[council] Registry Operators

[Alan Greenberg]

Chuck, that argument made sense when ICANN was started and the world 
was a lot simpler, but I am not sure it is as strong today.

Today, registrars and registries effectively (even though not always 
using the term) sub-contract parts of their 
ICANN-mandated  responsibilities to other parties. Therefore those 
other parties are indirectly but effectively bound by consensus 
policy as well. Using this argument, registry service providers and 
registrar resellers could well be defined as "contracted parties".

The argument regarding being bound by changeable terms may well be 
true in the general case, but in relation to ICANN matters, pretty 
much every domain registrant agrees to terms that can unilaterally be 
changed without notice by registrars.

But regardless of the specific arguments, we seem to have a group of 
parties who are or will be significant players in the domain game, 
and both GNSO houses say that they cannot belong. That is not a 
credible and sustainable model.

Alan

At 14/07/2009 11:01 PM, Gomes, Chuck wrote:

>It gets very frustrating to go through this same issue over and over
>again.  There is a very clear reason why the RyC and the RrC are
>restricted to those who have registry or registrar agreements with
>ICANN: In those agreements, registries and registrars commit in advance
>to implementing consensus policies that are within the picket fence
>without having any knowledge of the details of those polices.  That is a
>very exceptional situation in the world of business contracting as I
>have to believe attorneys know full well.  As a result of that 'blind'
>commitment, registries and registrars can be seriously impacted by
>policy development actions of the GNSO.
>
>I can accept the fact that some may not have any empathy for the
>contracted parties and may not like this but let's at least not continue
>to retread ground that we have covered many times before.
>
>Chuck
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: owner-council at gnso.icann.org
> > [mailto:owner-council at gnso.icann.org] On Behalf Of Rosette, Kristina
> > Sent: Tuesday, July 14, 2009 10:47 PM
> > To: Council GNSO
> > Subject: RE: [council] Registry Operators
> >
> >
> > Am I the only who is troubled by the fact that restricting
> > membership in the registrar and registry constituency to
> > entities that are ICANN contracted parties effectively gives
> > ICANN control over which entities are and are not members and
> > the timing by which entities become eligible for membership?
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: owner-council at gnso.icann.org
> > [mailto:owner-council at gnso.icann.org]
> > On Behalf Of Bruce Tonkin
> > Sent: Tuesday, July 14, 2009 9:25 PM
> > To: Council GNSO
> > Subject: RE: [council] Registry Operators
> >
> >
> > Hello All,
> >
> >
> > >
> > >
> > > Agreed, it is an old, important issue that is still unresolved and
> > > must be resolved before the GNSO restructure can take place.
> >
> > It is certainly worth considering further.
> >
> > Membership of the registry and registrar constituency has
> > generally been very clear - based on the legal entity being a
> > contracted party with ICANN as either a TLD manager or a gTLD
> > registrar.  This information is publicly available on the
> > ICANN website.
> >
> > There are other parties involved in the process of the domain
> > name value chain.
> >
> > E.g
> >
> > (1) Consultants - there are many consultants and lawyers that
> > provide services to the members of the registry and registrar
> > constituency or members of other constituencies - these
> > consultants and lawyers can be split across the business
> > constituency and the IP constituency.
> >
> > (2) Internet Service Providers - while some purely provide
> > connectivity
> > - many of these companies have moved into value added
> > services - and many are significant suppliers of domain names
> > (either as accredited registrars, or as resellers of
> > accredited registrars).
> >
> > (3) Other domain name resellers - e.g portals (e.g Yahoo),
> > software companies (e.g Microsoft), search engines (e.g
> > Google), web hosting companies - there are wide range of
> > domain name resellers.  Some of thee are very large companies
> > and supply large volumes (e.g over 100,000
> > names) of domain names to their customers.   At different
> > times staff or
> > consultants/external lawyers of these companies have been
> > members of registrar, business constituency or IP constituency.
> >
> > (4) Domainers - these companies operate a portfolio of domain
> > names - they often do not supply domain name registration
> > services to other parties - but may sell some of their domain
> > name licences from
> > time-to-time.   They may be accredited registrars (usually to get the
> > lowest possible wholesale price for domains), or may simply
> > be resellers.  Where they are not registrars - it is not
> > clear what constituency that should be members of.  They
> > would probably consider themselves to be members of the
> > business constituency - as they are "business users" of
> > domain names (earn revenue from advertising, or from the
> > future sale of the domain name licence), and not involved in
> > supplying domain name registration services to third parties.
> >
> > For consultants or lawyers it is often complex as they may
> > have some customers/clients that are associated with the
> > domain name supply industry and some customers/clients that are not.
> >
> > In many cases large companies have different departments (or legal
> > subsidiaries) - e.g a legal department, network connectivity
> > department, domains/hosting department -  and it can be
> > convenient to have staff members of different
> > departments/subsidiaries to join different constituencies
> > (e.g Registrar, ISP constituency, IP constituency).
> >
> > So do you make the decision on the basis of the corporate
> > entity (could be operating across multiple area of interest
> > in the GNSO), or on the basis of the individual (may work for
> > a particular department of a corporate, or may work for many clients).
> >
> > Ultimately this will probably be hard to resolve.  Perhaps
> > the best to hope for is that members of constituencies
> > clearly define their
> > potential conflicts of interest.   This could be at a corporate level
> > and at an individual level (e.g identify clients involved in different
> > constituencies if a consultant).   It would also be useful to require
> > this to happen at the beginning of establishing working
> > groups (not as a method of exclusion - but to clearly state
> > potential conflicts).
> >
> >
> > The reality is that many members of the GNSO community can potentially
> > participate in multiple roles.   Trying to create very tight exclusion
> > rules (e.g you can be a member of constituency x - provided
> > you have no other relationship with any member of another
> > constituency) may unnecessarily restrict participation.
> >
> > Regards,
> > Bruce Tonkin
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >