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[registrars] Fw: [ga] GA summary 2002-02
GA Discussion Summary - Week 2 - highly informative.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Thomas Roessler" <roessler@does-not-exist.org>
To: <ga@dnso.org>
Sent: Monday, January 14, 2002 6:36 PM
Subject: [ga] GA summary 2002-02
> This summary covers the DNSO GA mailing list's discussions during
> the second week of 2002. List archives are available online at
> <http://www.dnso.org/clubpublic/ga/Arc09/maillist.html>. Note that
> a new volume of the archive has been begun.
>
>
> Votes
>
>
> The election for the GA representative to the NC Transfer Task Force
> ended on Thursday 10 January 2002. The candidates were Dan
> Steinberg, Eric Dierker, and Jeff Williams. Dan Steinberg was
> elected. Details on the vote are available from
> <http://www.dnso.org/dnso/notes/2001.GA-b10-outline.html>.
>
> The vote for the GA chair and alternative chair began Saturday 5
> January 2002, and was finished on 12 January 2002. The candidates
> were Kristy McKee, Thomas Roessler, Alexander Svensson, and Eric
> Dierker. Thomas Roessler and Alexander Svensson were elected.
> Details on the vote are available from
> <http://www.dnso.org/dnso/notes/2002.GA-b11-outline.html>.
>
>
>
> Topics
>
>
> (i) domain-policy archives. According to a message from Chuck
> Gomes, in reply to a question from Patrick Corliss, the
> domain-policy mailing list was shut down by Verisign for legal
> reasons in May 2001.
> <http://www.dnso.org/clubpublic/ga/Arc09/msg00212.html>
>
> There was some debate on whether or not this had actually been
> said before in public.
>
> (ii) .org divestiture. Marc Schneiders posted the final version of
> the final draft of the .org NC task force report, plus a
> supplemental report from the GA representative which lists remaining
> concerns with the current text.
> <http://www.dnso.org/clubpublic/ga/Arc09/msg00323.html>,
> <http://www.dnso.org/clubpublic/ga/Arc09/msg00461.html>.
>
> (iii) Deleted domain name handling. This was certainly the week's
> dominant topic.
>
> Genie Livingstone gave a summary of data gathered from tracking of
> expiring domains. According to him, "most dropped domains in 2001
> were originally registered at Netsol Registrar. 99.9% of dropped
> domains were NOT re-registered at Netsol Registrar." "This might be
> one interesting premise motivating Verisign to try to recapture the
> monopoly," he writes. His message goes on to list some more
> concerns he has with practices of Verisign's registrar division.
> <http://www.dnso.org/clubpublic/ga/Arc09/msg00235.html>.
>
> Don Brown summarized what he believes to be "a few fundamental
> hurdles which need to be met before anything else is important" with
> respect to the waiting list proposal: "1. The WLS proposal
> essentially puts monopolistic power in the hands of one entity (the
> Registrar) and thwarts all competition." (I suppose this should have
> been "the registry".) "2. The theory behind this WLS proposal is
> that it addresses technical issues, which cannot otherwise be
> addressed on a technical level." Don then demands that the technical
> difficulties be solved in a way which does not affect the business
> model. As his third point, he notes that "the name space belongs to
> the public - not the registrars".
> <http://www.dnso.org/clubpublic/ga/Arc09/msg00225.html>
>
> In a more fundamental part of the thread, Chuck Gomes asks whether
> or not it is "okay for a property manager to have a waiting list".
> To this, George Kirikos replies: "IF the LANDLORD allowed such a
> thing in their contract with the property manager, it would be
> perfectly legitimate. HOWEVER (and read this part, as it's
> important), it is NOT OK for the property manager to create a
> waiting list on their own volition and keep all the money for
> themselves, behind the back of the landlords!" He also notes that
> "in most cases where there's a waiting list, though, there's a
> definite end to the lease term." To this, William Walsh follows up
> to say that "Verisign is creating a situation in which a domain name
> has more value to the Registry and Registrar if the registrant does
> NOT renew the domain, and creates a problem in that the Registrar
> will be incentivized to not provide as strong a renewal notification
> service as they would otherwise be under incentive to do."
