Re: [registrars] PLEASE confirm your support of this Statement

["mdierstein" <mdierstein@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Dear Bavin and Jon,
Namebay supports this statement.
Stéphane Boutinet and Mathieu Dierstein
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Bhavin Turakhia 
  To: 'Nevett, Jonathon' ; registrars@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx 
  Sent: Wednesday, November 23, 2005 3:53 AM
  Subject: [registrars] PLEASE confirm your support of this Statement


  Hi everyone.

  Just to be clear, apart from posting this to the comments yourself, please also send a confirmation to Jon or myself that you support this statement. Since I will be shortly sending this statement to the ICANN Board as an official statement from the constituency

  bhavin



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    From: owner-registrars@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:owner-registrars@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Nevett, Jonathon
    Sent: Tuesday, November 22, 2005 7:30 PM
    To: registrars@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
    Subject: [registrars] Registrars Statement on .com agreement


    Registrar Colleagues:

     

    The Registrar Constituency .com Working Group set up by Bhavin has drafted the following statement.  Please feel free to sign on to the statement and to post it to the ICANN website -- to post comments, please send an e-mail to: settlement-comments@xxxxxxxxx.

     

    Thanks.

     

    Jon      

     

    We, the undersigned registrars, recommend against ICANN signing the

    proposed .com Registry Agreement.   The following reflects those issues

    that are of foremost concern to registrars:

     

     

    1.    New Registry Services 

     

    The proposed .com contract locks ICANN and VeriSign in for three years

    on a version of the consensus policy covering the standards and process

    for consideration of new registry services.  The new registry services

    consensus policy process that recently was approved by the ICANN board

    is untested, and it is likely that the ICANN community will need to

    refine and improve it after it is implemented.  A three year lock will

    unnecessarily handcuff ICANN and the ICANN community.

     

    We recommend the deletion of Sections 3.1(b)(v)(B) and 3.1(b)(v)(C), and

    allowing the existing ICANN policy development and refinement process to

    be used during the term of the agreement.

     

     

    2.    Registry Agreement Renewal

     

    According to its own Bylaws and the Memorandum of Understanding between

    ICANN and the United States Department of Commerce, one of ICANN's core

    missions is to promote competition.  We understand that the current .com

    contract contains a "presumptive renewal" provision, which by its nature

    hinders competition.  The proposed .com contract, however, goes much

    farther than the existing contract by strengthening the presumptive

    renewal and termination provisions on behalf of VeriSign, thereby making

    it virtually impossible for VeriSign to lose the .com registry and

    impossible to reap the benefits of competition.  VeriSign should be

    appointed as the administrator of the .com registry, not its owner.

     

    We recommend reverting from Section 4.2 of the proposed .com agreement

    to the renewal terms of Section 25 of the current .com agreement, which

    requires a six month review of a "Renewal Proposal" provided by VeriSign

    and only under terms that are in "substantial conformity with the terms

    of registry agreements between ICANN and operators of other open TLDs.

    . ."   ICANN also should strengthen the termination provisions currently

    contained in Section 6.1 of the proposed agreement by using the relevant

    text from Sections 16(B-E) of the current agreement.

     

     

    3.    Registry Fees

     

    The proposed .com contract would permit VeriSign to unilaterally raise

    registration fees by 7% per year.  The existing .com contract and all

    gTLD registry agreements (other than the .net agreement with VeriSign,

    which was entered into without community input in violation of ICANN's

    Bylaws) require the registries to cost-justify any price increases.  In

    an industry where the economics suggest that fees should be going down

    when there is competition, it is particularly troublesome and

    anti-competitive to grant a monopolist or a single source provider the

    unilateral right to increase costs without justification.

    Unfortunately, these fee increases would result in cost increases to

    individual registrants.  We note that in the recent competitive process

    for .net, VeriSign significantly lowered its registry fees.  There is no

    reason for unilateral cost increases for the larger .com registry.   

     

    We recommend that the Board delete the current text of Section

    7.3(d)(ii) and replace it with Section 22(A) of the current .com

    agreement requiring VeriSign to justify and ICANN to approve any

    proposed fee increase.  If there is a dispute between ICANN and VeriSign

    over a cost increase, ICANN should have the right to seek competitive

    price proposals from other registry operators to ensure that the ICANN

    community receives the benefits of competition.

     

     

    4.    New ICANN Fees

     

    ICANN and VeriSign propose a new ICANN fee that would be assessed on

    VeriSign and passed on to the registrars.  This fee would result in

    excess of approximately $150 million dollars to ICANN, and would be an

    end run around the existing ICANN budget approval process.  As proposed,

    ICANN staff has removed an important check on the ICANN budget process.

    All ICANN fees that impact registrants should be subject to the ICANN

    budget approval process and should not only be the subject of

    negotiations between VeriSign and ICANN.   

     

    In addition to the changes suggested in number 3 above, we recommend the

    removal of Sections 7.3(g-h) in the proposed contract.  Any transaction

    fees that ICANN needs to collect from registrars (and hence registrants)

    should be assessed through the current transaction fees charged by ICANN

    to registrars and be subject to the existing budget approval process.

     

     

    While we understand the desire to finalize the litigation, it should not

    be done so without a sufficient review process nor at the expense of

    major tenets of ICANN's mission.  In its current form, it is a bad

    settlement for ICANN, the ICANN community, and the public-at-large.  We,

    therefore, urge the ICANN Board to take advantage of the six month

    review of a "Renewal Proposal" contemplated in the existing .com

    agreement, which doesn't expire until November 2007.  The Board should

    use this time to review the complicated contracts in their entirety,

    have a public comment period commensurate with the importance of the

    issue, and make the changes necessary to improve the agreement.