[council] Agenda Request

Sat Mar 4 01:50:18 UTC 2006

I would like to chime in here as well.
This is an issue that absolutely has to be resolved !!
Hopefully we can get a better handle on just how pervasive this problem 
is prior to our meeting in Wellington

best wishes

Ken

Marilyn Cade wrote:

>Let me lend my support to this. I have a special fondness for protecting registrants and welcome this move. I am sure that GAC members will be positive about the responsible initiation by the council.
>
>Regatds, marilyn
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Ross Rader <ross at tucows.com>
>Date: Fri, 03 Mar 2006 15:56:47 
>To:GNSO Council <council at gnso.icann.org>
>Subject: [council] Agenda Request
>
>Bruce, fellow Councillors,
>
>At our next meeting, I would like to propose the initiation of a new 
>policy development process concerning the Redemption Grace Period and 
>request that this topic be added to our agenda.
>
>It has recently come to my attention recently that the current 
>implementation (detailed at 
>http://www.icann.org/bucharest/redemption-topic.htm) is an optional 
>registry service which may not be meeting the needs of registrants as 
>originally envisaged when it was implemented. Recent press reports (see 
>below) and registrant complaints indicate that names are being lost 
>despite the implementation of this registry service.
>
>I have spent a lot of time considering whether or not Council can afford 
>to take on additional work given our current workload and have come to 
>the view that because of the widespread support for the Redemption Grace 
>Period amongst the constituencies (as documented on the ICANN website) 
>and the pre-existence of strong policy and implementation proposals that 
>already have consensus support of the stakeholders, we should be able to 
>confirm the Redemption Grace Period proposals as consensus policy fairly 
>quickly and without much additional effort or contentious debate.
>
>Because of the pre-existing consensus on this issue, I will propose to 
>move this forward without creating a task force per Annex A, Section 8 
>of the ICANN Bylaws once we have agreed to initiate a PDP and been 
>provided with an issues report by the staff. 
>(http://www.icann.org/general/bylaws.htm#AnnexA-8). i.e. the fast-track.
>
>In the very least, creation of an issues report will gather up 
>substantive data on this subject and allow us to make an informed 
>decision regarding whether or not circumstances like those detailed 
>below are widespread enough to justify launching a full-fledged PDP.
>
>Your consideration of this matter would be extremely appreciated. If you 
>have any questions, please don't hesitate to drop me a note (or give me 
>a ring).
>
>-ross
>
>'Drop Catchers' Buy and Sell Web Names Others Let Slip
>By DAVID KESMODEL
>Wall Street Journal
>February 22, 2006; Page B1
>Last month, Chicago real-estate agent Judy Orr discovered that a Web
>site she used to showcase area homes had gone off-line. It turned out
>she had failed to pay the $9 annual renewal fee for her Web address,
>oak-lawn-real-estate.com.
>
>But getting her site back online wasn't as easy as she had hoped:
>Another company had snapped up the domain name and wanted nearly $2,500
>to return it to her. "I was sick to my stomach," Ms. Orr says. It took
>two years of work to build up the site so it would rank prominently in
>Google's search results, and that time "went down the drain," she says.
>
>The new owner of the address was Lease Domains Inc., which is run by a
>21-year-old graduate student, Anthos Chrysanthou, who works out of his
>parents' house in a Chicago suburb. Mr. Chrysanthou says his
>two-year-old company owns more than 2,000 domain names, many obtained
>through a process called "drop catching" -- snagging names owners have
>let expire, either accidentally or because they no longer want them.
>
>"I liken the whole situation to tangible real estate," says Mr.
>Chrysanthou, who is pursuing his master's in business administration at
>St. Xavier University in Chicago. "If you're not paying your mortgage or
>your taxes on it, it's going to get taken away."
>
>Mr. Chrysanthou is one of hundreds of drop catchers who either resell
>names or use them for Web sites loaded with advertisements. (Ms. Orr's
>former site now features text ads for real estate.) Many drop catchers
>have learned the trade in the past year, seeking a piece of the booming
>market for domains spurred by a surge in online advertising. The
>practice also has gotten a lift from providers of domain services, such
>as SnapNames.com Inc., Pool.com Inc. and GoDaddy.com Inc., which have
>introduced tools aimed at helping people grab expiring domains.
>
>The services circulate lists each day showing which domains are about to
>go up for grabs. Auctions are held for particularly in-demand names, and
>prices can go sky-high: A1.com sold for $260,250 in December, after its
>previous owner let the registration lapse.
>
>Drop catching "has pretty much changed completely in a few years' time,"
>says Michael Berkens, who runs MostWantedDomains.com, owner of about
>45,000 domains, which range from 4nudepictures.com to 401kplans.com, out
