Re: [nc-deletes] Impact

["Jordyn A. Buchanan" <jordyn@register.com>]

I'm not sure about the wisdom of individual task forces specifying 
penalties or other specific enforcement mechanisms for their 
recommendations.  It seems to me that there should be a general 
approach to contract enforcement and sanctions, and this should apply 
to any breach of consensus policy or existing contracts.  Perhaps it 
would make sense to have different types of sanctions based on 
different types of severity of infraction, and then allow the task 
forces to specify what level of severity a violation of particular 
recommendation would fall into.

The alternative is a system in which wildly different sanctions may 
exist based on the composition of a particular task force.  That's not 
a desirable outcome for anyone, either those who expect contracts to be 
enforced, or the ones who the contract is being enforced upon.

Jordyn

On Monday, January 27, 2003, at 07:33  AM, Tim Ruiz wrote:

> John,
>
> Points well taken.
>
> Part of the problem is that a lot of the RAA is not currently 
> enforceable
> because it is ambiguous, or not defined at all. The work of this Task 
> Force
> and the others will hopefully result in policy that is, which is an
> important first step.
>
> But you're right, there still needs to be an enforcement mechanism in 
> place
> and I agree that we should address that to some degree.
>
> The problem with involving the registry with some of our 
> recommendations is
> that they are unaware of what's really happening unless the registrars
> informs them, or the registrant complains to them directly. I'm not 
> sure
> the latter is a good idea.
>
> Perhaps a good place to start looking at this is with the parts of
> Transfers TF and the Whois TF reports concerning enforcement.
>
> Tim
>
>  -------- Original Message --------
>    Subject: Re: [nc-deletes] Impact
>    From: "John Berryhill Ph.D. J.D." <john@johnberryhill.com>
>    Date: Sun, January 26, 2003 11:27 pm
>    To: <tim@godaddy.com>, <nc-deletes@dnso.org>
>
>>
>> "If a domain name is not explicitly renewed by the registrant, the
>    registrar
>> must issue a delete request for that name no later than 45-days
>> after the initial registration period agreed to by the registrant.
>
>    ..or else what happens?   The registry automatically generates the
>    delete request?  Someone complains to Dan Halloran about it?
>
>    One of the dilemmas of the WHOIS task force is that they have been 
> put
>    into the position of defending the 15 day period, regardless of the
>    fact that the 15 day period on inaccurate whois data has always 
> been a
>    condition of the registrar accreditation agreement.  The overarching
>    problem of the registrar accreditation agreement is that it 
> prescribes
>    a number of things that registrars are supposed to do, but provides 
> no
>    finer-grained enforcement mechanism other than the prospect of
>    de-accreditation.  Hence if ICANN's counsel, in response to
>    sufficiently well-heeled complaints, sends a letter to Verisign 
> about
>    a handful of names, then Verisign responds in 15 days. Accordingly,
>    the WHOIS task force has defined a set of escalating "fines" that 
> can
>    be assessed for non-compliance.  Now, that may not be the best 
> answer
>    to the question of "what makes these apparently 'self-enforcing'
>    contract mechanisms work, and nobody in their right mind expects
>    registrars to agree under any circumstances to anything that might
>    result in fines (or a withhold of their registry credits), but the
>    problem of "what happens when what is supposed to happen doesn't
>    happen?" is a question that always needs an answer when one is
>    drafting contract terms.  And that is the exercise here.
>
>    Failing to define action that will occur in the event of breach
>    results in contract terms that can be ignored, to the extent that 
> the
>    only approach to the contract is an all-or-nothing proposition.
>    Expecting that merely writing terms into a contract means that the
>    terms will be followed is just wishful thinking.  For that matter, 
> one
>    need not incorporate them into the contract at all.
>
>    Would it be useful to define a registry action to be taken in 
> response
>    to a failure of a registrar to timely submit a delete request?
>
>> Or some similar to that. By trying to stay in line with the WHOIS TF
>> work
>    we
>> can minimize the impact and maximize acceptance of our
>> recommendations.
>
>    Yes, it is their job to define what is "accurate" whois data.
>
>
>