[council] RAA Amendments discussion

["Mike Rodenbaugh" <icann@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi all,

 

I see 15 mins on tomorrow's agenda for this topic, and only a link to this
letter from the US Government to the Chair of the ICANN Board.
http://forum.icann.org/lists/raa-consultation/pdfXG2oUDNceq.pdf.  I have no
idea what our discussion was going to be about, and so I try to kick off a
talk on the list.  I appreciate the letter and hope we as a Council can
respond by moving WHOIS studies forward at long last, and meanwhile (at
minimum) formally object to the newly proposed RAA amendments wrt WHOIS
proxy services.  

 

The entire RAA amendment "process" has not involved the GNSO.  Instead there
have been two very long rounds of bi-lateral negotiations between ICANN
Staff and the Registrars Constituency.  There was one round of public
comment in between (though it is difficult to understand how public comments
played any significant role in the second draft), and one just closed wrt
the second draft.  

 

The RAA amendments involve many changes to existing gTLD policy as embodied
in the existing, many-year old RAA.  Public comments from several
constituencies indicate substantial disagreement with many of the suggested
amendments.  The Council really should consider the proposed amendments
formally and with the goal of consensus comments, and to record constituency
and/or minority comments.  Yet this may be far too late at this point, it is
unclear what the "process" is and how GNSO might impact it, and some of the
RAA amendments are unobjectionable and should be implemented immediately.  

 

Still, some of the suggested amendments are completely unacceptable.  So we
need to figure out a way to formally register those concerns and ensure they
will be heard, while not unduly stalling the entire process.  The only other
option would be to request Issues Reports on various of the suggested
amendments?  

 

Thanks,

Mike