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As part of the Policy Development Process on Domain Tasting, the initial report summarizing the constituency statements has been issued. It can be found at http://gnso.icann.org/mailing-lists/archives/council/dock39ZTjlK35.doc.

I got "file not found" when I tried to follow that link.

Ah, thanks to Kieren's message I found the report; it's at http://gnso.icann.org/issues/domain-tasting/gnso-initial-report-domain-tasti... - Evan

My perception is that the NCUC ("Non-Commercial Users Constituency") believes that it defends principles more than short-term end-user interests. Among the active participants in the NCUC are many with libertarian bents, who prefer market forces to regulation. With regard to domain name tasting, they might well argue that the burden of tasting is on registries, who must bear the additional load of short- term registrations. Registries have the power to stop domain tasting if they choose to do so (e.g. PIR addressed this in .ORG), but since they choose not to, why should anyone else intervene? I believe there's overlap between the NCUC and the At Large list, so they can speak for themselves, but I've tried to articulate what I believe is the underlying rationale. (P.S. I shared this view when we started thinking about domain tasting, way back when I was the ALAC liaison to the GNSO, but I've since come around to the view that users *are* impacted by these short term registrations. I credit Jean for turning me around.) -- Bret

this was the answer made by Milton Mueller in the NCUC list. see bellow Was Evan at the ALAC-NCUC meeting where we discussed this at some length? Has he read our complete comments? (Can't blame him if the answer is no, because there are so many rounds of comments at different times and in different places that it would be easy to miss. Robin, can you dig them up?) First, I would recommend informing him that someone who disagrees with his particular position is not necessarily unconcerned about the public interest. Indeed, one reason we were unwilling to jump on the anti-AGP bandwagon was precisely that we saw only a few special interests for it and not a big public interest rationale. On the whole, the issue affects noncommercial registrants and the general public hardly at all. Further, his grasp of the political and economic interests seems a bit shaky. In our experience, it has been the registries (aside from VeriSign) and in particular Afilias-associated registries who were screaming most loudly about AGP. Some registries have complained about the cost of handling all the traffic associated with short-term registrations. This is a valid argument, but it was quickly and adequately addressed by imposing fees (as PIR did). If the registries have stopped supporting elimination of AGP, it is probably because the imposition of "re-stocking fees" addresses the infrastructure burden problem more than adequately. He should not be surprised about the Business constituency position, because they are all about regulating the domain name market as strongly as possible to protect trademarks. Many businesses see domainers as contributing to typosquatting. So they are more than happy to eliminate business opportunities for small speculators, regardless of whether there are other ways to eliminate typosquatting (there are), just as they would be more than happy to eliminate all new TLDs in order to protect trademarks. The "possible" benefit of ADP to registrants is the one that originally motivated creating it: providing a cost-free way to correct mistakes. Our take on this issue is that the attack on AGP is basically an attack on domainers; i.e., on making a business out of pay per click based on popular domain names. We don't view domaining per se as a problem. As I've said (and this may be not shared by some on the list) we are the non-commercial constituency not the "anti-commercial" constituency. If the problems of typosquatting are addressed by litigation (and they have been) and the problems of registry infrastructure burden are addressed by the fees, we just don't see the point of eliminating AGP altogether, what does it accomplish that serves the public interest? Carlos Dionisio Aguirre abogado - Sarmiento 71 - 4to. 18 Cordoba - Argentina - * / 423-5423 www.sitioderecho.com.ar www.densi.com.ar > Date: Mon, 7 Jan 2008 22:26:11 -0500> From: evan@telly.org> To: alac@atlarge-lists.icann.org> Subject: [At-Large] Strange Bedfellows> > > On reading the Domain Tasting report, one thing stood out to me as the> most surprising; the nature other constituencies that most closely> matched, and most strongly opposed, the ALAC point of view.> > Specifically -- while I expected the Registry constituency to oppose> elimination of the add-grace period, I was astonished to find the NCUC> also defending the practise -- indeed it appeared to be the only other> constituency to do so. Conversely, the statement coming closest to our> preference of an outright ban on the AGP came from the Business> Constituency.> > Of course, now I have a genuine curiosity to know what drove the NCUC to> defend a practice that seems to be hated by everyone else who doesn't> gain financially from it. So much for NPOs and academics claiming to act> in the public interest (at least in this instance) ...> > - Evan> > > _______________________________________________> ALAC mailing list> ALAC@atlarge-lists.icann.org> http://atlarge-lists.icann.org/mailman/listinfo/alac_atlarge-lists.icann.org> > At-Large Official Site: http://www.alac.icann.org> ALAC Independent: http://www.icannalac.org _________________________________________________________________ Express yourself instantly with MSN Messenger! Download today it's FREE! http://messenger.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200471ave/direct/01/