[council] RAA amendment process

[Gomes, Chuck]

I totally agree with Alan that this should have been made clear much
earlier in the process. I did not understand this until the day before
the Council meeting because of the answers the RyC received to questions
we ask in our meeting that week.  As it turns out, even if we had
approved the amendments by a 2/3 vote, it still would be required to
negotiate with registrars one by one if they did not voluntarily agree
to the changes before their RAA expired, so it really wasn't an
alternative for speeding things up as we all thought.  At the same time,
I still believe we would get some improvements sooner going that route.

Chuck 

> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-council at gnso.icann.org 
> [mailto:owner-council at gnso.icann.org] On Behalf Of Alan Greenberg
> Sent: Monday, January 12, 2009 10:14 PM
> To: Council GNSO'
> Subject: [council] RAA amendment process
> 
> 
> I have put off raising this issue until I had a chance to 
> re-listen to the last Council meeting MP3, which I have now done.
> 
> I have to admit that I was quite astounded when we were told 
> that if the GNSO approved, this set of amendments would take 
> effect over a five year period as contracts were renewed 
> (with a possibility that some registrars could volunteer to 
> amend their contract prior to expiration).
> 
> The rationale given was that this is because the form of the 
> contract was being changed, and that some of the new terms 
> were outside of those eligible for consensus policy (that is, 
> outside of the proverbial picket fence). I was one of the 
> people who previously questioned how this new package could 
> be considered a "consensus policy" since some terms were 
> arguably outside of the eligible areas, so the rationale does 
> make some sense.
> 
> However, I find it hard to accept that this was the first 
> time that this has been mentioned (in any of the three 
> briefings that I have attended). In fact, during previous 
> discussions, the ALTERNATIVE to approving this amendment 
> package was to either renegotiate with registrars one-by-one 
> (those who were amenable, that is), or to implement the 
> changes as contracts expired. Since those options were 
> clearly less desirable, the GNSO route was being pursued.
> 
> Am I the only one who feels that the ground-rules were 
> changed at the last moment?
> 
> Alan
> 
> 
>