[Re: [council] Needs clarification about Agreement between Verisign and ICANN regarding .ORG Divesture]

[Louis Touton <touton@icann.org>]

Vany,

The contractual implementation of the .org turn-over is in Subsections
5.1.4 and 5.1.5 of the .org Registry Agreement:

   5.1.4 No later than 90 days prior to the Expiration Date, Registry
   Operator will pay to ICANN or ICANN's designee the sum of US $5 
   million, to be used by ICANN in it sole discretion to establish an 
   endowment to be used to fund future operating costs of the non-
   profit entity designated by ICANN as successor operator of the .org 
   registry. Registry Operator agrees that such funds, once paid to 
   ICANN, will become the property of ICANN and/or ICANN's designee, 
   and that Registry Operator will have no ownership or other rights 
   or interests in such funds or in the manner in which they are used 
   or disbursed.

   5.1.5 Registry Operator further agrees that it will make available 
   to the party designated by ICANN as successor operator of the .org 
   registry the use of global resolution and distribution facilities, 
   at no charge until 31 December 2003, and thereafter at a price to 
   be determined, for so long as Registry Operator is also the 
   operator of the .com registry.

("Registry Operator" refers to VeriSign in the above.)

In answer to your specific questions:

  1. Under the agreement, the .org TLD need not be either sponsored or
restricted in order for the US$5,000,000 to be used.  The money is
payable to ICANN for use "to fund future operating costs of the
non-profit entity designated by ICANN as successor operator of the .org
registry."  So long as these requirements are met, the endowment can be
used for the stated purpose whether the .org TLD is sponsored or
unsponsored, or to whether it is restricted or unrestricted.

  2.  The agreement does not require any particular level of financial
resources that must be required by ICANN.  The level of resources to be
shown is to be decided in the ICANN policy process.

I hope this helps.

Best regards,

Louis Touton

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: [council] Needs clarification about Agreement between Verisign
and ICANN regarding .ORG Divesture
Date: Fri, 4 Jan 2002 17:24:08 -0800 (PST)
From: Vany Martinez <vany_martinez@yahoo.com>
Reply-To: ceo@vany.org
To: council@dnso.org, touton@icann.org, RCochetti@verisign.com

Hi Louis, Roger and all:

I am sure that everybody knows very well the texts of the actual
Agreements between Verisign and ICANN.

However, I would like a clarification regarding the part describing .ORG
Divesture (section D, number 2):

"2. The .org Registry Agreement would adopt the form of the registry
agreements that will be entered into by the new global TLD registry
operators. The term of the .org Registry Agreement would be shortened by
almost one year to 31 December 2002, at which time VeriSign would
permanently relinquish its right to operate the .org registry, and an
appropriate sponsoring organization representing non-commercial
organizations would be sought (through some procedure yet to be
determined) to assume the operation of the registry. In addition,
VeriSign would establish an endowment of $5 million for the purpose of
funding the reasonable operating expenses of a global registry for the
specific use of non-profit organizations, and would make global
resolution resources available to the operator of the .org registry for
no charge for one year and on terms to be determined thereafter, for so
long as it operates the .com registry. The net result of this would be a
.org registry returned, after some appropriate transition period, to its
originally intended function as a registry operated by and for
non-profit organizations."

The questions regarding this paragraph are:

1.  Does all this paragraph means that the agreements requires
obligatorily that .ORG be "SPONSORED" ("appropiate sponsoring
organization representing non-commercial organizations...") and also
that be "RESTRICTED" ("for the specific use of non-profit
organizations", "Registry operated by and for non-profit
organizations")? Please, explain why.

2.  Would the applicants for being the global registry for .ORG need to
demonstrate some financial resources, although Verisign would stablish
and endowment of $5 million for the purpose of funding reasonable
operating expenses and would make some other technical resources
available for one year to no cost to whoever be selected sponsor
organization?  

Thank you in advance for all the information you can provide me.

Best Regards
Vany
   

-- 
Nilda Vany Martinez Grajales, BSEE
Information Technology Specialist
Sustainable Development Networking Programme/Panama
Member of the ICANN's DNSO Non-Commercial Constituency
Tel: (507) 317-0169
http://www.sdnp.org.pa
e-mail:  vany@sdnp.org.pa

Are you a Non-Commercial organization and have a
domain name?
Join the ICANN's DNSO Non-Commercial Constituency, ncdnhc.icann-ncc.org

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