[ga] Proposed Amendments to the ICANN-Registry contract for .pro

["Richard Henderson" <richardhenderson@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

"ICANN is concerned that EnCirca's Pro-Forwarding Service violates the spirit of name restrictions in top-level domains such as .Pro."

"If RegistryPro shares ICANN's concerns about these questionable registrations, ICANN would like to discuss whether RegistryPro desires to enter into a contract amendment targeted at preventing registration abuses."

Proposed Amendments to the ICANN-Registry contract for .pro :

In order to reclaim the integrity and intended purposes of the .pro TLD (and to act as a model for future restricted TLDs), I propose that ICANN requests amendments along the following lines:

1. The registrant *must* be the person, entity, or organisation who is going to use the domain (the term 'use' excludes 'leasing' the domain to second-tier customers).

2. Dot Pro domains may not be registered with the intention of 'leasing' them to second-tier applicants, particularly where this process enables unauthorised users of domains to circumvent the restrictions defined by the Registry Agreement to keep it a restricted TLD, or to gain administrative and resale rights to .pro domains without prior professional verification at the point of registration.

3. All .pro registrants will be obliged to demonstrate *prior to annual renewal or within a year* that they now conform to these amended clauses, and that they are the person, entity or organisation who is going to use the domain (excluding 'leasing') and have undergone verification by a professional authority approved by ICANN *and* the registry, to safeguard the integrity and purposes of the registry. Failure to gain this independent verification will result in the *cancellation* of the domain registration.

These terms would come into immediate effect, but Conditions 1 and 2 would only apply to all new registrations or renewals. Condition 3 would apply to all .pro domains, whenever registered. The effect of these 3 clauses together would be to discourage speculators from continuing to register domains through proxy registrants since the domains would be cancelled within one year and would therefore have little or no market value.

Yrs,

Richard Henderson