[ga] bonding and insurance

["kidsearch" <kidsearch@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Karl, I don't care if ICANN never requires a bond or insurance. I do care that they accept some plan to allow individuals and companies to create new tlds. But many when discussing this bring up the "what if they fail" topic, so it will come up again if we made some sort of formal proposal. By addressing it in advance I believe we stand a better chance of clearing that hurdle.

http://www.dca.ca.gov/aboutdca/aboutwho.htm#furnishings has a list of professions that require certification, bonding, insurance, etc. more than you might think. You even have to be bonded to sell mattresse. Since we do want people who manage a tld to be professional in the management of that tld, because if many fail or do anything that even remotely be construed as threatening stability, then the critics of the idea will have more ammunition, then treating the management of a tld as a profession might not be a bad idea.

I understand your concerns and Jeff's concerns about ICANN getting involved in anything other than technical areas of tld approval. I agree with that. The bond would not be posted with ICANN, it would simply be a checkbox on the form as far as they are concerned. A bonding company would be the one dealing with that directly with the person who posts it. This is not even an expensive process, so I don't see it as an unnecessary burden. 

It also could be waived in certain instances, such as if the tld owner is willing to post prominently in their terms of service that domain name registrants are not protected by a bond in this particular tld, or in an instance where domain names will be free to register, or where domain names would not be sold for whatever reason. There may be other waivers that could be allowed. Maybe insurance OR bond could be used instead of both. 

I suggest that companies whose sole intention of registering a tld for the purpose of selling domain names has some responsibility to the registrants of those domain names. Yes, fraud and other crimes, as well as bankruptcy are already covered in most countries, but not in all. If you live in botswana and register a domain name with a tld owner in Argentina, can you imagine trying to litigate that? 

The protection for domain name registrants has to be created in my honest opinion, not because ICANN needs to interfere, but because one of the things we are supposed to be doing here is representing the individual users all over the world who do not have the opportunity to fully understand the ramifications of registering a domain name with a less than honorable tld owner. In the US and in many countries, we know the "buyer beware" philosophy, but soon people from third world countries are going to have to learn that lesson the hard way if no protection at all is put into place.

That is just my opinion and I'm open to suggestions. I would just like to see a proposal put forth that has a chance of being adopted because it has been fully explored and several prominent concerns have already been addressed in such a document. Anything other than a serious attempt to create a proposal that has a serious chance to be adopted is a waste of time in my opinion. If that means some compromises have to be reached to get the tld market opened up in a way that fosters small business and individual participation, then I'm willing to concede a point or two.

A wise man once told me, If you disagree with someone 99% of the time, focus on the 1% of the things you do agree on and work from there.

Chris McElroy
http://www.missingchildrenblog.com