RE: [registrars] Update #1

["Elana Broitman" <ebroitman@register.com>]

Mike - I commend you for drafting the attached proposal.  It makes alot of
sense to advocate for a producer SO as we do share many of the interests
with registries.  My question there is more political in nature - do you
know how the cc's would react to being lumped into an SO with gTLDs and us,
rather than their own?  Have you discussed this with them?  I would simply
want to avoid sinking our proposal at the beginning thanks to cc opposition.

As to the extensive discussion of the user SO, I think we are getting into
too many details of someone else's issue.  How they would structure their
SO, voting processes, or board representation is not our issue. Yet, we risk
incurring opposition or concerns from those constituencies.  Again, have you
discussed this statement with BC, IPC or the ISPs?

I would take out all of that detail from a registrar constituency position.

Regards, Elana

-----Original Message-----
From: Michael D. Palage [mailto:michael@palage.com]
Sent: Thursday, October 18, 2001 2:59 PM
To: registrars@dnso.org
Subject: [registrars] Update #1


Hello All:

This is the first of three updates which will be issued over the next couple
of days.

Update #1: Issues for the ICANN meeting in Marina del Rey.
Update #2: Update on your about attendance at MdA.
Update #3: Results of the XFER ballot.


Topics in Update #1 are as follows:
1. .biz litigation update
2. Meetings at Marina Del Rey, registrars agenda, including a proposed
meeting on Sunday November 11th.
3. ICANN restructuring proposals
4. Names Council Task Force on Transfers and Votes on Transfers



(1) .BIZ Litigation Update: It appears that only the Smiley plaintiff's in
the litigation posted its required $800,000 bond. Generally, failure to post
the full bond results in the injunction being dissolved. It will be
interesting to see what the Smiley plaintiff and the court does now.
Previous I reported that the judge at the beginning of the trial was
questioning his ability to exercise jurisdiction over registrars located
outside the US, however, toward the close of the trial, the judge relied
upon the forum provision clause in the registrar accreditation agreement
with ICANN to adopt a very broad potential interpretation of US law. As
ICANN stated in its Smiley press release ". ICANN also believes that the
ruling, if upheld on appeal, would be harmful to the evolution of the global
Internet."
http://www.icann.org/announcements/advisory-12oct01.htm

According to the Smiley preliminary injunction motion
(http://www.lextext.com/smileynjxnmotion.pdf), I believe that to date only
the following registrars have been served Network Solutions/VeriSign;
Dotster, Internet Names World Wide (Melbourne IT); and alldomains.com, in
addition to the following parties, ICANN; NeuLevel and Dotbizlottery.com.
However, the amended complaint (http://www.lextext.com/1stAmdComplaint.pdf)
lists the following defendants: ICANN; NeuLevel; Abacus; Alldomains.com,
Blueberry Hill Communications, Bulkeregister; Catalog.com; Domain
Registrations Services; Dotster; Emarkmonitor; Enom; Go Daddy Software;
Intercosmos Media Group Inc.; Internet Names Worldwide; NameSecure; Network
Solutions; Parava Networks; Register.com; The Registry at Info Avenue;
VeriSign; DomainBank; Cydian Technologies; Yahoo!; #1 Domain Names
International; 007 Names; 1EnameCo; 123 Registration; 21 Company;
4Domains.com; AlternatedDomains.com; American Data Technology Inc.; BB
Online UK; BudgetRegister.com; CASDNS; CORE; Corporate Domains;  CSL
Computer Serverices Langenbach; Cybersearch-US; CyberVisors; Direct
Information; Diversity Newtork Services; Domain-IT; DomainInfo; DomainMart;
DomainNameRegistration.com; DomainPeople; DotBizLottery.com, Early Bird
Domain; Edifax Internet Services; FirstDomain.net; G+D International; Gal
Communications; Internet Domain Registry; Internet Domain Registrars;
InternetRegistration.com; MarkMonitor; Melbourne IT; NameEngine;
NameScout.com; NDN Registry; NetBenefit; NetLogin; NetNames International;
Netpia.com; Nominalia; OnlineNIC; Procurement Services, Inc.; Rapid Host;
Reserveme.com; Signdomains.com; Speednames; Spy Productions.com; The NameIT;
TUCOWS; Virtual Internet; WebExpress; Web Costasol; Webcity Australia;
WorldWideMedia.com and DOES 1-500 inclusive.

There have been postings to the list previously about the potential of
registrars that participated in the .BIZ roll-out being personally served by
plaintiffs in the above reference litigation if they attend the Marina del
Rey meetings next month. I would suggest that registrars contact their legal
representative to get guidance on this topic, as there is the possibility of
being personally served if you attend the meetings next month. This had
happened previous to certain CORE members two years ago in connection with
the IODesign litigation. Please note that California has rather liberal
service of process rules, so you are still subject to service through
alternate means.

Several registrars have discussed informally the feasibility of a joint
defense. This is something that ultimately your legal counsel will have to
decide. However, it is important to realize that not all registrars have
mutually aligned interests. For example, ePrize  the second plaintiff
decided not to include VERISIGN, the largest ICANN registrar, as a defendant
in the complaint, although they were named in the first complaint. VeriSign
has retained legal counsel and I have been informed that she has been
attending the depositions to date. No insight on why ePrize took this rather
strategic litigation move, see http://www.icannwatch.org/essays/eprize1.pdf.


(2) Marina del Rey Meeting: In light of the growing number of issues
confronting the registrar constituency, the exec committee proposed the idea
of having a two day meeting next month beginning on Sunday. The agenda for
the
registrars includes:XFERs; ESCROW; deletes; IDNs;ICANN restructuring; Names
Council
nominations and elections;.BIZ litigation; and a number of other secondary
but critical
issues that must be addressed.

The Executive COmmittee does not believe that these topics can be covered in
one day.

It is proposed that we have a preliminary meeting on Sunday.

The problem is that VeriSign Registry has scheduled an entire day event, 9AM
till 5PM with dinner afterwards.

The question that the excom is proposing is:
would the constituency support a brief 3-4 hour meeting on Sunday? This will
alow us to get through some issues and not have to cram everything into one
day.


Please provide feedback on the list so we can arrange for an extra room if
necessary.


(3) The ICANN restructuring committee is due to release its final report
next month and we not taken any further action based upon my originally
proposed document. Are there any objections to forwarding the draft document
I circulated last month being sent to the ALSC? See attached document.


(4) The Executive Committee has proposed the following resolution to be sent
to the Names Council as the position of the Registrar Constituency in
connection with IDNs. Are there any objections to the following?

Whereas the ICANN Board understands that iDN specifications are still in the
development stage of the IETF PSO Support Organization;

and whereas these specifications are awaiting an RFC status, and whereas the
Board recognizes that, nothing less formal than a PROPOSED Standard, as
defined in RFC2026,  should be deployed in gTLD zones,

be it resolved that:

until such a time that the iDN Internet-Drafts [NamePrep and ACM-ACE-Z]reach
the status of a 'Proposed Standard', as defined by RFC 2026, the ICANN Board
recommends that no Internet-draft specifications be deployed.


(5) The Names Council has created a mini-task force to address the XFER
issue. Upon information and belief it seems that certain registrar(s) that
also have a registry operation have been advocating that the XFER process
be interpreted as policy matter and not as a contractual matter.

To provide this mini-task force with the most effective input from the
registrars, the voting on the xfer issue has been extended until Friday
October 19th.

The executive committee will be posting a tally of the votes and of who
voted in order to publicize the final results.


Best regards,


Michael Palage on behalf of
The Executive Committee, ICANN-Registrars Constituency