[Gnso-newgtld-wg] Finishing up PICs

[Kathy Kleiman]

	All, 

	Let’s remember that this is a contract between ICANN and the New
gTLD Registries.  It is not a Registry-Registrar Agreement or a
Registrar-Registrant Agreement.  Accordingly, everything in it must
be legit under ICANN’s Bylaws. We want our ICANN Board Members,
including Becky, to sleep at night.  

	To do so, terms that are put into an RVC must fall within terms to
which ICANN, as a signatory to this contract, must agree. Again, this
is *ICANN’s contract.* There are many things we would not put into
the vPICs/RVCs therefore, even though they may happen. Like some
cooperation with local law enforcement and providing data on users and
use. It may happen; it’s not in our contracts or blessed or enforced
by ICANN. 

	Accordingly, to the end of Recommendation 9.12, we must add something
about the requirements of the RVC.  A registrant cannot be required
to paint the moon pink, and the PICs should not be allowed to push
ICANN outside its mission, mandate, scope and core values. These are
ICANN commitments to all of us, and to the world, in its Bylaws.
_Accordingly we must add:  RVCs will not address the contents of
websites or apps that use domain names, they will be consistent with
ICANN’s Human Rights Core Value, they will not allow the registry
arbitrary discretion to suspend a domain name, and they will not be
used to create new policies that did not come through ICANN processes.
  _

	These limitations are substantive – they will keep the RVCs within
the bounds of what ICANN is allowed to sign and what ICANN is allowed
to do.  The Attorney Generals do not want to see a spate of new
contracts from California public interest corporation coming without
principles and guardrails for what one party, in its self-interest,
can impose on other parties, particularly those who are weaker – a
registry imposing arbitrary and unfair terms on its registrants (note:
unfair RVCs _did not, _in Round 1, come through the public processes
we are working hard to protect, including GAC Early Warnings, GAC
Consensus Advice, and settlements of Objections e.g., Community, Legal
Rights, etc).   

	We need to finish up 9.12 with the additions above.  RVCs will no
longer be the dumping ground or the “kitchen sink” as they were in
2013-2014. This is critical for ICANN’s integrity, and for this I
quote, as I did in my March 11, 2020, CircleID article: Becky Burr,
then and still an ICANN Board member, speaking in her personal
capacity at an event at American University Washington College of Law
in February 2019, ICANN and New gTLDs, DESCRIBING THE ROUND 1 PRIVATE
PIC PROCESS: "_I HOPE WE NEVER SEE ANY LIKE THAT [AGAIN]", "THE
PROCESS BY WHICH THAT HAPPENED WAS APPALLING," "AND MOST REGISTRIES
AND REGISTRARS WERE APPALLED BY THAT PROCESS AS WELL." "A SUBSET OF…
REGISTRY APPLICANTS CAME IN AND MADE ... COMMITMENTS THAT WERE LIKE,
LITERALLY, EVERYTHING IN THE KITCHEN SINK."_  [emphasis added]

	NO MORE “KITCHEN SINK,” AND WE’RE DONE.  

	Best, Kathy
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