[registrars] Constituency Position - .ORG

["Michael D. Palage" <michael@palage.com>]

Attached below is a draft statement that the Executive Committee yesterday
approved sending out to the registrar constituency for comment/approval. If
there are no major substantive objectives this message will be submitted to
the public forum that has been created. Because of the pending deadline line
any comments are needed ASAP.

Best regards,

Michael D. Palage
on behalf of the Registrar Executive Committee

STATEMENT


The Registrar Constituency commends the Names Council Task Force for its
hard work with regard to the .org registry, and supports its final report.
The Constituency, however, feels very strongly about an issue that is not
fully addressed by the report and therefore is filing the following
supplementary remarks.

The Task Force does not take a position on whether the future .org registry
should be sponsored or unsponsored, but we take note of the fact that the
Business Constituency recommends a sponsored TLD.  In view of the different
roles and rights of ICANN-Accredited Registrars in sponsored versus
unsponsored TLDs, the Registrar Constituency is concerned that the rights of
ICANN-Accredited Registrars not be abridged if .org is run as a sponsored
TLD.  Furthermore, given that Registrars have been registering .org domain
names since the beginning of competition in the domain name space, and that
all ICANN stakeholders appear to agree that current .org registrants should
be grandfathered in any future .org registry, the Registrar Constituency
believes that all ICANN-Accredited Registrars should be afforded the
opportunity to continue to provide registrar services in the .org top-level
domain.

Simply stated, whether the .org registry is sponsored or unsponsored, all
ICANN-Accredited Registrars have the right to sponsor (or continue to
sponsor) .org domain names.