Thanks to those that have commented so far. Based on that
feedback, I will introduce the motion to the GNSO Council.
From: owner-bc-gnso@icann.org
[mailto:owner-bc-gnso@icann.org] On Behalf Of Caleb Queern
Sent: Friday, April 09, 2010 10:44 AM
To: bc - GNSO list
Subject: RE: [bc-gnso] Assessing the "Domain Name Exchange"
service proposed by VeriSign
Cyveillance’s representatives in the BC support Mike’s proposed
text.
From:
owner-bc-gnso@icann.org [mailto:owner-bc-gnso@icann.org] On Behalf Of Ron
Andruff
Sent: Friday, April 09, 2010 1:16 PM
To: 'bc - GNSO list'
Subject: RE: [bc-gnso] Assessing the "Domain Name Exchange"
service proposed by VeriSign
I
support Mike R’s proposed text and Sarah’s recommendation.
RA
Ronald N. Andruff
President
RNA Partners, Inc.
220
+ 1 212 481 2820 ext. 11
From: owner-bc-gnso@icann.org
[mailto:owner-bc-gnso@icann.org] On Behalf Of Deutsch, Sarah B
Sent: Friday, April 09, 2010 8:58 AM
To: Michael D. Palage; bc - GNSO list
Subject: RE: [bc-gnso] Assessing the "Domain Name Exchange"
service proposed by VeriSign
I like the proposal Mike R. has put on the table. Given that
ICANN previously closed the loophole on the AGP to deter tasting, which clearly
affected the stability of DNS operations, why couldn't we put forth a
call for review since this service has the potential to destabilize the remedy
ICANN already fixed?
Sarah
Sarah B. Deutsch
Vice President & Associate General Counsel
Verizon Communications
Phone: 703-351-3044
Fax: 703-351-3670
From: owner-bc-gnso@icann.org
[mailto:owner-bc-gnso@icann.org] On Behalf Of Michael D. Palage
Sent: Thursday, April 08, 2010 9:24 PM
To: 'bc - GNSO list'
Subject: RE: [bc-gnso] Assessing the "Domain Name Exchange"
service proposed by VeriSign
Hello All,
I am not a big fan of this proposal. While there may be some
market for it, I have a concern that there is the potential for more harm than
good. That being said, this registry service request has been submitted in
accordance with the Funnel Request set forth in the registry agreement and
which gives ICANN a very limited number of grounds to deny a request
(i) could raise significant Security or Stability issues or (ii) could
raise significant competition issues.. Again, while I personally do not like
this service, I do not see how either of these criteria are met, and I do not
believe these criteria could be objectively met by the GNSO Council passing a
resolution saying so. Therefore, it is mostly likely that ICANN staff
will approve this request within the 15 day time frame. If there are no
proposed contractual modifications, no Board action would be required.
Listed below are some questions which I have asked of VeriSign
and the answers that they have provided. I think Steve and the other BC leaders
should reach out to VeriSign and see if they would be willing to provide a
briefing on this service to the stakeholder group. Perhaps there may be some
implement options that VeriSign would be willing to consider to address our
concerns.
Best regards,
Michael Palage
<BEGIN QUESTIONS>
Question1: Is the exchange fee paid each time a name is
exchanged after waiting the 30 days, or is the exchange fee paid once and
unlimited changes are permitted for one year provided that the 30 day calendar
lock down period is honored. The reason I am asking is that I am trying to
reconcile the following language in the funnel request ““The
registrar's account balance will be debited the exchange fee at the time of the
initial exchange occurring within a one year term based upon initial
registration date.”
The exchange fee is charged upon initial exchange, subsequent
exchanges during the exchange term are not charged an exchange fee. In the
Business Description section of the Domain Exchange RSEP we provide the
business rules, and I’ve highlighted two rules which address Michael’s
statement around “unlimited changes”, just for clarity…
VeriSign
will offer the Domain Name Exchange Service to all .ICANN accredited
-registrars in good standing for the .net top
level
domain. In order to complete a Domain Name Exchange:
?
Registrars shall process the transaction through their connections to the
Shared Registration System ("SRS") via the
Extensible
Provisioning Protocol ("EPP").
?
Registrars will provide the registry with the necessary data to process the
exchange, including the outgoing domain name
and
the incoming domain name. This transaction will be processed as a modification
or update to an existing registration
?
The registry will validate that the exchange meets the following criteria:
o
Registrar must be the registrar-of-record for the outgoing domain name;
o
The outgoing and incoming domain name must be within the same Top Level Domain;
o The outgoing domain name must have been registered for a minimum
of 30 calendar days;
o The outgoing domain has not been exchanged within the previous 30
calendar days; and
o
The incoming domain name must be available.
?
When an exchange transaction has passed validation, the registry will execute
the exchange by updating the registry
database:
o
The registry will modify the domain name for the specified registration by
deleting the outgoing registration and inserting the
incoming
domain name;
o
The outgoing domain name will have a pending delete status and be returned to
the available pool following expiration of
the
pending delete period;
o
The incoming domain name will "inherit" all attributes of the
registration including create date, expiration date, name
servers,
and statuses. Therefore, there is no Add Grace Period for incoming domain name;
and
o
The incoming domain name will only be eligible for subsequent exchange after 30
calendar days.
?
The registry will return a successful response through the EPP Interface.
?
The registrar's account balance will be debited the exchange fee at the time of
the initial exchange occurring within a one
year
term based upon initial registration date.
?
The registry will propagate the change in DNS and Whois.
Question 2: VeriSign has touted the use of its WhoWas
verification as a mechanism to help identify potential abuse. Will VRSN be
charging for this WhoWas feature or will it be free?
As stated in the Who Was Registry Service proposal there will be a
nominal fee in order to offset the implementation, maintenance and operational
costs of providing the service.
Question 3: VeriSign says that it will publish “a report that lists
the domain names exchanged as part of a registration.” Will there be a fee
for accessing these reports, and how will they be provided and to whom will
they be provided.
Domain Exchange reports like all activity reports will be provided
to the registrar of record at no cost, and made available over existing FTP and
web interfaces.
<END QUESTIONS>
From:
owner-bc-gnso@icann.org [mailto:owner-bc-gnso@icann.org] On Behalf Of Susan
Kawaguchi
Sent: Thursday, April 08, 2010 6:43 PM
To: icann@rodenbaugh.com; 'bc - GNSO list'
Subject: RE: [bc-gnso] Assessing the "Domain Name Exchange"
service proposed by VeriSign
It would be good to get clarification on several issues from
Verisign. Do you think they would talk to the BC about their proposal?
Susan Kawaguchi
Domain Name Manager
Facebook Inc.
1601 S. California Avenue
Palo Alto, CA
Phone - 650 485-6064
Cell - 650 387 3904
NOTICE: This email (including any attachments) may contain information
that is private, confidential, or protected by attorney-client or other
privilege. Unless you are the intended recipient, you may not use, copy, or
retransmit the email or its contents."
From:
owner-bc-gnso@icann.org [mailto:owner-bc-gnso@icann.org] On Behalf Of Mike
Rodenbaugh
Sent: Thursday, April 08, 2010 3:23 PM
To: 'bc - GNSO list'
Subject: RE: [bc-gnso] Assessing the "Domain Name Exchange"
service proposed by VeriSign
Ooops, my post was missing an important “NOT” in second
sentence, now inserted…
From:
owner-bc-gnso@icann.org [mailto:owner-bc-gnso@icann.org] On Behalf Of Mike
Rodenbaugh
Sent: Thursday, April 08, 2010 2:50 PM
To: 'bc - GNSO list'
Subject: RE: [bc-gnso] Assessing the "Domain Name Exchange"
service proposed by VeriSign
Thanks both Steve and Sarah for the thoughtful posts. I
agree this proposal needs further consideration and public comment, and should
NOT be ‘rubber-stamped’ by ICANN, like most RSEP proposals. It certainly
has the potential to unravel a lot of the progress made with the AGP Limits
policy. Another mitigation step could be to limit the percentage of any
registrar’s domains that can be exchanged, similar to the AGP Limits policy.
We could make a motion for the next GNSO Council meeting on
4/21, to see if the Council would ask Staff to conduct further
consideration. The deadline for such a motion is 4/13. I suspect it
would have broad support from the NCSG, and probably none from the CSG, but it
might still pass depending upon attendance at the meeting, and in any event
ought to serve the purpose.
Individual member and constituency comments should also be
submitted to ICANN directly. Do we have BC consensus at least on the
following?
[DRAFT]
The BC requests that Staff make the preliminary determination,
with respect to Versign’s RSEP proposal for “domain exchange” services in the
.net TLD, that this proposal requires further study because it could raise
significant issues with security and stability and/or competition.
Specifically, the proposal may permit resumption of commercial “domain tasting”
activities which have been curbed by the AGP Limits policy, and therefore
appropriate limitations on the proposed registry service must be considered.
From:
owner-bc-gnso@icann.org [mailto:owner-bc-gnso@icann.org] On Behalf Of Deutsch,
Sarah B
Sent: Thursday, April 08, 2010 2:19 PM
To: Steve DelBianco; bc - GNSO list
Subject: RE: [bc-gnso] Assessing the "Domain Name Exchange"
service proposed by VeriSign
Steve,
Thanks for giving all of us more background on the proposed
Verisign service. My view is that because this proposal could pass through
very quickly with little ICANN input and has very serious potential
consequences for businesses and brand owners, we should quickly reach out to
ICANN staff and tell them that there are enough concerns that the process must
be slowed down and studied carefully.
The concerns I've raised have nothing to do with someone
registering generic names. Whether we call it "tasting" or
something else, the fact remains that this service allows someone for the
price of a single domain name, to register at least 12 different domain
names a year. So, if you spent $8 to register 100 domain names
under the exchange service, you could wind up registering nearly 10,000
different domain names. On its face, this seems to be a recipe for mischief
and abuse.
When we had full blown domain name tasting under the AGP for free,
the number of infringements skyrocketed, but even today, brand owners face
thousands of instances of new infringements because cybersquatters are
still willing to pay a relatively low registration fee for the high
quality names that drive traffic. The recent report on
cybersquatting out of Harvard shows that even vigilant companies like
Verizon still face many hundreds of typosquatting incidents -- all from
infringers who are willing to pay a fee for our trademarked names.
The report estimates that the top 100,000 websites
containing cybersquatted domains collectively receive at least 68.2
million daily visitors. If these cybersquatted sites were considered as a
single website, they would be ranked by Alexa as the 10th most popular website
in the world. So it is reasonable to be concerned that a service which
allows one to register multiple domain names for a single price will only add
to this problem.
I appreciate that Verisign believes it has taken some steps to make
their service more "transparent," but I don't believe transparency is
the same as fixing your business model to prevent infringements in the first
place. A few questions, comments and ideas:
1) A "free" reporting service on exchanged names is
better than no reporting service -- but it appears that the burden,
administrative costs and enforcement costs shifts to business and brand
holders, who on a daily or even hourly basis, must check this
reporting service for possible infringements. What will Verisign do
when the brand holder writes to them and demands they stop selling the
name? My guess is that they would not be accountable for taking this
name out of circulation and the trademark owner would be sending
numerous cease and desist letters, filing more UDRP actions and filing more
lawsuits.
2) Your mention of the WHOWAS service does not say whether this
will be provided for free or at a cost. In any case, the same concerns
about pushing the burden on trademark owners remains. Also, what steps
does Verisign intend to take to ensure the accuracy of the information provided
in its WHOIS, WHOAS and its reporting service associated with this
service? Will it permit applicants to "exchange" names through
a proxy service?
3) Will there be a cap on the number of domain names someone could
register under the exchange service?
If Verisign is serious about limiting harms to brand owners, why
not:
1) Limit the service to generic names only? Why not allow
trademark owners to provide Verisign with a list of their registered trademarks
that should not be permitted to be sold under the exchange service and allow
them to opt names out of this service?
2) Why not build in protections for the trademark owner up front
when offering the service? For example, when an applicant searches for
the availability of a name, the trademarked names provided by owners who
opt out would pop up with a warning telling the applicant that the name is
a trademark owned by a third party, warning them about the penalties associated
with cybersquatting and requiring them to declare that they have a legal right
to use such name.
3) Why not beef up requirements for accurate WHOIS contact
information and prohibit exhanging names through a proxy?
Obviously, the issues are all quite complicated as are the
potential fixes, so more reason that this proposal be slowed down and studied
carefully with all affected stakeholders.
Thanks,
Sarah
Sarah B. Deutsch
Vice President & Associate General Counsel
Verizon Communications
Phone: 703-351-3044
Fax: 703-351-3670
From: owner-bc-gnso@icann.org
[mailto:owner-bc-gnso@icann.org] On Behalf Of Steve DelBianco
Sent: Thursday, April 08, 2010 11:05 AM
To: bc - GNSO list
Subject: [bc-gnso] Assessing the "Domain Name Exchange" service
proposed by VeriSign
BC
Members:
On April 5, VeriSign (operator of .com, .net, and .name) proposed a new
registry service called "Domain Name Exchange." VeriSign’s
proposal and QA& is posted at http://www.icann.org/en/registries/rsep/verisign-dnex-05apr10-en.pdf
Here’s how VeriSign describes the service:
Based
on ongoing discussions with registrars who represent diverse business models
and market segments, VeriSign has developed the concept for the Domain Name
Exchange Service to allow a registrar to repurpose a domain name registration
that has significant time remaining until expiration. Today when a
registrant terminates a package of services from a registrar after, for
example, an introductory 1 or 3 month period, the registrar is forced to recoup
the investment in the associated domain via monetization or the secondary
market. The domain exchange will allow a registrar to offer another registrant
a package that sits on top of that same registration using a new domain.
The Domain Name Exchange Service is an optional service that is designed to
provide registrars and registrants with an effective and efficient way to
manage domain name registration terms for domain names that are no longer
needed.
For many website hosting
service providers, the registration of a domain name is a secondary service.
For example, the European registrar
1and1 offers web hosting with “free domains included” ( http://1and1.eu )
in order to attract new clients to establish their online presence.
Domain Exchange lets 1&1 re-use the registration if a client wants to
drop the website and domain after just a few months. Registrars
would pay around 1.5x the cost of a regular annual registration in order to get
the Exchange option, and they could exchange once per month. Perhaps
there will be significant demand for this service from registrars who have lots
of turnover with hosting clients.
Domain Exchange is being proposed only for .net domains, but VeriSign may
propose it for .com at some point. And that’s where several BC officers
are already raising concerns that Domain Exchange could be a new form of
“domain tasting” that would lead to even more cyber-squatting and
typo-squatting.
“Domain tasting” is a loaded term in ICANN circles. “Tasting” is how
domainers test a domain name to learn whether type-in traffic generates enough
advertising revenue to cover costs of registering the domain.
The names typically tasted were generic words and phrases
(like SpringCleaning.com or SpringFashions.com) that some users might guess at
by entering the URL ( instead of going thru a page-ranked search engine).
Domainers make money on these domain names by “parking” a page with ads for
related products and services.
The parked pages that result from tasted names are objectionable in the way
that highway billboards are objectionable, but there’s nothing illegal about
monetizing domain traffic with advertising. Moreover, several BC members
are domainers who monetize traffic this way, and other BC members providing
online advertising services to support the trade.
But nothing infuriates BC members and Internet users more than tasting or
parking domains that involve trademarked terms or typographical variants
designed to deceive users. Cybersquatting and typosquatting could
increase if a new service makes it easier to discover domain names that mislead
users into thinking they have landed on a page belonging to a known business or
organization they intended to reach.
Domainers discovered they could taste traffic for 5 days for zero cost by using
the Add Grace Period (AGP) that has always been offered by registrars and
registries. That led to rampant tasting in domains like .com.
The ICANN community, incl many in the BC, pushed ICANN to end the
practice of free tasting thru abuse of the AGP privilege. Using the
policy development process, ICANN effectively eliminated free AGP tasting in 2009
(http://www.icann.org/en/tlds/agp-policy-17dec08-en.htm
)
Question is, will a new Domain Exchange service increase the incidence of
trademark and typographical squatting? I asked my friends at VeriSign (a
NetChoice member) about this concern, and here’s what I learned:
Domain Exchange is not going to replace the free and unchecked tasting that was
done with AGP before 2009. First, a domain 'taster' has to actually buy a
1-year registration to be able to use domain exchange at 11 monthly intervals.
That’s cheaper than buying a dozen registrations, but its not free.
Second, it would take a year just to 'taste' a dozen names for ad
traffic.
Still, VeriSign acknowledges that some parties may see Domain Exchange as a way
to “taste” and then register names that infringe on trademarks. So
VeriSign is offering additional IP protection tools described in their
proposal, such as limitations on exchanges, free reporting on exchanged names,
and the WhoWas service (a permanent record of historical Whois).
VeriSign is open to suggestions from the BC (and IPC) about other tools that
would minimize use of Domain Exchange for TM infringement or other illegal
purposes. They’re also prepared to answer questions in a direct dialogue
with our members if that’s easier and quicker than using the public comment
process described below.
So let’s begin internal discussions on BC List, with an intent to send concerns
and questions to staff, to VeriSign, and eventually in ICANN public comments.
Finally, a word about the ICANN process for review and approval of new registry
services:
ICANN evaluates new registry services thru its Registry Service Evaluation
Process (RSEP). ICANN staff has 15-days to make a "preliminary
determination" whether this Registry Service requires further
consideration by ICANN because it could raise significant issues with Security
& Stability or competition. There’s no official comment period during
these 15 days, but BC members can always explain concerns to staff. See
RSEP at http://www.icann.org/en/registries/rsep/rsep.html
If ICANN determines that the service might raise significant Stability or
Security issues, it goes to the Registry Services Technical Evaluation Panel
and simultaneously invites public comment on the proposal (2nd chance to
comment). This panel has 45 days to do a written report regarding the
proposed service effect on Security or Stability.
ICANN’s Board then posts the report for public comment (3rd chance to comment),
and the Board has 30 days to reach a decision. “In the event the ICANN Board
reasonably determines that the proposed Registry Service creates a reasonable
risk of a meaningful adverse effect on Stability or Security, Registry Operator
will not offer the proposed Registry Service.”
So there are 2 or 3 chances to comment over a period of 45 days (or 90 days if
the panel raises S&S concerns).