[council] AGP Limits Policy - Status Report Inquiry

Sun Apr 4 18:27:38 UTC 2010

Alan,

You are correct Alan.  We reject claims that simply cite fraud as the
reason without sufficient details to justify the exception.  The 10%
allowance should be more than adequate to cover most instances of fraud
if a registrar is properly managing its services.  If there are cases
that go beyond that, then we will evaluate them on a case by case basis.
As our experience has shown, if we simply approve exceptions if someone
uses the key word fraud, it will be abused.

Chuck

________________________________

	From: Alan Greenberg [mailto:alan.greenberg at mcgill.ca] 
	Sent: Friday, April 02, 2010 7:03 PM
	To: Gomes, Chuck; icann at rodenbaugh.com; Craig Schwartz; GNSO
Council
	Subject: RE: [council] AGP Limits Policy - Status Report Inquiry

	Chuck, if I am reading your message correctly (and specifically
the part that says "then we expect them to be able to substantiate their
claim and not just use one of the industry's hot buzz words and expect
that we will grant the exemption"), this means that you are rejecting
claims that simply cite "fraud", but that if a registrar were to make a
claim with specific details indicating the particulars (on X date, we
received Y registrations within a Z hour period all using different
credit card numbers or whatever) and backing it up with records from
their credit-card service, and perhaps a plan to avoid the problem in
the future, you might treat it as an valid exception?

	Alan

	At 02/04/2010 06:10 PM, Gomes, Chuck wrote:

		Mike,

		I contacted Barbara Steele in our customer affairs
office and she shared the following.

		Given that there is a 10% deletion allowance, it is
their opinion that this should be adequate to address any issues that a
registrar is having with traditional fraud, i.e., stolen credit cards,
etc.  If they have deletes of more than 10% "due to fraud", then the
registrars experiencing this have bigger issues that they are not
addressing.  What we have found is that registrars would claim fraud
when submitting a request for an exemption and when we denied the
request indicating that we don't view fraud as an extraordinary
circumstance, the registrar's AGP deletion percentage would drop down
below the 10% threshold or they moved on to claims of phishing.  We do
want registrars to "do the right thing" and take down domains that are
being used for nefarious activity but if they are exceeding the AGP
threshold, then we expect them to be able to substantiate their claim
and not just use one of the industry's hot buzz words and expect that we
will grant the exemption. 

		If fraud (and unsubstantiated phishing) were deemed to
be valid examples of extraordinary circumstances, then I think that
ICANN would find that their 'successful' policy is not so 'successful'
after all.  Even with the low number of exemption requests that we
receive each month, we spend a huge amount of time trying to
substantiate the claims and then getting the internal approvals of our
recommendations.  I have concerns that if "fraud" and "phishing" become
the "get out of jail" free card for submitting exemption requests, then
we will see more registrars exceeding the 10% threshold and then
submitting an exemption request for the domain names over the threshold.
I don't think that VeriSign (or any other registry) would want to hire
the number of people that it would take to process the increase in
claims and I don't think that ICANN would be very happy with the number
of AGP deletes increasing. 

		Chuck

________________________________

			From: owner-council at gnso.icann.org [
mailto:owner-council at gnso.icann.org
<mailto:owner-council at gnso.icann.org> ] On Behalf Of Mike Rodenbaugh

			Sent: Friday, April 02, 2010 3:48 PM

			To: 'Craig Schwartz'; 'GNSO Council'

			Subject: RE: [council] AGP Limits Policy -
Status Report Inquiry

			Thanks Craig.

			I am curious to know from contract parties
whether the fraud issue is really a significant issue needed Council
consideration.  Otherwise, I think this issue can be closed and no
further reports are needed to the Council since the stats are reported
in the monthly registry reports anyway.

			Mike Rodenbaugh

			RODENBAUGH LAW

			tel/fax:  +1 (415) 738-8087

			http://rodenbaugh.com <http://rodenbaugh.com/> 

			From: owner-council at gnso.icann.org [
mailto:owner-council at gnso.icann.org
<mailto:owner-council at gnso.icann.org> ] On Behalf Of Craig Schwartz

			Sent: Friday, April 02, 2010 6:38 AM

			To: GNSO Council

			Subject: [council] AGP Limits Policy - Status
Report Inquiry

			Dear Councilors,

			The AGP Limits Policy contains a provision that
requires ICANN staff to provide semi-annual updates to the GSNO on the
implementation of the Policy. To date ICANN has issued two reports, the
first in June 2009 and the second in December 2009. With excessive AGP
deletes down by 99.7%, the Policy is achieving its desired outcome and
this was stated in the last report. 

			Also noted in the last report were some
registrar complaints about exemptions requests that had been denied when
the basis for the request was fraud. From the 14 December 2009 report,
ICANN noted: A question the GNSO Council may wish to consider in the
future is whether modifications to the Policy are necessary and/or
appropriate given the results and community reaction to date. For
example, should the GNSO Council consider defining the terms
"extraordinary circumstances" or "reoccur regularly?" During the policy
development process on domain tasting some community members suggested
that the mitigation of instances of consumer fraud may be a legitimate
use of AGP deletes. Additionally, if a registrar proactively takes down
(i.e., deletes) domains that are known to propagate a fraudulent
activity such as phishing, should the registrar bear the cost if the
deletions cause the registrar to exceed the threshold defined in the
Policy?

			Staff recommends that the GSNO consider whether
further work is needed in light of the fact that excessive AGP deletes
are down by 99.7%.  Staff further recommends that the Council consider
whether semi-annual reports should be continued and if so, with what
frequency? 

			I'm happy to join the next GNSO call to discuss
this and to answer any questions you may have.

			Best,

			Craig Schwartz

			Chief gTLD Registry Liaison

			ICANN

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