Re: [wg-c] Principles for domain names v7

[Kent Crispin <kent@songbird.com>]

On Mon, Feb 28, 2000 at 01:30:03PM -0800, William X. Walsh wrote:
[...]
> As one of the few members of this list with some experience enforcing a domain
> registry with some restrictions on use I can validate Jonathan's comments
> above.  When I was Director of the Abuse team for the defunct ml.org registry,
> it was our job to remove domains whose registrant vioated the ml.org terms of
> service.  This included so called "warez" sites, where copyrighted software was
> being distributed, as well as sites that advertised or promoted using "spam"
> (however that term was defined on any given day by an internet community that
> continued to expand the meaning as it saw fit).   We had a full team devoted
> this

Data is always valuable: When you say "full team", what does that mean
precisely? How many people? full-time or part-time? volunteers or paid?
did you proactively search for bad guys, or did you operate from
complaints? did you have a policy requiring positive identification, or
did you have lots of anonymous users? did you have repeat offenders?
when someone was accused of something, what "due process" did you have?
was there a dispute resolution mechanism of any sort, such as
arbitration etc?

> , and I can say with some authority, if a registry were to run a strict
> enforcement policy, it would cost them a very pretty penny. 

but ml.org was a free registry and didn't have any money worth speaking 
of, so how did you afford the cost of enforcement?

> We were busy just
> investigating complaints, and never had the time to use the many other tools
> that were at our disposal, including such simple ones as free text searches of
> the domain database to find common words associated with the types of sites we
> were after, etc.   I cannot see how a registry can guarantee enforcement of
> such a charter without driving the price up VERY VERY high.

But you did it at essentially no cost, since ml.org was a free 
registry.  It was not run as a business -- how is it that you could 
speak with authority about the costs of enforcement?

Don't forget: just because you can't see how to do something does not prove it
can't be done. 

Also, even if it were true in every case, that the cost of enforcement
was very high (note that NSI doesn't spend much money enforcing the .edu
charter), that doesn't mean that such registries are either bad or
economically unviable -- people pay money for vanity license plates on
cars, after all. 

> And it is for
> this primary reason that I oppose any measure that would require ICANN to
> police the registry for enforcement of someone's view of what a "charter"
> should be.

It is unfortunately a general problem that ICANN will have to police
registries for adherence to technical standards, operational standards,
and policies. 

-- 
Kent Crispin                               "Do good, and you'll be
kent@songbird.com                           lonesome." -- Mark Twain