RE: [council] RAA Amendments discussion

["Mike Rodenbaugh" <icann@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Chuck,

 

Your position is complicated by the facts that this contract negotiation
affects hundreds of different registrars, only some of whom are represented
in the Registrar Constituency.  More importantly, those hundreds of
registrars have millions of contracts with registrants represented by other
constituencies, who are directly impacted by the RAA.  Changes to the RAA
are, in effect, changes to DNS policy.  

 

There ought to have been better methods and greater effort to involve the
users in these discussions.  But since you are suggesting that we should
choose specific issues for further policy development, I guess we have no
other choice.

 

-Mike

 

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From: Gomes, Chuck [mailto:cgomes@xxxxxxxxxxxx] 
Sent: Wednesday, September 03, 2008 2:19 PM
To: icann@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx; Council GNSO
Subject: RE: [council] RAA Amendments discussion

 

Mike,

 

It is the responsibility of the GNSO to develop policy, not negotiate
contracts.  A community wide negotiations process would be a very strange
model and one that would be fraught with problems and likely totally
unfeasible.  Comment opportunities were provided as you indicate and that is
as it should be, but the negotiations process needs to be between the
contracting parties.

 

At the same time, if there are issues in the RAA that seem worthy of policy
development, we have procedures for that.  If consensus policy is developed
within the picket fence and approved by the Board, then registries and
registrars are required to implement them.  Therefore it seems to me that
the proper approach would be for the GNSO to focus on specific policy issues
rather than contract terms except for contract terms that involve already
established consensus policy and for which compliance is in question.

 

Chuck

 


  _____  


From: owner-council@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:owner-council@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On
Behalf Of Mike Rodenbaugh
Sent: Wednesday, September 03, 2008 4:01 PM
To: 'Council GNSO'
Subject: [council] RAA Amendments discussion

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