[CPWG] [registration-issues-wg] [GTLD-WG] Fwd: FW: Draft Comment on RA Renewals

Mon Apr 29 07:43:49 UTC 2019

Thank you, Evin.

While I very much appreciate Greg’s work on drafting the statement, and I like his sensible approach, I want to reiterate part of a response of mine to a comment Roberto made earlier:

'Pragmatically speaking I share your feelings with regard to 'registries that are responsible and are not going to do things that I would qualify as “silly”, like proceed with an exceptional raise od price’, however it seems to me that would only be applicable after the fact. Same for the expected limited 'effect of the raise of the price of a .org domain name on NGOs and small non-profits’.

IMO it does not argue for nor justifies removing the price cap in the .org Registry Agreement. I have not seen anyone explain _why_ this in itself would be beneficial.’

I see the same point being made in the draft statement, e.g. 'uncapped pricing does not automatically translate to significant price increases’, and 'While uncapped prices make significant price increases possible, business strategies and market forces may well make major price increases inappropriate.’

Again, I agree that might be the case. The reasoning on the Public Comment page however, which is copied in the draft statement, does not provide a (sufficient) rationale in my opinion why the price cap should be dropped:

'This change will not only allow the [.TLD]renewal agreement to better conform with the base registry agreement, but also takes into consideration the maturation of the domain name market and the goal of treating the Registry Operator equitably with operators of new gTLDs and other legacy gTLDs utilizing the base registry agreement’

This also goes, I think, for the 'What we do know is that the domain name marketplace has changed completely since these price caps were established’ in the draft statement.

