All, Attached and copied below is a proposed GNSO Council motion developed by the domain tasting design team. Some comments may be helpful. 1. The design team agreed unanimously during its first meeting that, because of the work done to that point, it did not wish to propose further work. Instead, the team believed that it was appropriate for the Council to recommend a policy to the Board. 2. The general concept of the proposed motion -- to modify the AGP -- is the subject of unanimous agreement. 3. The bracketed language is language that was not the subject of unanimous agreement. More specifically: a. Two members of the team are not committed to the 10% threshold and would prefer a lower percentage. I am one of them. I calculated the six-month average of the AGP delete percentages (as percentages of net adds (1 year)) in .com for GoDaddy, eNom, Inc., Tucows, Register.com, and Network Solutions. GoDaddy's average percentage was less than 2%. As a result of that review, I have questions as to why a 10% limit is appropriate if the largest registrar in .com (by a factor of at least 2) has a less than 2% deletion rate. It would be helpful to me if someone could provide on Saturday a general explanation as to why the registrars smaller than GoDaddy had larger percentages (some more than 5 times as high). b. One member of the team wanted to (i) delete from the resolution and the suggested language the references to excess deletes being, barring exceptional circumstances, indicative of speculation in domain registrations and (ii) move that language into a whereas clause. 4. It is the team's expectation that the motion will be discussed on Saturday. Kristina -*- Domain Tasting Design Team Motion 6 February 2008 Whereas, the GNSO Council has discussed the Issues Report on Domain Tasting <http://gnso.icann.org/issues/domain-tasting/gnso-domain-tasting-report- 14jun07.pdf> and has acknowledged the Final Outcomes Report of the ad hoc group on Domain Tasting <http://gnso.icann.org/drafts/gnso-domain-tasting-adhoc-outcomes-report- final.pdf> ; Whereas, the GNSO Council resolved on 31 October 2007 to launch a PDP on Domain Tasting and to encourage staff to apply ICANN's fee collections to names registered and subsequently de-registered during the AGP; Whereas, the Board of Directors resolved on 23 January 2008 to encourage ICANN's budgetary process to include fees for all domains added, including domains added during the AGP, and encouraged community discussion involved in developing the ICANN budget, subject to both Board approval and registrar approval of this fee; Whereas, the GNSO Council has received the Final Report on Domain Tasting [final title tbd]; Whereas, the By-Laws require the GNSO Council Chair to call, within ten (10) days of receipt of the Final Report, for a formal Council meeting in which the Council will work towards achieving a Supermajority Vote to present to the Board; Whereas, the GNSO Council acknowledges both that some stakeholders have advocated the elimination of the AGP as a means to combat the abuse of it and that other stakeholders have advocated the retention of the AGP as a means to pursue legitimate, non-abusive uses of it; Whereas, the GNSO Council welcomes the Board of Directors' 23 January 2008 resolution pertaining to inclusion of fees for all domain names added, and wishes to recommend to the Board of Directors a Consensus Policy to address the abuses of the AGP and to maintain the availability of the AGP for legitimate, non-abusive uses; Whereas, PIR, the .org registry operator, has amended its Registry Agreement to charge an Excess Deletion Fee; and both NeuStar, the .biz registry operator, and Afilias, the .info registry operator, are seeking amendments to their respective Registry Agreements to modify the existing AGP; Therefore, the GNSO Council resolves as follows: 1. To recommend to the Board of Directors that it adopt a Consensus Policy to (i) restrict applicability of the AGP to a maximum of 50 deletes per registrar per month or [10%] of that registrar's net new monthly domain name registrations, whichever is greater; [and (ii) deem a registrar's deletes in excess of this maximum to be indicative of, barring exceptional circumstances, speculative registrations;] while (iii) not intending to prohibit a registry the flexibility of proposing more restrictive excess deletion rules. 2. To suggest to the Board of Directors that the Consensus Policy may be implemented by amending Section 3.1.1 to Appendix 7 of each Registry Agreement to read as follows: Delete: If a domain is deleted within the Add Grace Period, the sponsoring Registrar at the time of the deletion is credited for the amount of the registration; provided, however, at the end of the month the Registry shall debit the Registrar's account for the full value of the domain name registrations that exceeded the month's set threshhold of 50 deletes per month or [10%] of that sponsoring Registrar's net new monthly domain name registrations, whichever is greater ("Usual Deletes"); and further provided, however, that the Registry Operator shall have the right to propose more restrictive rules for deletes in excess of Usual Deletes during the Add Grace Period. [Deletes in excess of Usual Deletes are, barring exceptional circumstances, indicative of speculative registrations.] The domain is deleted from the Registry database and is immediately available for registration by any Registrar. See Section 3.2 for a description of overlapping grace period exceptions. <<DT Design team proposed GNSO Council tasting motion - SCRUBBED on 02-06-08 21_53.DOC>>