Re: [council] Agenda Request

["Sophia B" <sophiabekele@xxxxxxxxx>]

I believe that the current policy is fine. It gives enough time in any way
it is implemented for registrants to renew.  Many people are irresponsible
and that is why they loose their domains. I don't think giving them more
time would change it.

Choosing a better registrar that does a good job of protecting them is more
important.

Sophia

On 03/03/06, Ross Rader <ross@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> Bruce, fellow Councillors,
>
> At our next meeting, I would like to propose the initiation of a new
> policy development process concerning the Redemption Grace Period and
> request that this topic be added to our agenda.
>
> It has recently come to my attention recently that the current
> implementation (detailed at
> http://www.icann.org/bucharest/redemption-topic.htm) is an optional
> registry service which may not be meeting the needs of registrants as
> originally envisaged when it was implemented. Recent press reports (see
> below) and registrant complaints indicate that names are being lost
> despite the implementation of this registry service.
>
> I have spent a lot of time considering whether or not Council can afford
> to take on additional work given our current workload and have come to
> the view that because of the widespread support for the Redemption Grace
> Period amongst the constituencies (as documented on the ICANN website)
> and the pre-existence of strong policy and implementation proposals that
> already have consensus support of the stakeholders, we should be able to
> confirm the Redemption Grace Period proposals as consensus policy fairly
> quickly and without much additional effort or contentious debate.
>
> Because of the pre-existing consensus on this issue, I will propose to
> move this forward without creating a task force per Annex A, Section 8
> of the ICANN Bylaws once we have agreed to initiate a PDP and been
> provided with an issues report by the staff.
> (http://www.icann.org/general/bylaws.htm#AnnexA-8). i.e. the fast-track.
>
> In the very least, creation of an issues report will gather up
> substantive data on this subject and allow us to make an informed
> decision regarding whether or not circumstances like those detailed
> below are widespread enough to justify launching a full-fledged PDP.
>
> Your consideration of this matter would be extremely appreciated. If you
> have any questions, please don't hesitate to drop me a note (or give me
> a ring).
>
> -ross
>
> 'Drop Catchers' Buy and Sell Web Names Others Let Slip
> By DAVID KESMODEL
> Wall Street Journal
> February 22, 2006; Page B1
> Last month, Chicago real-estate agent Judy Orr discovered that a Web
> site she used to showcase area homes had gone off-line. It turned out
> she had failed to pay the $9 annual renewal fee for her Web address,
> oak-lawn-real-estate.com.
>
> But getting her site back online wasn't as easy as she had hoped:
> Another company had snapped up the domain name and wanted nearly $2,500
> to return it to her. "I was sick to my stomach," Ms. Orr says. It took
> two years of work to build up the site so it would rank prominently in
> Google's search results, and that time "went down the drain," she says.
>
> The new owner of the address was Lease Domains Inc., which is run by a
> 21-year-old graduate student, Anthos Chrysanthou, who works out of his
> parents' house in a Chicago suburb. Mr. Chrysanthou says his
> two-year-old company owns more than 2,000 domain names, many obtained
> through a process called "drop catching" -- snagging names owners have
> let expire, either accidentally or because they no longer want them.
>
> "I liken the whole situation to tangible real estate," says Mr.
> Chrysanthou, who is pursuing his master's in business administration at
> St. Xavier University in Chicago. "If you're not paying your mortgage or
> your taxes on it, it's going to get taken away."
>
> Mr. Chrysanthou is one of hundreds of drop catchers who either resell
> names or use them for Web sites loaded with advertisements. (Ms. Orr's
> former site now features text ads for real estate.) Many drop catchers
> have learned the trade in the past year, seeking a piece of the booming
> market for domains spurred by a surge in online advertising. The
> practice also has gotten a lift from providers of domain services, such
> as SnapNames.com Inc., Pool.com Inc. and GoDaddy.com Inc., which have
> introduced tools aimed at helping people grab expiring domains.
>
> The services circulate lists each day showing which domains are about to
> go up for grabs. Auctions are held for particularly in-demand names, and
> prices can go sky-high: A1.com sold for $260,250 in December, after its
> previous owner let the registration lapse.
>
> Drop catching "has pretty much changed completely in a few years' time,"
> says Michael Berkens, who runs MostWantedDomains.com, owner of about
> 45,000 domains, which range from 4nudepictures.com to 401kplans.com, out
> of his Fort Lauderdale, Fla., home. "There's more people," he says, and
> "prices have just escalated."
