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

["Robert F. Connelly" <rconnell@psi-japan.com>]

At 12:16 AM 9/7/01 +0530, Bhavin Turakhia wrote:
>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....

Dear Bhavin:  I am not resigning.  What I am doing is offering to sell our 
firm which is a member of Afilias.  If the new owner should insist, I would 
remain a director.  However, I feel so impotent to have my voice heard by 
Excom and management.

They cite some ICANN rule which says they cannot give any information to a 
member or Director which they don't give to all registrars.  I have not 
real battle with that.  The mess which occurred on the Q1 Sunrise should 
have been revealed to all of us at that time.

However, I frankly believe that under Irish Law, Directors have a right to 
know and a need to know critical matters arising in Afilias.  But I don't 
have an Irish lawyer handy here in Japan.

Regards, BobC


> > 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

I think the chances of the present applicants will be diluted if we let you 
or other registrars pad the list of applications for domains released after 
successful challenges.


>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

Afilias has had plenty of time to do this.  It doesn't do any good to run 
if you don't start on time.


>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