Re: [ga] New gTLD Applicant Guidebook Version 2

["Jeffrey A. Williams" <jwkckid1@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Jeff and all,

  Thanks for the unofficial response.  Very interesting.  Auctioning
off repossessed DN's or abandon DN's is sleazy business at best.
Better is to return them to the pool for preregistration on a first
come first serve basis at the standard registration fee.  But no,
NueStar would rather scalp these DN's for additional profit
if and when possible.

  The assertion that NueStar has taken down 10's of thousands of
DN for criminal or suspected criminal activity is to be commended,
and I do so.  Yet such demonstrates clearly that the registration
process is flawed, and that as a Registry, NueStar along with
the Registrars responsible especially, needs to do a far better
job of policing up their business operations, and clearly shows
that post active methodology's are fine, but not good enough,
and reflect that the abusive DN problem is emense, complex,
and in the case of .BIZ and .INFO as gTLD's, is much larger
than the efforts being deployed to combat the problem, as
I along with many of our members have been prospective victims
of,  much to our displeasure and time resource in reporting, detriment.

  Why not, as I have ask many times before, take a more proactive
approach at addressing abusive DN's?  My guess is that first, NueStar
doesn't know how to do so, and second even if NueStar did, the time
and personnel resources needed would be more than NueStar is willing
to assume.  Ergo, after the fact, and sometimes LONG after the fact,
dealing with Abusive DN's appropriately and permanently, exposes
unnecessarily consumers/users and other registrants to potential if not
actual harm.  That to me anyway, is a demonstration of a low level
of concern for consumers/users, as is the auctioning off of already
taken down DN's, which is particularly egregious and demonstrates
in and of itself as an act of a willingness to do harm intentionally and
make
a profit of doing so to boot.

"Neuman, Jeff" wrote:

