[ga] Supplementary report .ORG divestiture

[Marc Schneiders <marc@fuchsia.bijt.net>]

Upon the suggestion of Thomas Roessler, I repost a revised version of
the report that I sent earlier, in order to develop consensus on this
in the GA.

The only change in the text is in the first paragraph, to make it more
clear that the GA supports that ORG continues as an unrestricted TLD.

Please, send any comments to this list before Friday 25th January. May
I ask not to bring up any 'new' matters, but to read the text below,
and comment upon it in the light of the report it supplements. This,
the NC-ORG Task Force report, may be read at:

http://www.dnso.org/clubpublic/nc-org/Arc00/msg00386.html

Thank you!

-- 
Marc@Schneiders.ORG

-------------------------------------------------------------------
Supplementary report from the GA-rep in the ORG TF (revised version)

1. In general the topics that were important in discussions on the
divestiture of ORG on the GA-list, are dealt with in a satisfactory
way in the report. Important issues like the unrestricted character of
.ORG, both for new and old registrants, as well as some form of direct
influence of the registrants in the management of the registry are
given ample space in the text. This deserves our support. 

2. Concerns remain, however, such as the possibility of a price raise
in the registration fee for ORG names, as a result of the guidelines
regarding surplus funds (2c). A better idea would be, to lower prices,
if 'profit' would be made. Or to subsidize registrations in
third-world countries. Hopefully applicants will indicate more
specifically, how they intend to deal with surplus funds, so that they
cannot be used to finance unrelated activities. 

3. Unfortunately the report does not contain any indication, how the
operator of new ORG could and should deal with registrars that
frustrate the marketing policy, which is so important for
new ORG to succeed in the way the report proposes. Some form of
de-accreditation for ORG as far as new registrations are concerned,
if a registrar refuses to implement the marketing strategy of ORG, is
necessary. E.g., if a registrar insists on trying to sell the ORG
domain with every COM domain it sells, and refuses to change its
website, there should be a procedure to 'punish' this registrar. This
is not difficult to implement and control. Registrars will report each
other's transgressions to the ORG operator, no doubt.
It is quite clear, that it is not possible (and not even in any way
desirable) to take existing registrations away from registrars,
including the right to renew them. The above is only concerned with
new registrations.

4. The UDRP should apply to new ORG in a different manner than to e.g.
COM, given the different target users of the TLD. Common words or
acronyms (e.g. 'word' or 'att') should not necessarily be transferred
to the companies that have a trademark in these names, if there is no
actual trademark violation. 

5. Some sort of provision that makes it impossible that VeriSign adds
ORG again to its collection of TLDs is necessary.

Marc Schneiders (Marc@Schneiders.ORG)
GA-representative in the NC ORG task force










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