[registrars] North American Seat

["Donny Simonton" <donny@intercosmos.com>]

Since I am fairly new here, I would like to introduce myself, my name is
Donny Simonton and I work for InterCosmos Media Group dba DirectNIC.com.
We are slowly but surely becoming more involved in the political side of
the domain industry.

I have some questions for each of the two candidates for the North
American seat.  I would appreciate it if you would respond to each of
the questions at your earliest convenience.  Just so you know I am very
straight and to the point, so I expect your answers to be the same way.
Other than what I have read about you - or what you've sent me directly
- I know very little about either of you personally. Apologies if I ask
a question that is general knowledge to the rest of you.

Ken Stubbs -

1.  As of right now I don't see where you are actively associated with
any domain registrar is your only income from being a consultant?  You
state that "I currently have no consulting contracts or employment
relationships with any member of the registrar constituency or any other
ICANN-accredited registrars."  What registrars have you consulted in the
past or that you plan on consulting in the future? Do you do any
consulting with ICANN related organizations that aren't members of the
registrar constituency?

2.  With all of the consulting that you have done, what does winning the
North American seat do for you?  This has me concerned since you don't
currently work for a registrar, are you only running so that you could
get more business for your consulting firm?

3. The disclosure that Ross sent out said that he does not own any
shares in any registrar.  In your case I have found that you at least
own 5% in idomains.com, which is not does not seem to be an ICANN
accredited registrar, but the site does register domains.  We all know
that you are on the board of directors for Afilias, so we can assume
that you own some shares in Afilias.  Will you disclose who you own
shares with and what percentage of the company you own or how many
shares?  And what positions you own with which companies.  

4.  The minutes of the last names council meeting
(http://www.dnso.org/clubpublic/council/Arc06/msg00429.html) say that
you left an hour early and gave all of the registrar votes (all three
because you were the only one that attended) to Roger Cochetti from
Verisign. Is there a particular reason that you gave them to Roger?
Should the votes not have been given to the chairman or another rep? Has
this happened in the past?

5.  From The Registrar Constituency By-laws "An elected representative
may only serve two consecutive two-year terms for the same position."
According to the registrar constituency mail list archive, this would be
your third term in the same position, since you had an interim term in
this same position.  Is this only considered your second term or your
third term?

6.  If Registrar A sends an invoice to a customer 30 days before a
domain is supposed to expire and when they do this, they put the domain
in a Non-Paid status so this makes the domain non-transferable to
another registrar.   Do you agree with this policy?  Would you agree
with this policy if registrar B decides to send an invoice to a domain
holder 5 days after they register a domain for the renewal for 360 days
later?  By doing this they basically make the domain theirs for life
unless the domain expires and is reregistered elsewhere?

7.  If somebody registered a bogus .info trademark domain and then a
customer files a complaint with WIPO and they admit to WIPO that they
don't own any trademark on the domain.  But WIPO awards the person who
filed the complaint the domain.  Should they put in bogus information in
the trademark fields for the .info domain?  Or should they just leave it
blank since they don't own any trademark on the word or the domain?

8. Is the participation of individuals within ICANN really all that
important? What does it mean for registrars?

9. What are you personal views on alt.roots? What about those of your
company?  The reason I ask is that I see on the Domain Name
International website that you offer new.net domains 
(http://www.1dni.com/new-net-domain-names.htm).  Isn't that a
contradiction in what ICANN stands for?  Why would a company want to
become an ICANN accredited registrar when they can just join new.net and
resell domains that only resolves for 75 million internet users, oops 45
million, I forgot @home is going out of business.

10.  I currently own 89 domains.  How many domains do you personally
own?

11.  In whatever I do I try to make as much money as possible.  When I
dream at night I think of new ways to make more money!  The more money I
make, the bigger my smile is.  But this position confuses me.  Since you
are a consultant, a director, and the vice president of a domain
registrar, why would you want to give up your time for a position that
pays nothing, when all of your other positions I am sure pay you a
sizeable income.  And do this in 30 words or less.

12.  I had to save the best question for last.  Why is the Domain Names
International domain, 1dni.com registered with tucows and not with
1dni.com since it is an accredited registrar?


Ross Rader -
1.  What exactly do you do as Director, Innovation & Research at tucows?
And please tell me that you didn't create that title yourself?

2.  If I had $5000 US, how many shares of tucows stock could I buy?  And
why can I buy so many shares?   Would I expect to actually make money if
I invested $5,000 in tucows?  Or would my money be blown like my
investment in fogdog.com which is now worth $3.47.

3. The disclosures that you sent out say that you don't own any shares
in any registrar. Does this include Tucows? Have you ever owned shares
in any registrar? If you do buy shares, will you disclose this as well?

4. Do you now or have you done any consulting work?

5.  I understand that tucows is the owner of Liberty RMS, which if I
understand correctly is the company that basically registers the domains
for the .info gTLD.  When .info first launched we all remember how much
fun we had with the servers not being able to handle the load on the
first day.  Thus, in my opinion causing Afilias and the .info domains an
extraordinary amount of bad publicity and because of this many customers
do not trust Afilias.  In your opinion what would you have done
differently?

6. You seem to spend a lot of time on various icann issues. What do you
and your company stand to gain through your participation? What is your
primary motivator for being here and being involved? What does winning
the North American seat do for you? You say that Tucows does business
with a number of
ICANN related companies. Will winning this seat increase the business
you do with ICANN related companies?

7.  If Registrar A sends an invoice to a customer 30 days before a
domain is supposed to expire and when they do this, they put the domain
in a Non-Paid status so this makes the domain non-transferable to
another registrar.   Do you agree with this policy?  Would you agree
with this policy if registrar B decides to send an invoice to a domain
holder 5 days after they register a domain for the renewal for 360 days
later?  By doing this they basically make the domain theirs for life
unless the domain expires and is reregistered elsewhere?

8.  If somebody registered a bogus .info trademark domain and then a
customer files a complaint with WIPO and they admit to WIPO that they
don't own any trademark on the domain.  But WIPO awards the person who
filed the complaint the domain.  Should they put in bogus information in
the trademark fields for the .info domain?  Or should they just leave it
blank since they don't own any trademark on the word or the domain?

9. Is the participation of individuals within ICANN really all that
important? What does it mean for registrars?

10. What are you personal views on alt.roots? What about those of your
company?  Why does OpenSRS not offer alternatives like new.net to its 80
million resellers?  Maybe Domain Names International can offer new.net
through the OpenSRS reseller program since they seem to be a reseller of
OpenSRS. :)

11.  In whatever I do I try to make as much money as possible.  When I
dream at night I think of new ways to make more money!  The more money I
make, the bigger my smile is.  But this position confuses me.  Since you
are the Director of Innovation & Research at tucows and I assume that
position is salaried, why would you want to give up your time for a
position that pays nothing? And do this in 30 words or less.

12.  I currently own 89 domains.  How many domains do you personally
own?

Thanks for all of your time hopefully your answers will really help me
to better be able to cast my ballot and hopefully some of the others.

Thank you,

Donny Simonton
InterCosmos Media Group dba directNIC.com