> <http://www.dnso.org/clubpublic/ga/Arc09/msg00220.html>,
> <http://www.dnso.org/clubpublic/ga/Arc09/msg00227.html>,
> <http://www.dnso.org/clubpublic/ga/Arc09/msg00229.html>.
>
>
> However, Verisign's proposal wasn't the only one to draw criticism:
> In fact, the "registry re-circulation system" (RRS), proposed by
> Peter Girard of Afternic.com, forwarded to the GA on Monday, and
> covered in the last summary, drew some criticism, too: George
> Kirikos complains that replacing "one monopoly (Verisign's WLS) with
> another (a cartel of registrars doing an auction) isn't a solution
> which promotes competition". He also notes that the proposal "gives
> all the value of the domains that are auctioned to the registrars",
> who have however done nothing to create that value (he says). He
> then introduces the "Let's make George Kirikos a Multi-Millionaire"
> proposal. After all, he didn't do anything to contribute to
> domains' value, just like registrars....
>
> In another reply to the Afternic proposal, Darryl (Dassa) Lynch
> writes: "I can't see any reason for Registrars or the Registry to be
> benefiting from the consumer market value for renewed/deleted
> domains."
>
> <http://www.dnso.org/clubpublic/ga/Arc09/msg00165.html>,
> <http://www.dnso.org/clubpublic/ga/Arc09/msg00167.html>,
> <http://www.dnso.org/clubpublic/ga/Arc09/msg00168.html>.
>
>
> A comment from Ron Wiener of Snapnames.com (the folks who own the
> technology Verisign has licensed for the WLS) was forwarded by Ross
> Wm. Rader. One of his points is this: "It seems to me that there is
> a distinction between the WLS (as proposed) and the RRS (as
> proposed), in that the WLS allows registrars to capture "backup
> demand" for any name throughout the entire year. The RRS only allows
> the capture of demand during a portion of the 45-day grace period
> window, which inherently means it would be primarily of interest to,
> and accessible to, speculators, not mainstream consumers."
> <http://www.dnso.org/clubpublic/ga/Arc09/msg00186.html>
>
>
> Rick Wesson has asked the community to develop a "concise list of
> requirements for proposals to solve the issues with a registry
> deleting domains in batch". He hopes for a consensus document on
> the requirements to be used when proposals are evaluated.
> <http://www.dnso.org/clubpublic/ga/Arc09/msg00176.html>
>
> In reply to this, George Kirikos lists various requirements, two of
> which are these: 1. Equal opportunity for any registrar to acquire a
> deleted name. "No current business model that is in place must be
> forcibly required to change [...], unless it can be proven that they
> have caused the abuse through their choice of business models." 2.
> "Registrants should continue to have the ability to register an
> expired name at a registrar's normal price for a brand new
> registration for ALL deleted names."
> <http://www.dnso.org/clubpublic/ga/Arc09/msg00184.html>
>
> From a registrant point of view, Bret Fausett lists six
> requirements, including: Registrants shouldn't need to pay fees to
> more than one registrar to get a deleted domain; registrants should
> be able to place the order with one visit of the registrar's web
> site; expiration dates listed in the whois should have some meaning;
> "the current registrant should make his or her decision to renew
> blind to the value placed on that domain name by prospective
> registrants". (I find the last one particularly interesting.)
> <http://www.dnso.org/clubpublic/ga/Arc09/msg00194.html>
>
>
>
> Elliot Noss of Tucows sent a long message to the GA list in which he
> looks at various aspects of the deleted domains issue. First, he
> considers who may claim the right to expired or expiring names. He
> concludes that "the competing claims of registries and registrars
> are likely subordinate to those of registrants," in the end of the
> day. "Accordingly, any solution should start with this
> underpinning," he says. In the second section of his document, Noss
> emphasizes that he believes that the issues of registry load and
> expired/expiring domain allocation should be considered separately,
> and that the technical side of the problem can be (and actually
> mostly has been) solved without touching the allocation question. He
> then elaborates on "the inefficiency of flat pricing", and argues
> that the combination of flat-priced supply and variable-priced
> demand has lead to a robust secondary market, and to a "significant
> amount of the current CNO namespace sitting unused". He warns that
> these effects should not be magnified by solutions for the "expiring
> market". Noss concludes by stating that the WLS proposal is
> unacceptable to him, and then suggests what he calls "two important
> modifications" to Afternic's RRS proposal: Make all names available
> for bidding, and give the existing registrant an opportunity to
> accept bids at any time (with registrars and registries getting
> their share of the money, too).
