[council] Request for Issues Report re Registration Abuse Policies

["Mike Rodenbaugh" <icann@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hello,

 

A signficant discrepancy in registry contracts exists, with respect to
language intended to allow registries to take action against abuse.  The
recent Afilias funnel request highlights the issue, as has a related
discussion in the Fast Flux WG.  The BC proposes a Council resolution to
request Staff to lay out the facts and potential options around this issue,
for further community discussion.  

 

I hope we can discuss this and have a vote at our next meeting on Sept. 4th.

 

Thanks,

Mike Rodenbaugh

Councilor, Business Constituency      

 

Whereas:

 

1.                   ICANN's mission is to ensure the security and stability
of the DNS, and to develop policy reasonably related to that mission.

2.                   Various forms of DNS abuse, in isolation and/or in the
aggregate, cause a less secure and stable DNS.

3.                   Some of ICANN's gTLD registry agreements and appended
registry-registrar agreements contain a provision such as Section 3.6.5 of
the .info Registry Agreement, Appendix 8
(http://www.icann.org/en/tlds/agreements/info/appendix-08-08dec06.htm):

 

3.6.5.      [Registrars] acknowledge and agree that Afilias reserves the
right to deny,
cancel or transfer any registration or transaction, or place any
domain name(s) on registry lock, hold or similar status, that it deems
necessary, in its discretion; (1) to protect the integrity and
stability of the registry; (2) to comply with any applicable laws,
government rules or requirements, requests of law enforcement, or any
dispute resolution process; (3) to avoid any liability, civil or
criminal, on the part of Afilias, as well as its affiliates,
subsidiaries, officers, directors, and employees; (4) per the terms of
the registration agreement or (5) to correct mistakes made by Afilias
or any Registrar in connection with a domain name registration.
Afilias also reserves the right to place upon registry lock, hold or
similar status a domain name during resolution of a dispute.

 

4.                   Afilias, the dotInfo Registry Operator, per its recent
RSEP request, has sought to clarify and implement its specific abusive
registration policy with respect to this provision.  This request has been
approved by ICANN,
<http://www.icann.org/en/registries/rsep/afilias-to-icann-06aug08.pdf>
http://www.icann.org/en/registries/rsep/afilias-to-icann-06aug08.pdf.  

5.                  Some of ICANN's gTLD registry agreements, notably the
Verisign contracts for .com and .net, have no such provision.  Other gTLD
registry agreements do contain such provision, but the registry operators
have not developed or have inconsistently developed abusive registration
policies.

 

The GNSO Council resolves to request an Issues Report from ICANN Staff with
respect to the following:

1.        To identify and describe the various provisions in existing and
previous gTLD registry and registry-registrar agreements which relate to
contracting parties' ability to take action in response to abuse.

2.        To identify and describe various provisions in a representative
sampling of gTLD registration agreements which relate to contracting
parties' and/or registrants rights and obligations with respect to abuse.

3.        To identify and describe any previous discussion in ICANN fora
which substantively pertains to provisions of this nature in any of these
agreements.

4.        To identify and describe potential options for further Council
consideration, relating to consistency and propriety of provisions of this
nature in all of these agreements.