No, at the highest level I'm saying that ICANN should properly
regulate, enforce or get out of the way.
At the highest level the RAA, as drafted, is not an appropriate
tool for
regulating or enforcing anything. It is an all-or-nothing
proposition.
That's the entire point of the ongoing RAA revision exercise.
Its not up to me to find ways to
enforce the agreement anymore than it is up to you to find
ways around it.
Let him who is without sin cast the first stone.
There are legitimate and reasoned differences of interpretation. The
problem with an "it means what I say" approach is that if your
interpretation, however reasonable, does not agree with whomever is
assigned
the role of authoritative interpreter, the RAA entitles ICANN to
withdraw
your accreditation. There are no other remedies in the document.
Now, last year, we had a situation in which, in one context,
certain ICANN
staff had taken the position that since (a) a domain must be the
subject of
a valid registration contract, and (b) a party cannot contract with
itself,
then it follows: a registrar cannot register its own domain name.
It was, at the time, a cute intervention on ICANN's part in a UDRP
proceeding in which the complaint eventually failed, but the
reasoning is
utterly sound, correct, and bore the signature of Tim Cole. Who
could argue
with that?
The domain name Tucows.com is not compliant with the RAA. It is
registered
to Tucows, and through Tucows, and it thus cannot be incident to a
valid
registration contract. So, if it is your job to "find ways to
enforce the
agreement", I will be pleased to see you delete this non-compliant
domain
name immediately. It might even get a couple of hits a day and be
thus
worth something in a delete auction.
Now, maybe you were in the room in Florida last year when Mike Zupke
informed those registrars present that ICANN would not enforce the
RAA with
respect to an unspecified set of domain names which a registrar
registers to
itself. If you were, then, congratulations, you happen to know
about this
particular and vague non-enforcement promise which Mr. Zupke made
verbally
to those who were there.
It just seems fundamentally flawed that the proposition of whether
Tucows.com is or is not a RAA compliant domain name depends upon
whether the
authoritative view of the RAA is that of Mr. Cole in August or Mr.
Zupke in
October. Strictly speaking, Mr. Zupke agreed that such names are
non-compliant, but that there would be no enforcement taken. This
pledge
presumably is valid as long as Mr. Zupke is in good health and gainful
employment at ICANN.
The prospect is downright horrific when you go back to the main
premise of
the RAA - i.e. as drafted, a single non-compliant domain name is a
sufficient ground to have your accreditation revoked.
Yes, in practice ICANN doesn't do that. But a system of rules
should not
depend upon whether someone charged with enforcement happens to be
in a good
mood on any given day.