> George,
>
> This is my own personal post and not an official NeuStar position.
>
> Your assertions are incredibly far-fetched especially when it relates to
> the Abuse Policy.  In case you did not know, NeuStar has had an abuse
> policy since 2006.  See
> http://www.icann.org/en/tlds/agreements/biz/appendix-11-08dec06.htm.
> Since 2006, we have been affirmatively taking down names (note I did not
> say deleting names) where we have verified evidence of phishing,
> pharming, malware, etc.  This is nothing new.  We have literally taken
> down tens of thousands of .biz names and yet you have not heard a single
> word about it.  Why?  Because we take down names that are verified to be
> involved in that type of criminal behavior.  We have never had a single
> complaint from a registrant.  ICANN has never received a complaint about
> what we have been doing.  We have never taken down a legitimate site.
> Again, we have been doing this since 2006.  We have saved millions of
> consumers from becoming victim to some of the most malicious viruses out
> there (some of which have recently been in the news).  Afilias has just
> started to do the same thing.  You are so paranoid that we are all out
> there to mess with your business, that you fail to recognize the truth
> of what is going on.
>
> Let me address another point you raise:  You state: "Furthermore, all
> expired domains would effectively be able to be auctioned by the
> registry operator (i.e. through setting higher than normal registration
> prices, like .tv)."  Let me ask you a question.  How many registrars
> actually delete domain names these days?  Almost all names worth any
> value at all are kept by the registrar and auctioned off by them (or
> some other mechanism taking advantage of the secondary market)?  Can you
> give me one example where a registry had actually seized a name for
> itself?
>
> But let's assume a registry does want to auction off legitimately
> expired domains (which by the way is not something NeuStar has ever, or
> is now, proposing).  By legitimately expired domains, I mean ones where
> the registrant truly intended its expiration.  Why would this be a
> problem?  It is not a registrant's rights issue, since they did not want
> it anymore.  Does it make it more difficult or expensive for speculators
> and domainers...possibly.  Is it any different than a registrar
> auctioning off the name? I am really just curious as to why you think it
> is a huge issue.
>
> Again, it is NeuStar's position that it is reasonable to have price caps
> on renewals of domain names to protect existing registrants.  It is also
> NeuStar's position (and contractual right) that all registries are
> treated equitably absent substantial justification.  This is what we
> signed up for when we were selected to run .BIZ.  This is our
> expectation.  We have never asked for more than this and frankly just as
> we have to treat all registrars equitably, I see nothing wrong with
> expecting the same of ICANN in their dealings with us.
>
> Jeffrey J. Neuman, Esq.: NeuStar, Inc.
> Vice President, Law & Policy
>
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> -----Original Message-----
> From: George Kirikos [mailto:gkirikos@xxxxxxxxx]
> Sent: Thursday, February 19, 2009 5:49 PM
> To: ga@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx; Neuman, Jeff
> Subject: RE: [ga] New gTLD Applicant Guidebook Version 2
>
> Hi Jeff,
>
> --- On Thu, 2/19/09, Neuman, Jeff <Jeff.Neuman@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> > The author's post seems to boil down to a concern for
> > the renewal price
> > of a domain name, as that price could potentially
> > disadvantage a
> > registrant who has built up brand equity in its domain
> > name.  NeuStar
> > sympathizes with this comment and has suggested to ICANN
> > and others in
> > numerous conversations that perhaps a cap on renewal
> > pricing for all
> > TLDs is appropriate and warranted.  After all, if the
>
> Renewal price caps are a basic protection mechanism, and would be a
> start towards increased price protection. However, they are not enough.
>
> In particular, registry operators would be incented to find ways to get
> valuable domain names deleted, so that they could raise the prices. For
> example, Afilias implemented a .INFO Abuse Policy:
>
> http://www.circleid.com/posts/86215_potential_danger_ahead_dot_info_poli
> cy/
>
> which gives it sole discretion to define what constitutes "abuse." If
> that policy was widespread in important registries, I would not want
> VeriSign deciding whether one of my domain names was "abusive" when they
> know that if they made that determination, they could raise the price on
> one of my dot-coms from $7/yr to $1 million/yr. I'm sure Google, Yahoo,
> Microsoft and others would feel the same way (Afilias, for example, gets
> to have sole discretion over the definition of spam, and certainly all
> the companies in the world that have user-generated content, free
> webmail, or webservices that are subject to hacking would be at risk;
> e.g. your Apache webservers gets hacked, you get flagged as "abusive"
> and the registry seizes your valuable domain to auction for more money).
>
> Furthermore, all expired domains would effectively be able to be
> auctioned by the registry operator (i.e. through setting higher than
> normal registration prices, like .tv). Once again, this is asking for a
> handout, a change to your contract that only benefits Neustar. You
> signed a contract with ICANN, and are looking for more. What are you
> giving up in exchange for "more"? You're giving up nothing.
>
> Those are the one-sided contract changes that the registry operators
> always seek. That's why the only solution is regular tenders for
> operation of the registry, just like the DOJ suggested (and which I've
> long advocated). Registry operators could compete to run .com or other
> gTLDs, and whoever bids the lowest (for a fixed level of service
> performance specified in the tender) wins the contract. Very basic stuff
> that companies do all the time in procurement, but apparently too basic
> for ICANN, because there's no money in it for ICANN. The process is so
> simple that it doesn't require an annual $60 million budget and hundreds
> of staff.
>
> Notice with tenders, there are no incentives for registry operators to
> seize valuable domains, since they're all the same price. All the
> benefits flow to the consumers. Competition between prospective registry
> operators maximizes consumer benefits, and registry operators receive
> "normal" profits. The most efficient registry operators will be the ones
> to be awarded the contracts, since they can operate the TLD at the
> lowest cost.
>
> Until there's a Domain Registrant's Statement of Rights that gives
> registrants far greater protection than exists today, you'll have to get
> in line behind us when looking for one-sided contractual changes.
>
> Sincerely,
>
> George Kirikos
> http://www.leap.com/

Regards,

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