>of his Fort Lauderdale, Fla., home. "There's more people," he says, and
>"prices have just escalated."
>
>DNJournal.com, a publication that tracks the domain industry, reported
>2,291 sales of expired domains in auctions last year, with winning bids
>totaling a combined $11.5 million. That was up from 885 sales totaling
>$4.2 million a year earlier. Auctioneers don't report all deals to
>DNJournal, and the site doesn't track deals valued at less than $500.
>
>Roughly 20,000 expired domain names become available each day, according
>to industry executives. While many were consciously discarded by their
>owners, others, like Ms. Orr's, are the product of a domain-registration
>system that many users don't understand well.
>
>When a user registers a domain name, it can be reserved for as many as
>10 years, typically for $80. But many choose a one-year registration
>because it is less expensive, often about $10, and because they may not
>want the site for a longer period. At the end of the year, the domain
>registrar generally sends renewal notices to the owner, but such
>messages can be missed if the owner has changed email addresses in that
>time.
>
>Under rules administered by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names
>and Numbers, the group that oversees the assignment of Web addresses,
>domain registrars such as GoDaddy and Network Solutions LLC have as many
>as 45 days after the expiration date to notify the official domain
>registry whether a name is being renewed or deleted. Typically,
>registrars have given users a grace period -- sometimes as long as 45
>days -- to renew their name.
>
>If a name is deleted, ICANN guidelines then call for a 30-day
>"redemption grace period," during which the original owner can still
>claim the name. If there is no claim in the redemption period, the name
>is dropped from the registry after a five-day holding period, and anyone
>is entitled to seek it.
>
>For the .com and .net registries, managed by VeriSign Inc., names drop
>starting around 2 p.m. Eastern each day, all year long. What follows is
>a process that some in the industry call "pounding." As the names drop,
>Internet companies that help users acquire expired names send rapid
>computer commands to the registry, seeking to grab the most valuable
>names. It is "a mad rush," says Dan Rubin, who runs justdropped.com,
>which helps people identify and acquire expired domains. Registries for
>other domain suffixes drop names at different times of day.
>
>The drop process underwent a key shift starting in late 2004. That is
>when SnapNames started a new service for grabbing domains. The company
>has signed exclusive agreements with more than a half-dozen registrars,
>including Network Solutions and Moniker.com, under which the registrars
>transfer expired domains to SnapNames, and SnapNames auctions them off.
>That way, names that people are interested in don't go through the
>traditional drop process that is open to anyone.
>
>GoDaddy, the largest domain registrar, has introduced its own auction
>service for expired names that were registered with it, as have other
>registrars, as they seek a cut of the action for expired names. They
>begin auctions for names even before the names have officially expired
>but warn auction participants that the original owner could still redeem
>the name.
>
>For domain owners, the new system means names can be grabbed from them
>even more quickly than they could before. Instead of going through the
>full deletion cycle -- which went as long as 75 days -- names are being
>transferred to new owners in 30 to 45 days.
>
>Paul Twomey, chief executive of ICANN, says some people in the domain
>industry recently have raised concerns that the guidelines governing
>expired names are "being utilized in ways that were not originally
>intended." But Mr. Twomey says no one has proposed a formal change in
>policy to address the issue.
>
>Ms. Orr's name, oak-lawn-real-estate.com, is one of those that was
>transferred before going through the full deletion process, says Jay
>Westerdal, who runs Name Intelligence Inc., a Bellevue, Wash., company
>that tracks the industry.
>
>Tim Ruiz, vice president of domain services for GoDaddy, which
>transferred the name, says, "We make every attempt to give ample
>opportunity for registrants to renew." He says the company gives
>registrants 30 days to claim a name after it has expired.
>
>If a corporation loses a domain name that it believes is copyrighted or
>trademarked, it can seek to recover the name by appealing to an
>arbitration panel under ICANN's dispute-resolution policy. It also could
>take the domain's new owner to court, though that can be more expensive.
>
>
>Ms. Orr says she lost her site's name, which wasn't copyrighted or
>trademarked, because she made the mistake of relying on her Web-hosting
>company to keep track of her registration. She says she didn't see
>renewal notices from GoDaddy because it had an old email address for
>her. Ms. Orr plans to use another site -- oak-lawn-il.com -- to replace
>the one she lost.
>
>Regards,
>Marilyn Cade
>
>
>
>  
>
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