RE: [registrars] Parting from Afilias, a painful decision.

["Bhavin Turakhia" <bhavin.t@directi.com>]

Dear Bob,

I saw your email to the registrar constituency, and I have the following to
say -

1. Thanks for fighting this out, but leaving is not fighting..... so Id
rather you stick it out and lets together work this in a fair fashion for
everyone....

> It was my proposal that each registrar escrow its queue of domains that
> have been preempted -- to escrow them shortly after the Sunrise
> Period with
> Afilias.  These would be run after the challenge period had been
> completed
> later this year.  The reasons for escrowing them *now* rather than later
> was to prevent additional applications for the same domains  from being
> collected, which would jeopardize the modicum of fairness we

i dont see any difference in escrowing them now or later. I have several
landrush customers who have already expressed interest in participating in
the mini-landrush that maybe held later after afilias challenges the names.
And it would only be fair to allow them to participate from my side when it
does happen. An escrow would only cause following problems

1. You would have to get the word out to all registrars and they inturn to
all their customers in a short timeframe..... very short timeframe

2. The challenge and mini landrush is going to take place 4 months from now,
what if some of the applicants whoe applications you escrow rght now want to
change their mind later

3. An escrow would have other issues with respect to trust etc from the
applicants who already feel robbed of their landrush applications

The only two best alternatives were (1) to have deleted the names a while
ago (2) since they have not been deleted earlier, to now wait till the
sunrise challenge is madew by them and have a second landrush.

This second landrush would allow a fair participation strategy to everyone
concerned - current applciants can reapply, new applicants can apply.

I believe a lot of wrong occurred in the sunrise period but then I also
believe that is exactly what the ICANN testbed was for. After all I never
suspected such gross misuse of the sunrise period and since I consider
myself intellectually capable I do not blame afailias for not suspecting the
same either.

However what remains to be seen now is how many of those fraudulent names
truly get challenged by them as they promised and how equitably are they
distributed (second landrush).

> During a teleconference on 13 August, I asked for a simple list of SLDs
> registered during the Sunrise Period.  Said list would permit us to set
> aside the applications for domains already taken during Sunrise.  I was

you could do that anyways by doing a check availability on all the names you
have. incidentally i have the complete list of 53000 odd names registered
during sunrise. its quite ewasy to get them since the afilias whois allows a
wild carded search. you can type in a 'AB*' and get all names starting with
'AB'. Lemme know if you want them..... I will mail the zip to you.

> during land rush.  I am in agreement that they should not be submitted to
> Afilias until a credible system is developed for disposing of the Sunrise
> registrations successfully challenged.

At this stage Bob, its best to continue with the landrush, and esure that
Afilias in all fairness does remove the fraudulent applications by
challenging them and dirstributes them equitably by holding one more
landrush.

It is also important to spread awareness amongst common people that buying
fraudulent sunrise names could threaten their business. I think a lot of
damage repair maybe done in this fashion.

> While it is anathema to me to leave Afilias, I need to look at
> the broader
> picture.  My responsibility does not stop with the other 17 members of
> Afilias.  It extends to all Afilias Accredited Registrars, to <.info>
> registrants, to ICANN and to the Internet Community in general.

and i am glad about your responsibility

> I therefore believe that is would be best for us to dispose of the firm
> which holds the shares of Afilias stock.  I shall not resign as a
> Director

which does not help us all .... does it?

> Sincerely, BobC
>
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> "It doesn't do any good to run
> if you don't start on time!"

"Its better to have run and failed, then to have not run AT ALL"

- Bhavin