[ga] Did a dog eat dot-cat's homework?

[George Kirikos <gkirikos@xxxxxxxxx>]

Hi folks,

According to Section III.1.c.iv of the dot-cat registry agreement:

http://www.icann.org/en/tlds/agreements/cat/cat-agreement-23sep05.htm

"Monthly Reporting. Within 20 days following the end of each calendar month, 
Registry shall prepare and deliver to ICANN a report providing such data and in 
the format specified in Appendix 4. ICANN may audit Registry's books and 
records relating to data contained in monthly reports from time to time upon 
reasonable advance written notice, provided that such audits shall not exceed 
one per quarter. Any such audit shall be at ICANN's cost, unless such audit 
shall reflect a material discrepancy or discrepancies in the data provided by 
Registry. In the latter event, Registry shall reimburse ICANN for all costs and 
expenses associated with such audit, which reimbursement shall be paid together 
with the next Registry-Level Fee payment due following the date of transmittal 
of the cost statement for such audit."

These monthly reports can be found at:

http://www.icann.org/en/tlds/monthly-reports/

and in particular I draw your attention to the November and December 2008 
dot-cat reports at:

http://www.icann.org/en/tlds/monthly-reports/cat/puntcat-200811.pdf
http://www.icann.org/en/tlds/monthly-reports/cat/puntcat-200812.pdf

which are archived at:

http://www.loffs.com/images/dotcat/

in the event the originals should change. According to Appendix 4 of the 
agreement, the registry operator must report the total number of domains to 
ICANN (see field #3 in section 8) on a registrar by registrar basis. 

Yet, for some unknown reason, the December 2008 report for dot-cat is missing 
that column entirely! It's present in the November 2008 report (see page 7, 
where there are a grand total of 32833 domains across all registrars). Did the 
dot-cat registry operator even check the numbers they were submitting to ICANN? 
Did ICANN even bother to check what was submitted to them for compliance with 
the registry operator's contractual obligations? Perhaps a dog ate their 
homework? I trust that this apparent material discrepancy will lead to an audit 
to determine the true numbers, and be reimbursed by the registry operator.

This is a sign that ICANN is not even capable of managing the existing gTLDs 
properly, let alone managing any expanded obligations if new gTLDs were to be 
added to the root.

Sincerely,

George Kirikos
http://www.leap.com/