> <http://www.dnso.org/clubpublic/ga/Arc09/msg00260.html>
>
> In follow-ups, George Kirikos and Don Brown argue that, if there's
> no technical need for changing the "expiring market", this market
> should be left alone for the moment, and more pressing problems
> should be addressed first. As Don puts it: "I am in favor of
> 'healthy' change, but I don't view any change with respect to the
> after-market to be either healthy or warranted at this time."
> <http://www.dnso.org/clubpublic/ga/Arc09/msg00278.html>
>
> In another follow-up to Elliot Noss' message, Don Brown points out
> that part of the process "to introduce more efficiency into the
> systems and procedures" concerning deleted domain names should be
> "the adoption of specifications or policy" in the sense of 3.7.5 of
> the RAA (Registry-Registrar-Agreement): Such policy does not
> currently exist.
> <http://www.dnso.org/clubpublic/ga/Arc09/msg00307.html>
>
>
> In his comments on Elliot Noss' proposal, Chuck Gomes of Verisign
> agrees with most of the points Elliot made. In particular, he
> "definitely confirms" that the WLS proposal and the technical
> problems the registry has with deleted domain names are not directly
> connected, and can be dealt with separately. However, he believes
> that the WLS could "still make some positive impact in this regard,
> but it certainly does not solve the whole problem". He also points
> out that, while the registry problems do not affect day-to-day
> business of registrars anymore, "there has been and continues to be
> a growing impact on registry operations and registry costs".
>
> He then suggests that WLS would still be "a valuable service for
> consumers", and that a 12-month test could be useful.
> <http://www.dnso.org/clubpublic/ga/Arc09/msg00301.html>
>
>
> Also on the deleted domains topic, the registrars' constituency held
> a conference call. Various draft notes of the conference call are
> available.
> <http://www.lextext.com/icann/january2002.html#01102002d>,
> <http://www.dnso.org/clubpublic/registrars/Arc01/msg01790.html>,
> <http://www.dnso.org/clubpublic/registrars/Arc01/msg01791.html>.
>
>
> (iv) Working groups, sublists, etc. As a spin-off from the deleted
> domains thread (which, bad enough, seems to have mostly killed that
> thread), some discussion on working groups and sublists came up,
> including on-list straw polls on whether or not the GA should start
> a working group on the deletion issue, or whether people like the
> WLS. David Farrar writes about these: "Could I suggest both this
> poll and the previous one while well intentioned lead to the GA
> being more dysfunctional. Many do not subscribe here to see 40
> people vote on a list."
> <http://www.dnso.org/clubpublic/ga/Arc09/msg00408.html>
>
>
>
> Announcements from the new Chair and Co-Chair
>
>
> In two short messages to the GA list, the new Chair and Alt.Chair
> have pointed out what their immediate plans are. These include:
>
> - Enforce list rules, including the posting limit. (Alexander will
> be the list monitor.)
> - Try to attract discussions and participants from various
> constituencies to the GA.
> - Concerning GA working groups and sublists, a "show traffic, get
> group" policy will be followed for the moment: If sustained
> discussions on some topic become too much, and participants desire
> it, the chairs will try to organize a new mailing list for these.
> - Concerning task forces, there's nothing which prevents the GA
> members from discussing topics. According to the "show traffic,
> get group" policy, "mirror working groups" may be established.
> The GA rep to task forces has the responsibility to inform task
> force members of the GA's discussions.
>
> <http://www.dnso.org/clubpublic/ga/Arc09/msg00480.html>,
> <http://www.dnso.org/clubpublic/ga/Arc09/msg00484.html>.
>
>
> Good night,
> --
> Thomas Roessler http://log.does-not-exist.org/
> --
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