[council] Letter from BC opposing approval of registry agreements until consideration of independent study and GNSO policy input

[Marilyn Cade]

November 20, 2006

 

Dear Board Members and Mr. Twomey

 

The Business Constituency opposes a Board decision on the .biz; .info; .org
registry agreements at the upcoming meeting of the Board, November 22, 2006.
We ask the Board to accept the recommendation of the GNSO Council of 28
September 2006, as described below, and further, to await and consider the
expert advice that will be the output of the "independent study by a
reputable economic consulting firm or organization to deliver findings on
economic questions ". called for in the Board's 18 October 2006 resolution. 

 

We remind the Board and the staff of the GNSO Council's resolution,
available on the GNSO website at http://www.gnso.icann.org/resolutions,
where the GNSO council requested the Board to delay any decision on these
contracts until the ICANN board meeting after the Sao Paolo ICANN meeting
2006, and to take into account the current outcome of the PDPFeb06 task
force at that time. 

 

On 18 October 2006 the Board meeting passed resolution
http://www.icann.org/minutes/resolutions-1Oct06.htm entitled Economic Study
of the Proposed Registry Agreements. In that resolution, the Board noted
that it has carefully considered the proposed new agreements [with the three
registries], and the public comments and the registry responses, and found
that the approval of the new agreements would be beneficial for ICANN and
the Internet community, provided that the registry operators and ICANN are
able to agree to appropriate revisions to the proposed agreements to address
competition related issues, such as differential pricing. 

 

However, of significance to our recommendation to the Board, the resolution
acknowledged the need for high levels of economic expertise. And the
resolution then "directed the President to commission an independent study
by a reputable economic consulting firm or organization to deliver findings
on economic questions relating to the domain registration market, and went
on to identify important issues, that to the Business Constituency's members
are essential to address in an open and transparent manner. 

 

It is important to ensure this level of accountability and transparency
related to the independent study's findings, so that ICANN's community of
stakeholders can fully support the decisions that are made by the Board,
based on recommendations of the ICANN staff, but guided by the expert
advice/economic expertise.  

 

We are in agreement that these are complex issues; therefore, we have taken
the time to examine where there are other pressures that may be influencing
the rush to approve these agreements. We address below our concern that
budget considerations may be influencing a rushed decision. We believe that
the Board can be of assistance in the discussions with the Registrars, and
thus remove or ameliorate that pressure. 

 

Instead of voting, we urge the Board to discuss with the President and ICANN
staff the progress they have made in identifying independent expert advice;
if the Staff and President are unable to pursue the study authorization as
directed in the Board resolution immediately, the Board could also task the
President and staff to immediately establish a interim panel of three
experts in competition, anti-trust, and market analysis to provide interim
consultation to the GNSO Council and Task Force, and of course, as a
resource to the staff and Board. 

 

This will support the policy development process while allowing the ICANN
President and staff to focus on organizing the authorized study. 

 

Further, given that the ICANN staff have not asked the Registrars to approve
the budget and that this creates a financial tension, we urge the Board at
the Sao Paolo meeting, to provide guidance and support to the staff,
including providing active listening and pragmatic support to the
discussions with the Registrars regarding how to advance their approval of
the ICANN budget. 

 

Conclusion: The Board should not vote on these contracts at this time, but
the Board has a critical role to play in advancing toward a time when it is
both appropriate and supportable to vote on agreements with these
registries. 

 

We, like the ICANN Board, seek a solution that can be broadly supportable by
ICANN, the stakeholders; the Board, the registries and the registrars, and
all other stakeholder representatives. We do believe that this is
attainable. 

 

For instance, if the expert advice indicates that there are no competition
problems and that there are sufficient safeguards, our constituency will be
more informed about why we should support the approval of the registry
agreements. In our view, there must be an appropriate balance of respecting
the ICANN stakeholders' concerns and interests, with a predictable and
accountable contracting environment in renewals of registry agreements. 

 

Financial security is one element of a stable and predictable environment
for ICANN and its stakeholders. Trust and respect for decisions and for the
processes that lead to decisions are also key elements. 

 

It is after all, our members and the millions of other businesses who build
the Internet, create the applications and content, and provide services and
products to the just over one billion Internet users. We fully appreciate
and value the role that registry operations play in the functioning of the
Internet Domain Name System. However, registries are suppliers, and ICANN
registry agreements, and ICANN's actions must reflect the balance of
supplier interests with the broader responsibilities that ICANN has. 

 

The Officers of the Commercial and Business Constituency (BC)

 

Marilyn Cade                     Alistair Dixon                       Philip
Sheppard

 

Cc: Vint Cerf, Chair, and ICANN Board

     Paul Twomey, ICANN President and CEO

     John Jeffrey, ICANN General Counsel

     ICANN GNSO Council

     ICANN GAC Chair

     ICANN Commercial and Business User Constituency

 

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