In Brief
The Generic Names Supporting Organization (GNSO) Council seeks volunteers to serve on a Working Group that will address issues related to the transfer of domain names between registrars. After investigating and considering specific issues (detailed below), the Working Group is expected to recommend how to handle these issues, which could include proposals for changes to the existing Inter-Registrar Transfer Policy (a consensus policy adopted in 2004).
What This Group Will Do
The initial tasks of the group will be to consider the following six questions 1 and make relevant recommendations to the GNSO Council:
a) Whether reporting requirements for registries and dispute providers should be developed, in order to make precedent and trend information available to the community and allow reference to past cases in dispute submissions;
b) Whether additional provisions should be included in the TDRP (Transfer Dispute Resolution Policy) on how to handle disputes when multiple transfers have occurred;
c) Whether dispute options for registrants should be developed and implemented as part of the policy (registrants currently depend on registrars to initiate a dispute on their behalf);
d) Whether requirements or best practices should be put into place for registrars to make information on transfer dispute resolution options available to registrants;
e) Whether existing penalties for policy violations are sufficient or if additional provisions/penalties for specific violations should be added into the policy;
f) Whether the universal adoption and implementation of EPP AuthInfo codes has eliminated the need of FOAs.
How This Group Will Work
ICANN Working Groups use transparent, open processes. The meetings of this WG will be recorded, and the recordings will be available to the public. The mailing list for the IRTP Part D WG will be archived publicly. Working Group members are expected to submit Statements of Interest (SOI). The group will collaborate using a public workspace. The Working Group is expected to follow the GNSO Working Group Guidelines.
How to Join
The Council invites interested parties to provide names of expected participants who can then be added to the WG mailing list. The GNSO Council may also invite stakeholders and experts to join. Participants in the Working Group that addressed IRTP Part C are especially encouraged to apply. Community members who wish to be invited to join the group should contact the GNSO secretariat (gnso.secretariat@icann.org). This WG is already forming; please apply promptly.
Background
The Inter‐Registrar Transfer Policy (IRTP) is a consensus policy adopted in 2004 to provide a straightforward procedure for domain name holders to transfer domain names between registrars. An overall review of this policy identified areas that require clarification or improvement. At its meeting on 17 January 2013, the Generic Names Supporting Organization (GNSO) Council passed a resolution chartering a Policy Development Process (PDP) Working Group (WG) to address the topic of Inter-Registrar Transfer Policies (IRTP) Part D. Because the initial review identified a wide range of issues related to transferring domain names, the issues have been categorized into subsets. This Working Group will tackle the issues referred to as "Part D".
1 See the final Issue Report on the IRTP Part D for further details on each of these issues.