[nc-org] Re: Final version of ORG policy statement for public comment

[Cary Karp <ck@nrm.se>]

> The ICANN Board is instructed to award the ORG domain only to
> applicants that conform to the following criteria:

Do DNSO consensus reports normally begin with direct instructions to
the Board?  If so, fine. If not, doing so here may put a negative
bias on the way the Board reads everything that follows. If it is
felt that they need to mend their ways vis-a-vis their treatment of
DNSO actions, opening the present report in an imperative manner may
not be the most purposeful way of attaining that goal. It might be
more to the point to open:

"The DNSO finds that responsibility for the policy and operation of
the .org TLD should be delegated to an organization that conforms to
the following criteria:"

> The new ORG top-level domain should be a sponsored but
> unrestricted domain.

The wording "award ... only to" clearly states a restriction on the
operation of newORG. We cannot logically then go on to say that
there are no restrictions. How about:

"The revised .org TLD should be sponsored but no eligibility
restrictions should be imposed on the prospective registrants."

> The sponsoring organization should develop a definition of the
> relevant community for which ORG domain names are intended. The
> new administrator would define the specific types of registrants
> who constitute the target market for ORG and propose marketing
> and branding practices oriented toward that community. The
> marketing practices should not encourage defensive or
> duplicative registrations.

The definition of the target community will be a key part of the
Sponsorship Agreement and it will not be up to the Sponsoring
Organization to define this autonomously subsequent to the signing
of that Agreement. I suggest:

"Each candidate Sponsoring Organization should include in its
application a definition of the relevant community for which names
in the .org TLD are intended, detailing the specific types of
registrants who constitute the target market for .org, and proposing
marketing and branding practices oriented toward that community. The
marketing practices should not encourage defensive or duplicative
registrations."

> The Task Force specifically requests public comment on the
> feasibility and desirability of using registry-registrar
> contracts to guide or police the way the ORG registrations are
> marketed by registrars.

The wording of this paragraph is in direct opposition to the basis
for sTLD operation. Also, the notion of "police" harmonizes poorly
with the lack of restrictions. I suggest:

"The Task Force specifically requests public comment on the
feasibility and desirability of using the contract between the
Sponsoring Organization and the registrars to ensure that the
marketing and branding practices specified in the .org Charter are
upheld."

> 1b. Unrestricted

I suggest focusing this heading on eligibility:

"1b. Unrestricted Eligibility"

> Must not adopt a new dispute initiation procedure to take away
> registrations ex post (other than the UDRP, which would apply as
> per #4 below).

Although hardly a matter of fine-tuning language, it might be worth
an extra day to add some text specifically about the CEDRP that has
latterly been introduced into the stock sTLD agreement.

> 2. Characteristics of the Entity

This isn't the place for the stylistic avoidance of redundancy. The
entity will be the "Sponsoring Organization" and nothing else. I
suggest that every reference to the SO should be indicated solely in
that manner (i.e. as 'the Sponsoring Organization', 'SO', or
'Sponsor').

> It should be authorized to contract with commercial service
> providers to perform technical and service functions.

Just so that nobody here is confused about the way ICANN is
establishing sTLDs -- in an sTLD agreement the subcontracted
back-end service provider is the Registry Operator. Although both
the SO and the registrars will be dealing with the registry, the
registrants will not. Although registrars maintain end-user customer
relations for the uTLDs, the Registry Operator gets the splash. In
the sTLD case, the Registry Operator is all but invisible and it is
the SO that makes the headlines.

> The new ORG registry must function efficiently and reliably. The
> entity chosen by ICANN ...

It will be the SO and not ICANN that selects the registry.

"The new .org registry must function efficiently and reliably. The
operator chosen by the Sponsor ..."

Finally, please note that I am using the form ".org TLD"  because it
conforms to usage in ICANN's own documentation of the gTLD process.
I suggest that it be applied consistently in our report, as well.

That does it for me.

/Cary