[ga] Jeff Neuman's Comments on Domain Tasting

["Dominik Filipp" <dominik.filipp@xxxxxxxx>]

Hi all,

some Jeff Neuman's comments on domain tasting from 'Transcript of GNSO
Council Meeting, Wednesday 13 February 2008, New Delhi, India'; the full
transcript is here
http://delhi.icann.org/files/Delhi-GNSOCouncil-13Feb08.txt

Worth reading...

">>JEFF NEUMAN: So here's my general comment.  
Most of you know me, I was on the council many years back and I don't
tend to mince words. But, I think I could state that the work that has
been done to date on domain tasting is exactly the reason why the
council needs to be reformed and reformed dramatically. What you guys
have done is nothing close to resembling a bottoms-up process.
Everything that you have done since the formation of the ad hoc group
has been nothing but the involvement of councillors and the design team,
is nothing more than a few like-minded individuals, who I have not -- I
like as people, but they are very like minded. They worked hard on this
motion, not to take anything away from the work that was done. But it is
not in any way bottoms-up.
What needs to happen, and I read the preliminary report, and I read the
final report. And no where did I see any mention of this particular
motion put out for public comment.  Any decision by the council on this
issue, especially because it involves, a, quote, consensus policy, needs
to have extensive input on this particular motion by the public.  It
needs to have impact statements.
And so, even, Avri, tabling it to the next meeting, I would say, is
quite aggressive, since I don't think even that's enough time for the
public to comment.
Now, you might think, well, why am I up here complaining about the
motion, because the motion is pretty much the exact proposal that
Neustar put in. And that's probably why you should take it very
seriously, because we do oppose the way that this is being handled. Not
the substance, necessarily, for Neustar as a registry, but remember,
every registry is different.  
In fact, many of the registries for which you would seek to apply this
consensus policy, don't even have an add-grace period. Or, don't even
have one that's required in their contracts.  So that needs to be
considered.
Plus, there are other business models that other registries have, for
which this type of motion would not be appropriate.
For example, dot name has a free trial period.  Now, because of the
unique circumstances of their registry, they do not have domain tasting
like you see in other registries.  
Yes, we all see domain tasting in dot com.  And, yes, it's perceived by
a lot of people to be a problem.  And, yes, a lot of people in the
community want to do something about it. But let's not let the
activities that happen in dot com control the activities that happen in
every other registry.  
We may be small, and I'm not talking about size right now, but please,
please, do not think that we're all alike.
And, finally, the last point that I have is, on process as well, and
that is the council's motion on October 30th or 31st, whenever that was
passed, to recommend to the ICANN staff and board to examine applying a
fee.
That is another example of a proposal that never went out to the
community for public comment.  
And, unfortunately, and this is a comment I'll make to the board
tomorrow, or during the public forum, the board grasped on to this
motion by the council and took it and ran with it. And, again, it was
never subject to comment by the community. I'm not saying it's a bad
idea, I'm just saying you need to build that into the process. If anyone
has any questions on Neustar's proposal, I'm not sure when the
appropriate time is, but I'd be happy to talk about why we got to what
we did; why we got to the percentages we did, because I hear that's been
debated by people in the council.  
So any information you want, I'm around, now or afterwards to discuss."

...

">>JEFF NEUMAN:  Thanks. I just want to make a comment. I think it was
Mike that said that we want both this motion passed and the ICANN fee.
At least with respect to Neustar, our funnel request is put in there to
effectively end the tasting in dot biz. If our end hypothesis is correct
that it does end tasting, all an ICANN fee would do on top of that is
punish, quote, the legitimate deletes. I know you use the language here
and others as Elliot addressed don't think there are legitimate deletes
as a registry -- I will not give you confidential information about
registrars can, but we constantly get requests from registrars because
their system has been compromised because a reseller came in and
registered a ton of names that they want to delete during the five-day
period or even afterwards in certain circumstances because they have
been taken over.
When registrars and registries provide you evidence and we have provided
you some evidence in the ad hoc group and others, you can't just take
that evidence and say your gut doesn't agree with it because that's not
the basis of policy making.
And I've seen so many discussions back and forth as to what the number
-- what the percentage is of, quote, legitimate deletes.  In dot biz we
submitted something, evidence to you and, yet, I still see debates not
based on any kind of reality but just "I just feel that number is too"
or "I feel that number is too low." Provide the evidence. If you can
show us evidence that counters what we have put in, great. If you can't,
I'm sorry, I don't want to be so blunt, but I don't care about someone's
gut. I care about evidence..."


Dominik