[council] Preliminary IR on Uniformity of Contracts to Address Registration Abuse

[Alan Greenberg <alan.greenberg@xxxxxxxxx>]

In reviewing this report related to whether the ALAC should comment 
on it or not, a question came to mind.
I do not disagree with the staff assessment that this subject is 
within the scope of the GNSO. However, it is far from clear to me if 
this effort needs to be a GNSO effort. For the most part, it would 
seem that this the work could be carried out as a staff effort (not 
necessarily Policy Staff although they might be involved) if it was 
of sufficiently high priority to ICANN.
Although the end work product could be viewed as GNSO Policy, it 
could also fall under the heading of contractual terms which often is 
an outcome of bilateral negotiations and not formal GNSO action. The 
only benefit I see of it coming through the GNSO is that then there 
is a higher threshold for the Board to not implement. And even if 
this is necessary, that does not see a valid reason that it falls on 
the GNSO to do the very significant research involved instead of it 
being a staff  (or externally contracted), ICANN funded, effort.
Alan