Re: [ga] Out-of-Control

["Richard Henderson" <richardhenderson@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Registrars are meant to be agents of supply to the general public in order
to facilitate "the fair distribution" of the DNS which ICANN's MoU with DoC
is supposed to guarantee.

They are given access to the registries in order to carry out this function,
and with this special position of privilege should go responsibility.

It is abundantly clear that what is needed is as follows:

1. Right of access to registries in order to carry out the function of
"registrar- supplier" to the public should be *contractually dependent* on
adhering to a set of stated minimum standards or a code of conduct.

2. This code of conduct should be drawn up by ICANN and enforced by ICANN
*as a condition upon which registrars may operate*.

3. Breach of this code should result in sanctions or the removal of the
right of access to the registries where it is demonstrable that the code has
been breached.

ICANN has made the assumption that registrars can regulate themselves. There
are many decent and hard-working registrars trying to make an honest living.
However, it is clear that the process of domain name distribution is not
properly controlled, and that effectively policy is defined by what an
individual registrar may decide makes pecuniary good sense to them. The
result is a process (which is supposed to benefit the whole of humanity)
which Danny correctly describes as "out of control".

ICANN is constantly playing "catch up" because it has always started from
the erroneous premiss that you should basically just let registrars get on
with defining their own ways of using or manipulating the supply mechanisms.

ICANN needs to safeguard the supply of the DNS to the public, and to
guarantee "fair distribution", by making "right of access to the registries"
conditional upon a consistent set of practices and policies. Only by
contractually controlling registrars' access to the commodity they purvey
can ICANN hope to act as an enforcer.

Do I like ICANN having the power and role of an enforcer? No.

But there is no-one else who can do so. As long as the US government bestows
authority on ICANN to safeguard the DNS for the rest of the world, it is
ICANN which has to shoulder the responsibility that accompanies the position
they have been granted.

Strict and clearly defined code of conduct > contractual condition for
accessing registries> exclusion if code is breached > enforcement

Yrs,

Richard Henderson

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Danny Younger" <dannyyounger@xxxxxxxxx>
To: <ga@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Sunday, October 31, 2004 9:54 PM
Subject: [ga] Out-of-Control


> The Domain Name Journal has posted an editorial "Time
> For ICANN to Reign In Out-of-Control Registrars"
> decrying the current state of the domain name
> industry.  http://www.dnjournal.com/editorial.htm
>
> Meanwhile, on the Registrars Discussion List, we note
> the following:
>
> "Dear Registrars:
>
> I would like to report on the unauthorized use of our
> subnets by a player in the delete pool.
>
> It appears that said firm has started playing the game
> of registering with *no* client requesting the
> domains. It was reported on the Registrars List that
> some registrars are capturing deleted domains and
> checking to see if there is enough web traffic on a
> given domain to make it marketable. If not, they
> simply delete within the five day limit graciously
> provided by Verisign, a serious misuse of the RRP
> cancel function.
>
> Further, for every wasted capture, said firm has
> reduces the number of successful registrations coming
> to their "partner" registrars, badly eroding our
> profits.
>
> This practice is in blatant disregard of the letter
> and spirit of our contract and constitutes a fatal
> breach."
> http://gnso.icann.org/mailing-lists/archives/registrars/msg02480.html
>
>
>
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