Re: [ga] GA position on Verisign contract

[Bruce James <bmjames@swbell.net>]

I would like to thank Roberto Gaetano, for the GA Position paper. He has
worked very hard on this, in a very short time frame. He has expressed the
feeling of the GA as a whole.


/Bruce James
GA Voting Member



----- Original Message -----
From: "Roberto Gaetano" <ga_chair@hotmail.com>
To: <philip.sheppard@europe.com>
Cc: <council@dnso.org>; <ga@dnso.org>
Sent: Sunday, March 25, 2001 4:16 AM
Subject: [ga] GA position on Verisign contract


Philip,

I am few minutes late, as I did not take into account daylight savings time
:<(
Please find below the report from the GA.

Regards
Roberto

----------------------------

After thorough discussion, the GA has shown rough consensus in favour to
option A, i.e. to keep the current contract.

A straw poll conducted between the 15 and 20 March has given the following
results:
- 24 in favour of the current contract (option A)
- 2 in favour of the new contract (option B)
- 1 neither of the above

The reasons for the choice, as expressed by some participants, are mainly:

1) "horizontal" separation between Registrar and Registry, foreseen in
option A, is perceived as a better deal than "vertical" separation among
TLDs, and a better safeguard against a monopolistic position.

2) The switchover to option B is perceived as a change in policy, done
without previous consultation of the DNSO (whose mission is to provide
recommandations on policy), and moreover within very strict deadlines,
absolutely inappropriate to evaluate in depth the implications of such
change. For instance, some of the details of the new proposal, like some
attachments, are still unknown at time of writing. Also, this change in
policy is considered irreversible.

3) The financial advantages for the Internet community of option B are not
balancing off the drawbacks above, as it is understood that the investment
will be done by VeriSign at its discretion, based on a commercial logic that
is perfectly legitimate but out of the control of the Internet community.
The benefits for the Internet community are therefore not identifiable at
this point in time, and it may be even assumed that other competing
operators might invest comparable amounts of money in the infrastructure as
well, if granted similar contracts by ICANN.

4) The other claimed advantage of option B, i.e. a different management of
.org, is minimal in value if of any value at all, because years of practice
of sale of names without enforcement of the original charter have
irreversibly altered the content of .org

Moreover, should a charter be enforced by ICANN and/or agreed with the .org
registry (and this regardless on whether the registry changes owner, i.e.
independently from option A or B being chosen), the GA is opposed to any
action to cancel existing registrations. Any action of this type would be
contrary to the legitimate interest of bona-fide owners of .org names.

Roberto Gaetano
GA Chairman

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