-Pacific Discuss
         <apac-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,Africa Discuss
         <afri-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,LAC Discuss
         <lac-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,Europe Discuss
         <euro-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,NA Discuss
         <na-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
     CC: At-Large Worldwide <alac@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>

Dear Members:

The statement reproduced below on the practice known as ?Domain Name
Front Running? was approved by the NARALO on 10 March 2008. The ALAC
reviewed this statement on 11th March 2008, and by decision of the ALAC
you are kindly asked to register any objections to this statement not
later than Monday 17 March at 1200 UTC ? after  it will be considered
approved by the ALAC and transmitted to the Board by the Chair at her
convenience.

The statement may be found at the following URL in addition to being
reproduced below:
https://st.icann.org/naralo/index.cgi?statement_to_the_icann_board_on_domain_front_running

Statement on Domain Name Front Running
Presented to NARALO by electronic Mail, 1 March 2008

Dear ICANN board directors:

While we are aware that you have been monitoring the public outrage in
response to registrar activities that have been variously described as
"front-running" and/or "domain reservation" or "cart-hold" or
"cart-reserve" activities, we are of the view that the obligation to
safeguard the operational stability of Registrar Services now requires
the immediate temporary establishment of a consensus policy curtailing
such practices to be taken in accordance with the board's authority
under the provisions set out in section 4.3.4 of the Registrar
Accreditation Agreement, that states:

"A specification or policy established by the ICANN Board of Directors
on a temporary basis, without a prior recommendation by the council of
an ICANN Supporting Organization, shall also be considered to be a
Consensus Policy if adopted by the ICANN Board of Directors by a vote of
at least two-thirds of its members, so long as the Board reasonably
determines that immediate temporary establishment of a specification or
policy on the subject is necessary to maintain the operational stability
of Registrar Services, Registry Services, the DNS, or the Internet, and
that the proposed specification or policy is as narrowly tailored as
feasible to achieve those objectives."
Please be advised that we have reached this conclusion based in part
upon the following considerations:

1. The use of "cart-hold" or "cart-reserve" systems has been actively
under discussion within the registrars constituency since early October
2007 when three different registrars first advanced the concept within
the context of a straw poll on the impact to registrants were the AGP to
be eliminated in its entirety (see footnote 1 at the bottom of the page)

2. The use of this domain name reservation practice next came to be
adopted by a large-volume registrar (Network Solutions) on or about 8
January 2008, and the practice was immediately condemned by the
community at large (with extensive coverage in the Tech media, the
general press, in blogs world wide, on domain name forums, and on
community discussion lists).

3. The actions of Network Solutions has now spawned a similar project on
the part of another large-volume registrar (register.com), and we have
no reason to believe that other large-volume registrars will refrain
from rapidly setting up comparable efforts. (see Footnote 2).

While we recognize that we are unable to point to an ICANN-approved
definition of "operational stability of Registrar Services" (as no such
definition exists within either current ICANN contracts or supporting
materials), we take guidance from the ICANN Policy Document ICP-3 which
posits that activities that do not interfere with the operation of the
DNS are, generally speaking, those that operate within
community-established norms.

Such norms tend to respect a set of long-established principles such as
the principle of least astonishment. When registrants currently search
for a domain name at these registrars using normative search practices,
they are clearly astonished by that which results from their efforts:
the inability to readily register the domain name of their choice with a
more competitive registrar and/or the domain name that they have
selected appearing in the WHOIS with the name of the registrar as the
registrant of record. (Footnote 3

The community's trust in ICANN's ability to manage the Domain Name
System is at stake. It is inappropriate for such registrar activities to
proceed unabated in a policy vaccuum. Accordingly we call upon the ICANN
board to establish a temporary narrowly-tailored policy as a stopgap
until such time as the relevant policy-recommending ICANN Supporting
Organizations can provide a comprehensive consensus policy solution.
--
Regards,

ICANN At-Large Staff
email: staff@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

All,

  Well it looks as though GoDaddy is at it again...  Maybe GoDaddy
cot some presure from some law enforcment agencies?  After all
GoDaddy does have some porn sites registered...

Wired is running a story about
http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/03/godaddy-silence.html
GoDaddy shutting down a police watchdog site called RateMyCop.
However, GoDaddy can't seem to give a consistent answer as for why.
>From the article: 'RateMyCop founder Gino Sesto says he was given
no notice of the suspension. When he called GoDaddy, the company
told him that he'd been shut down for suspicious activity. When Sesto
got a supervisor on the phone, the company changed its story and
claimed the site had surpassed its 3 terabyte bandwidth limit, a claim
that Sesto says is nonsense. "How can it be overloaded when it only
had 80,000 page views today, and 400,000 yesterday?" Sesto says
police can post comments as well, and a future version of the site will
allow them to authenticate themselves to post rebuttals more
prominently. Chief Dyer wants to get legislation passed that would make
RateMyCop.com illegal, which, of course, wouldn't pass constitutional
muster in any court in America.

Regards,

Spokesman for INEGroup LLA. - (Over 277k members/stakeholders strong!)
"Obedience of the law is the greatest freedom" -
   Abraham Lincoln

"Credit should go with the performance of duty and not with what is
very often the accident of glory" - Theodore Roosevelt

"If the probability be called P; the injury, L; and the burden, B;
liability depends upon whether B is less than L multiplied by
P: i.e., whether B is less than PL."
United States v. Carroll Towing  (159 F.2d 169 [2d Cir. 1947]
===============================================================
Updated 1/26/04
CSO/DIR. Internet Network Eng. SR. Eng. Network data security IDNS.
div. of Information Network Eng.  INEG. INC.
ABA member in good standing member ID 01257402 E-Mail
jwkckid1@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
My Phone: 214-244-4827

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