RE: [registrars] North American Seat

[Elana Broitman <ebroitman@register.com>]

Thank you for your clarifications.

On #6, I was looking for some other specific examples of your "record" so to
speak, in order to judge how you might represent the constituency in the
future.  For example, one disconcerting historical issue was the Tucows
position on the VeriSign contract.  Although the rest of the constituency
(except, of course, VeriSign) agreed on a very strong statement to ICANN
raising its concerns over the new agreement, Tucows changed its apparent
early agreement with the constituency to one that was neutral/somewhat
supportive of VeriSign.  This undermined the constituency. That history
certainly gives me pause, and therefore I want to know the rest of your
record in order to understand how you would address registrar issues that
cut against Tucows' position.  

Thanks, Elana

-----Original Message-----
From: ross@tucows.com 
Sent: Monday, December 10, 2001 5:14 PM
To: Elana Broitman; Donny Simonton; registrars@dnso.org
Subject: Re: [registrars] North American Seat


> Dear Ross - I appreciated seeing your responses. It is helpful to get
clear
> positions from the candidates, and therefore I would appreciate
elaborations
> on several which are unclear.

Thanks Elana - comments interspersed below.

>
> On #5, you claim not to have represented Liberty since Q2, 2000. However,
in
> mid-Q4 of that year, I know that you were discussing Liberty's services
and
> pricing with RegistryPro.  So, how can you say that you were not
> representing Liberty?

Because my proofreading skills suck.

--start of what I had originally said--
>> much ended by the close of Q2 last year, certainly prior to the signing
of
>> the final contract between Afilias and Liberty. Ram Mohan of Afilias or
--end of what I originally said--

As anyone that was involved with Afilias, or likely even a casual observer,
my involvement with RegCo (the name of Liberty before it was Liberty) was in
full swing through all of last year. I don't even think we had a business
plan for RegCo during Q2 of last year - that should have read "Q2 of this
year". Apologies if that caused any confusion for anyone.

> On #6, you state that you have worked extensively on constituency issues.
I
> know that you have been very active on the transfers issue, which is very
> important to the core business of Tucows.  What issues have you worked
on -
> and what have you achieved for the constituency - on issues that do not
> directly affect Tucows' business?

To be honest, I would be hard-pressed to find an issue that I have been
involved with, or even interested in that isn't relevant to our business.
Unlike a lot of constituencies, the registrars are highly effected by almost
every single policy decision that ICANN makes. This would include budget
decisions, the formation of the ccSO, registrant privacy, whois, and on and
on. What effects the constituency ulimately effects accredited registrars,
including Tucows. So, to answer the question directly and perfectly
honestly: "What issues have you worked on - and what have you achieved for
the constituency - on issues that do not directly affect Tucows' business?"
I would have to say that none come to mind. Could you perhaps elaborate on
the question a little bit more? (unless I've answered the question you
wanted answered)


> On #8, I agree that Donny asked a great question that leads to a broader
one
> about the sunrise names.  A number of Afilias' sunrise names - even those
> registered by the legitimate trademark holders - had erroneous information
> (often by mistake/accident).  This is par for the course for a new
registry,
> but Afilias and Liberty would not allow clerical changes to be made,
despite
> complaints from WIPO, the IPC, various registrars and registrants.  So,
the
> additional question for you, is how would you deal with the policy of
fixing
> clerical errors if you had adequate proof of intention of the registrant
to
> make such change?

Two things here, I don't speak for Liberty and I certainly can't speak for
Afilias - as I mentioned in my earlier response, there are people that are
better suited to answer the specific questions. To the general question
however, I will reiterate that I am not convinced that the sunrise process,
as currently defined in the industry, is a workable process. It does provide
IP holders with the peace of mind that they require, but at the expense of
the individual or small business users. The ultimate fix to the problem that
you propose is one of "first-come, first served" - which comes with its own
set of problems and may not be entirely appropriate.

Further, the general ICANN policy construct does not typically facilitate
case-by-case treatment that one might find in other areas of commerce. When
a registry policy that was established through the new gTLD process is
pretty immutable after the fact - unless of course, other consensus policy
that amends it is ratified by the board. Future registries will hopefully be
more aware of the trials and tribulations that the current 6 registries are
seeing and appropriately adjust their policies to take things like this into
account.

The short answer is that if the contractual policy with ICANN allows it and
if the proof is adequate and if it is clear that it isn't being done to
facilitate a cover-up on previous "bad-behavior", then moving forward,
future Registries should make sure that they have the leeway necessary in
their contracts to allow these adjustments to happen. That sounds like a lot
of "if's" to me though - putting something like this into practice may in
fact be worse than the adhering to the current generation of policies.

Hope this clarifies somewhat.

-rwr