Re: [council] Registry Operators

[Stéphane Van Gelder <stephane.vangelder@xxxxxxxxx>]

Kristina,

I think Chuck's frustration also stems from the impression that some would
apply standards to the contracted parties that they do not apply to
themselves.

The IRT may be seen as an example of that. Although I understand that this
needed to be a closed group to make it possible to complete the - truly
extraordinary in my view - amount of work it needed to do in only 8 weeks,
you know that many take exception to what they see as a closed "lawyers only
club". The IPC had full control over who was to be included in the group and
it ended up with an overwhelming majority of lawyers on it.

My honest opinion is that this was necessary for the IRT to work. Why?
Because of the IRT's special circumstances.

I think the domain ecosystem is also a "special circumstance" and that this
is highlighted in many ways, one of which is the way the GNSO is structured.
In a normal environment, you might not even expect a body such as ICANN to
open up its discussions with its contracted parties to anyone else. But the
GNSO allows for many groups that have interests in the domain ecosystem,
commercial or otherwise, to interact and work together.

Within that, there are different sets of circumstances. Those parties that
sign contracts with ICANN and are then bound by those contracts obviously
have a different position within the ecosystem from those parties that do
not. The GNSO is structured in such a way as to represent that, and it seems
to me that is both a fair and a good thing.

You make the point that ICANN has control over which entities it contracts,
but isn't that also a good thing? I think the community as a whole has often
pushed for even tighter controls by ICANN over those entities it accredits,
either as registrars or registries. For good reason. Making sure the
accredited entities abide by a certain standard means that the end-users run
less risk of doing business with dodgy entities. It also helps even the
playing field for those contracted parties, a clear requisite to allow new
entities to come into the business for example.

Just some personal ideas. This is a complex discussion that would obviously
need many more pages of emails...

Thanks,

Stéphane 


Le 15/07/09 06:22, « Rosette, Kristina » <krosette@xxxxxxx> a écrit :

> 
> I'll take that as an "I'm not", Chuck.
> 
> If you could, please, connect the dots for me. I don't understand the
> connection you've drawn.  How would admitting registry operators (or the
> IDN constituency or the Cities constituency) to the RyC/RC Group affect
> the prior commitment to be bound by consensus policy?  I'm definitely
> not getting it.
> 
> Not sure of the point behind the lack of empathy/retread comment.  I
> didn't start this thread and my question is one that I don't believe
> I've ever raised or heard raised.
> 
> 
>  
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Gomes, Chuck [mailto:cgomes@xxxxxxxxxxxx]
> Sent: Tuesday, July 14, 2009 11:02 PM
> To: Rosette, Kristina; Council GNSO
> Subject: RE: [council] Registry Operators
> 
> It gets very frustrating to go through this same issue over and over
> again.  There is a very clear reason why the RyC and the RrC are
> restricted to those who have registry or registrar agreements with
> ICANN: In those agreements, registries and registrars commit in advance
> to implementing consensus policies that are within the picket fence
> without having any knowledge of the details of those polices.  That is a
> very exceptional situation in the world of business contracting as I
> have to believe attorneys know full well.  As a result of that 'blind'
> commitment, registries and registrars can be seriously impacted by
> policy development actions of the GNSO.
> 
> I can accept the fact that some may not have any empathy for the
> contracted parties and may not like this but let's at least not continue
> to retread ground that we have covered many times before.
> 
> Chuck
> 
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: owner-council@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>> [mailto:owner-council@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Rosette, Kristina
>> Sent: Tuesday, July 14, 2009 10:47 PM
>> To: Council GNSO
>> Subject: RE: [council] Registry Operators
>> 
>> 
>> Am I the only who is troubled by the fact that restricting membership
>> in the registrar and registry constituency to entities that are ICANN
>> contracted parties effectively gives ICANN control over which entities
> 
>> are and are not members and the timing by which entities become
>> eligible for membership?
>> 
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: owner-council@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>> [mailto:owner-council@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx]
>> On Behalf Of Bruce Tonkin
>> Sent: Tuesday, July 14, 2009 9:25 PM
>> To: Council GNSO
>> Subject: RE: [council] Registry Operators
>> 
>> 
>> Hello All,
>> 
>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> Agreed, it is an old, important issue that is still unresolved and
>>> must be resolved before the GNSO restructure can take place.
>> 
>> It is certainly worth considering further.
>> 
>> Membership of the registry and registrar constituency has generally
>> been very clear - based on the legal entity being a contracted party
>> with ICANN as either a TLD manager or a gTLD registrar.  This
>> information is publicly available on the ICANN website.
>> 
>> There are other parties involved in the process of the domain name
>> value chain.
>> 
>> E.g
>> 
>> (1) Consultants - there are many consultants and lawyers that provide
>> services to the members of the registry and registrar constituency or
>> members of other constituencies - these consultants and lawyers can be
> 
>> split across the business constituency and the IP constituency.
>> 
>> (2) Internet Service Providers - while some purely provide
>> connectivity
>> - many of these companies have moved into value added services - and
>> many are significant suppliers of domain names (either as accredited
>> registrars, or as resellers of accredited registrars).
>> 
>> (3) Other domain name resellers - e.g portals (e.g Yahoo), software
>> companies (e.g Microsoft), search engines (e.g Google), web hosting
>> companies - there are wide range of domain name resellers.  Some of
>> thee are very large companies and supply large volumes (e.g over
>> 100,000
>> names) of domain names to their customers.   At different
>> times staff or
>> consultants/external lawyers of these companies have been members of
>> registrar, business constituency or IP constituency.
>> 
>> (4) Domainers - these companies operate a portfolio of domain names -
>> they often do not supply domain name registration services to other
>> parties - but may sell some of their domain name licences from
>> time-to-time.   They may be accredited registrars (usually to get the
>> lowest possible wholesale price for domains), or may simply be
>> resellers.  Where they are not registrars - it is not clear what
>> constituency that should be members of.  They would probably consider
>> themselves to be members of the business constituency - as they are
>> "business users" of domain names (earn revenue from advertising, or
>> from the future sale of the domain name licence), and not involved in
>> supplying domain name registration services to third parties.
>> 
>> For consultants or lawyers it is often complex as they may have some
>> customers/clients that are associated with the domain name supply
>> industry and some customers/clients that are not.
>> 
>> In many cases large companies have different departments (or legal
>> subsidiaries) - e.g a legal department, network connectivity
>> department, domains/hosting department -  and it can be convenient to
>> have staff members of different departments/subsidiaries to join
>> different constituencies (e.g Registrar, ISP constituency, IP
>> constituency).
>> 
>> So do you make the decision on the basis of the corporate entity
>> (could be operating across multiple area of interest in the GNSO), or
>> on the basis of the individual (may work for a particular department
>> of a corporate, or may work for many clients).
>> 
>> Ultimately this will probably be hard to resolve.  Perhaps the best to
> 
>> hope for is that members of constituencies clearly define their
>> potential conflicts of interest.   This could be at a corporate level
>> and at an individual level (e.g identify clients involved in different
>> constituencies if a consultant).   It would also be useful to require
>> this to happen at the beginning of establishing working groups (not as
> 
>> a method of exclusion - but to clearly state potential conflicts).
>> 
>> 
>> The reality is that many members of the GNSO community can potentially
>> participate in multiple roles.   Trying to create very tight exclusion
>> rules (e.g you can be a member of constituency x - provided you have
>> no other relationship with any member of another
>> constituency) may unnecessarily restrict participation.
>> 
>> Regards,
>> Bruce Tonkin
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>