[council] GNSO Council motion 25 September 2008

[Glen de Saint Géry <Glen@xxxxxxxxx>]

[To: council[at]gnso.icann.org]

Dear Council Members,

Ahead of the complete minutes, please find the motion that was passed by the 
GNSO Council on Thursday, 25 September 2008.

Kind regards,
Glen

..............................................................................................................
Motion proposing an Issues Report on aspects of Registry-Registrar Agreements

Motion proposed by Mike Rodenbaugh, seconded by Greg Ruth with friendly 
amendments from Tim Ruiz and Chuck Gomes.

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 : 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 RSTEP request, has 
sought to clarify and implement its specific abusive registration policy with 
respect to this provision. This request has been approved by ICANN.

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 within 
30 days 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 request an opinion of ICANN Staff as to which aspects of registration 
abuse policies as discussed above may be within the scope of GNSO policy 
development.

11 votes in favour:
Philip Sheppard, Mike Rodenbaugh, Zahid Jamil, Kristina Rosette, Greg Ruth, 
Robin Gross, Olga Cavalli (one vote each)
Tim Ruiz, Chuck Gomes (two votes each)


Glen de Saint Géry
GNSO Secretariat
gnso.secretariat@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
http://gnso.icann.org