regards
Bastiaan

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> On 29 Apr 2019, at 09:23, Evin Erdogdu <evin.erdogdu at icann.org> wrote:
> 
> Dear All,
> 
> Please see an At-Large workspace devoted to the ALAC Statement on Registry Agreements: https://community.icann.org/x/-oSGBg
> 
> The current draft of the statement is here, and comments from this mailing list will be copied over.
> 
> Thank you,
> Evin
> 
> From: registration-issues-wg <registration-issues-wg-bounces at atlarge-lists.icann.org> on behalf of Holly Raiche <h.raiche at internode.on.net>
> Date: Monday, April 29, 2019 at 9:30 AM
> To: Greg Shatan <greg at isoc-ny.org>
> Cc: CPWG <cpwg at icann.org>
> Subject: Re: [registration-issues-wg] [CPWG] [GTLD-WG] Fwd: FW: Draft Comment on RA Renewals
> 
> Greg
> 
> I fear it is almost too late, but I will repeat what I said on the CPWG: .ORG is special and if we don’t comment on the others, or if comments on .ASIA are made separately, we should, at least, comment on .ORG which is for international non-profits - in the end user interest.  And to make a point that was made in the conversation, monitoring will not help; once a contract is signed, arrangements are made based upon that contract, so undoing those arrangements because a review says they aren’t operating as they should would be nigh on impossible.
> 
> Holly
> 
> 
> On Apr 29, 2019, at 3:58 PM, Greg Shatan <greg at isoc-ny.org> wrote:
> 
> Siva,
> 
> I don’t disagree with you. ISOC’s mission is much broader than ICANN, much less At-Large.  I am as trying to say that At-Large should view ISOC with a certain kinship, based on shared values and support for priorities that ultimately benefit the end-users — the Internet is for everyone!
> 
>  But the broad spectrum of activities and priorities that ISOC has goes far beyond At-Large’s “band.”
> 
> On Mon, Apr 29, 2019 at 1:33 AM sivasubramanian muthusamy <6.internet at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> 
> On Mon, Apr 29, 2019, 10:44 AM Greg Shatan <greg at isoc-ny.org> wrote:
> I would be happy, Marita, to beef up the last line of the comment and make that aspect more substantial generally!   Please send your editorial suggestions.  As for what ICANN should do, one possibility is that ICANN reserves the right to roll back price increases, in whole or in part, if the price hikes are abusive or discriminatory.
> 
> All, I still hope that there is room for a comment here.  It would be particularly unfortunate if we fail to comment on the .ORG renewal.  Roberto’s email encapsulates many of the reasons why.  I look at ISOC as almost
> 
> a sister organization of At-Large.
> 
> No. Please don't equate ISOC with one Constituency of ICANN. Rather, ISOC's mission is larger than the DNS. While ICANN perceives limitations in it's mission, ISOC's policies and programs span way beyond, and what ISOC does results in what is good for the DNS.
> 
> As Roberto points out, ISOC works to accomplish many goals that it shares with At-Large.  ISOC also supports the IETF and even provides its corporate “home.”   PIR runs on similar principles.  PIR is not a run of the mill commercial registry.  In many ways, it was put into business by ISOC.  Yet the essence of the concerted campaign against .ORG is that PIR can’t be trusted to abstain from massive price increases, that ISOC could and possibly would push it to do so, and that ISOC is a parasitical organization sucking money out of other non-profits. I feel like we would be throwing ISOC under the bus if we fail to comment on the .ORG renewal in particular.  [Disclosure: I am the President & Chair of an At Large Structure that is also an ISOC Chapter, ISOC-NY.]
> 
> Originally, my draft dealt only with .org.  We could just go back to that focus.  We can leave a general discussion of price caps to one side if we don’t expand this to .biz and .info (and .asia doesn’t have price caps now).
> 
> Based on the discussions we had, I aimed to limit the comment to the concrete issues raised by the agreement rather than go beyond the agreement to some of the broader registry issues.  But that’s a question of approach and I’m fine with a broader statement.   Alternatively, we could decide not to comment on .biz and .info at all, limit the current statement to .org, and put in a brief UA statement for .asia.   But first we would have to get any drafts, revisions, etc. out on the table so we can see what we’re dealing with.
> 
> Even asking for an extension is a double-edged sword, since that keeps the doors open for more of the cut-and-paste comments that have been filed in opposition to these renewals.
> 
> Best regards,
> 
> Greg
> 
> 
> On Sat, Apr 27, 2019 at 2:34 AM Marita Moll <mmoll at ca.inter.net> wrote:
> I am reading powerful arguments on both sides of this issue and then reading Greg's proposed comment again. In the particular case of .org, and should we decide to go in the direction that Greg has mapped, would it be possible to beef up the last line. It seems like a throw away but it could be a good bridge between the opposing points of view. The comment asks that ICANN "monitor" future price increases and any market responses to those increases. What should ICANN do if it decides the increases are unwarranted?
> @Christopher -- eh bien, le poisson est encore vivant !!
> 
> Marita
> On 4/26/2019 5:41 PM, Greg Shatan wrote:
> Justine,
> 
> Thank you for your kind words and helpful comments.
> 
> Unfortunately, the “party” got rained out.  The CPWG decided not to approve this statement, whether it covers all the renewals or is limited to .ORG.  So nothing is being sent to the ALAC for their consideration. I think it’s a good statement, and it would be made better with your suggestions.  I am considering revising this draft, cutting the subject back to .ORG and submitting it individually.  Also, circulating it for others to submit — either individually or with multiple signatures.
> 
> In particular, I am concerned there are a number of comments being made that tend to denigrate PIR and ISOC.  This is something I would like to counter.  [Full disclosure: I am the President of ISOC-NY (an At-Large Structure) and participate here in that capacity.  However, I have not yet asked the ISOC-NY Board to consider endorsing this statement, so I am discussing it here in my individual capacity.]. I honestly think much of what has been said about PIR and ISOC has been untrue or exaggerated and fails to to give credit to ISOC for its mission and unique place in the internet ecosystem.
> 
> I believe that PIR was hoping for a comment along the lines of our first draft (which I believe they saw on our site) or our second draft.  I’m not comfortable leaving PIR and ISOC to be “thrown under the bus” by ill-informed and prejudicial comments.  If ALAC will not comment (or more precisely, if the CPWG wont send ALAC a draft comment for their consideration), then it behooves those who support this statement to submit it or use it as a basis for their own comments.
> 
> Best regards,
> 
> Greg
> 
> On Fri, Apr 26, 2019 at 6:02 AM Justine Chew <justine.chew at gmail.com> wrote:
> Thanks to Greg Shatan for the 24 April draft statement.
> 
> My comments / suggestion are as follows:-
> 
> 1. I wonder if it might be better to prepare (and submit) 2 statements instead of a consolidated one ie. one to address .BIZ, .ORG and .INFO and another for .ASIA.. This is because .ASIA had a "different playing field of no price caps" to begin with and in this way, any concerns about price cap removals for .BIZ, .ORG and .INFO can be addressed squarely in comparison with .NET and with reference to the ALAC's 2017 comment. Given that we don't seem to be offering comments to the inclusion of some RPMs.
> 
> 2. In any case, the draft starts with "Background" but doesn't indicate where that backgrounder ends and where the present comment begins.
> 
> 3. Related to the point about standardizing RAs as being a good approach, it be useful to draw attention to the use of Addendums as the controlled means for handling necessary variations.
> 
> 4. Would it not be incumbent on At-Large to also support (or least comment on) regularizing the inclusion of PICs in these RA renewals (if any)?
> 
> 5. As for UA, it's not clear (to me at least) what we want all ROs to do about it at this point. Given community interest on UA has increased further in recent meetings, actual responsibilities might be better framed in due course. So, it may be prudent to tackle the inclusion of UA into the base Registry Agreement by amending Specification 6, or possibly by way of a consensus policy addition in Specification 1, at a later date.
> 
> Justine
> (my apologies for being late to the "party")
> 
> -----
> 
> 
> On Thu, 25 Apr 2019 at 04:15, Evin Erdogdu <evin.erdogdu at icann.org> wrote:
> Thank you Greg; this draft ALAC Statement on the 4 Registry Agreement Public Comments is posted to each workspace, for comment:
> 
> At-Large Workspace: Proposed Renewal of .biz Registry Agreement
> At-Large Workspace: Proposed Renewal of .asia Registry Agreement
> At-Large Workspace: Proposed Renewal of .org Registry Agreement
> At-Large Workspace: Proposed Renewal of .info Registry Agreement
> 
> Kind Regards,
> Evin
> 
> From: GTLD-WG <gtld-wg-bounces at atlarge-lists.icann.org> on behalf of Greg Shatan <greg at isoc-ny.org>
> Date: Wednesday, April 24, 2019 at 2:44 PM
> To: CPWG <cpwg at icann.org>, Evin Erdogdu <evin.erdogdu at icann.org>, Jonathan Zuck <JZuck at innovatorsnetwork.org>
> Subject: [GTLD-WG] [CPWG] Fwd: FW: Draft Comment on RA Renewals
> 
> 
> Please see attached.
> --
> Greg Shatan
> greg at isoc-ny.org
> President, ISOC-NY
> "The Internet is for everyone"
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> "The Internet is for everyone"
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> --
> Greg Shatan
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> President, ISOC-NY
> "The Internet is for everyone"
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> "The Internet is for everyone"
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