[ga] Policy vs Contracts?

[DPF <david@farrar.com>]

The recent furore over the revised Verisign agreements highlighted an
interesting difference in viewpoints between the Names Council and the
Board - namely what is a policy matter and what is a contractual
matter.

I don't intend to revisit that particular argument but would like to
generate debate on the wider issue - where do we draw the line.

I note that in all the new registry agreements there is a contractual
item which forbids the registry from allowing iso3166 2 letter codes
to be registered at the 2nd or 3rd level without the permission of the
ccTLD administrator and/or Government concerned.

Now I would have thought that such an issue is a policy matter.  I
would have thought the DNSO should have debated whether ISO3166 codes
should be banned from registrations in gTLDs.  There are interesting
arguments on both sides for it.  Certainly no-one ever seems to get
too confused by there existing a nz.com website.

So if the above is not a policy issue, what issues are policy issues?
From a narrow viewpoint it seems that the one and only policy that
ICANN has is to have the UDRP and every other issue is merely
contractual and may be changed without reference.

I am not proposing exactly where the line should be drawn but that
maybe it is time we start to debate this issue.  

DPF
--
david@farrar.com
ICQ 29964527
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