>
> DNJournal.com, a publication that tracks the domain industry, reported
> 2,291 sales of expired domains in auctions last year, with winning bids
> totaling a combined $11.5 million. That was up from 885 sales totaling
> $4.2 million a year earlier. Auctioneers don't report all deals to
> DNJournal, and the site doesn't track deals valued at less than $500.
>
> Roughly 20,000 expired domain names become available each day, according
> to industry executives. While many were consciously discarded by their
> owners, others, like Ms. Orr's, are the product of a domain-registration
> system that many users don't understand well.
>
> When a user registers a domain name, it can be reserved for as many as
> 10 years, typically for $80. But many choose a one-year registration
> because it is less expensive, often about $10, and because they may not
> want the site for a longer period. At the end of the year, the domain
> registrar generally sends renewal notices to the owner, but such
> messages can be missed if the owner has changed email addresses in that
> time.
>
> Under rules administered by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names
> and Numbers, the group that oversees the assignment of Web addresses,
> domain registrars such as GoDaddy and Network Solutions LLC have as many
> as 45 days after the expiration date to notify the official domain
> registry whether a name is being renewed or deleted. Typically,
> registrars have given users a grace period -- sometimes as long as 45
> days -- to renew their name.
>
> If a name is deleted, ICANN guidelines then call for a 30-day
> "redemption grace period," during which the original owner can still
> claim the name. If there is no claim in the redemption period, the name
> is dropped from the registry after a five-day holding period, and anyone
> is entitled to seek it.
>
> For the .com and .net registries, managed by VeriSign Inc., names drop
> starting around 2 p.m. Eastern each day, all year long. What follows is
> a process that some in the industry call "pounding." As the names drop,
> Internet companies that help users acquire expired names send rapid
> computer commands to the registry, seeking to grab the most valuable
> names. It is "a mad rush," says Dan Rubin, who runs justdropped.com,
> which helps people identify and acquire expired domains. Registries for
> other domain suffixes drop names at different times of day.
>
> The drop process underwent a key shift starting in late 2004. That is
> when SnapNames started a new service for grabbing domains. The company
> has signed exclusive agreements with more than a half-dozen registrars,
> including Network Solutions and Moniker.com, under which the registrars
> transfer expired domains to SnapNames, and SnapNames auctions them off.
> That way, names that people are interested in don't go through the
> traditional drop process that is open to anyone.
>
> GoDaddy, the largest domain registrar, has introduced its own auction
> service for expired names that were registered with it, as have other
> registrars, as they seek a cut of the action for expired names. They
> begin auctions for names even before the names have officially expired
> but warn auction participants that the original owner could still redeem
> the name.
>
> For domain owners, the new system means names can be grabbed from them
> even more quickly than they could before. Instead of going through the
> full deletion cycle -- which went as long as 75 days -- names are being
> transferred to new owners in 30 to 45 days.
>
> Paul Twomey, chief executive of ICANN, says some people in the domain
> industry recently have raised concerns that the guidelines governing
> expired names are "being utilized in ways that were not originally
> intended." But Mr. Twomey says no one has proposed a formal change in
> policy to address the issue.
>
> Ms. Orr's name, oak-lawn-real-estate.com, is one of those that was
> transferred before going through the full deletion process, says Jay
> Westerdal, who runs Name Intelligence Inc., a Bellevue, Wash., company
> that tracks the industry.
>
> Tim Ruiz, vice president of domain services for GoDaddy, which
> transferred the name, says, "We make every attempt to give ample
> opportunity for registrants to renew." He says the company gives
> registrants 30 days to claim a name after it has expired.
>
> If a corporation loses a domain name that it believes is copyrighted or
> trademarked, it can seek to recover the name by appealing to an
> arbitration panel under ICANN's dispute-resolution policy. It also could
> take the domain's new owner to court, though that can be more expensive.
>
>
> Ms. Orr says she lost her site's name, which wasn't copyrighted or
> trademarked, because she made the mistake of relying on her Web-hosting
> company to keep track of her registration. She says she didn't see
> renewal notices from GoDaddy because it had an old email address for
> her. Ms. Orr plans to use another site -- oak-lawn-il.com -- to replace
> the one she lost.
>



--
Sophia Bekele
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