[Fwd: [registrars] Fw: [council] ICANN Board Action on WLS]

[Louis Touton <touton@icann.org>]

Hi Patricio,

My opinions about how ICANN should act on VeriSign's WLS proposal are 
detailed in the Second General Counsel's analysis posted yesterday. 
<http://www.icann.org/minutes/report-vgrs-wls-22aug02.htm>  Boiling down 
the extended discussion there:  Enhancing consumer choice should be a 
key goal that guides ICANN's actions.  VGRS proposed (as its registry 
agreement allows) to offer a new service that gives consumers one 
option. Your company's NICGenie service is another option for consumers. 
  While some consumers may prefer the WLS (since it provides a guarantee 
of being effective in obtaining a name if the name is deleted), other 
consumers may prefer Parava's product or those of others (since unlike 
the WLS they mostly require payment only if the name is actually deleted 
and successfully obtained).  The choice should be up to the consumer.

It may or may not be that consumers will conclude that WLS offers them a 
more attractive service.  That may mean that fewer consumers will choose 
the service Parava presently offers.  But it doesn't seem to me to be 
ICANN's proper role to deny consumers the right to choose just to 
preserve the present business model of particular registrars.

The above is a summary of my opinions (as you requested).  The ICANN 
Board's views are expressed in the resolution it adopted, which is 
posted at
<http://www.icann.org/minutes/prelim-report-23aug02.htm#VeriSignWLSProposal>.
On the particular point discussed above, the Board concluded "that, in 
general, ICANN should avoid depriving consumers of the option of 
purchasing services they may decide are beneficial, and that the option 
of subscribing to a guaranteed 'wait list' service is one such service."

As to your question about transfers, as you know the DNSO (first the 
registrar constituency and now the Transfers Task Force) has been 
working on that issue for some time, but the DNSO has not yet reached a 
resolution.  The subject involves many complex issues about which there 
are significant differences of opinion (and please note that VeriSign 
Registrar is joined by other registrars in many of its positions).  I 
hope that you will participate in the process within the DNSO to make 
sure your views are heard--it is important that good ideas be 
contributed so that solutions can be developed for a set of very 
difficult problems.

Best regards,

Louis Touton



-------- Original Message --------
Subject: FW: [registrars] Fw: [council] ICANN Board Action on WLS
Date: Fri, 23 Aug 2002 14:21:44 -0500
From: "Patricio Valdes" <valdes@parava.net>
To: <touton@icann.org>
CC: <registrars@dnso.org>

Attn. Louis Touton,

In your email below you state the following:

"the Board drew heavily from the advice developed by the task force's
efforts"

If Im not mistaken, the Task Force's primary Recommendation was to Deny 
the WLS!

I would like your personal opinion as to why the WLS was approved by ICANN.

Second, why is it, that more important issues, like Domain Transfers 
which clearly affect Verisign more than any otehr Registrar have gone 
without a resolution for 18 months?

Thank you for your time.

Patricio Valdes
Parava Networks