Quick question; Where do Registry Operators fit in the "new" GNSO? That is, those that perform back end Registry Services for new gTLD Applicants (or Registries) and potentially ccTLD Managers... Are they able to form a Constituency under the Commercial Stakeholder Group? Clearly they are not able to be under the "Contracted" Party House as they have no contract with ICANN. I note from the proposed BC charter; 3.2. Specificity* In keeping with the selective membership criteria of other GNSO constituencies, the Business Constituency represents the interests of a specific sector of Internet users. The purpose of the Constituency is to represent the interests of businesses using the Internet for, in its broad sense, electronic commerce with customers. To avoid conflicts of interest, this typically excludes for-profit entities whose primary relationship with ICANN is as a domain name service provider, such as a registry or registrar, as well as from other groups whose interests may not be aligned with business users. Thoughts? Adrian Kinderis
Good questions Adrian. Maybe someone from the BC can clarify. If I read the BC charter paragraph you copied below correctly, it doesn't seem to exclude not-for-profit registries or registrars; is that correct? Also, it doesn't seem to exclude for-profit organizations that are planning to become registries or registrars until such time that they do, i.e., when they execute a registry or registar agreement with ICANN; is that also correct? A live example that relates to these questions involves the proposed City TLD Constituency (Interest Group). Dirk raised this issue in the RyC meeting in Sydney. Would they be able to be a part of the BC until such time that they execute a registry agreement? They are able to participate as observers in the RyC and are already doing that. Chuck ________________________________ From: owner-council@gnso.icann.org [mailto:owner-council@gnso.icann.org] On Behalf Of Adrian Kinderis Sent: Tuesday, July 14, 2009 3:35 AM To: Council GNSO Subject: [council] Registry Operators Quick question; Where do Registry Operators fit in the "new" GNSO? That is, those that perform back end Registry Services for new gTLD Applicants (or Registries) and potentially ccTLD Managers... Are they able to form a Constituency under the Commercial Stakeholder Group? Clearly they are not able to be under the "Contracted" Party House as they have no contract with ICANN. I note from the proposed BC charter; 3.2. Specificity* In keeping with the selective membership criteria of other GNSO constituencies, the Business Constituency represents the interests of a specific sector of Internet users. The purpose of the Constituency is to represent the interests of businesses using the Internet for, in its broad sense, electronic commerce with customers. To avoid conflicts of interest, this typically excludes for-profit entities whose primary relationship with ICANN is as a domain name service provider, such as a registry or registrar, as well as from other groups whose interests may not be aligned with business users. Thoughts? Adrian Kinderis
Agreed, it is an old, important issue that is still unresolved and must be resolved before the GNSO restructure can take place. Why should the non-contracting house accept members whose interests are purely and completely aligned with the contracting parties? Obviously, those entities should find a place somewhere in the contracting party house where their interests are aligned, whether as observers or whatever, but they should not be allowed on the other side where interests are clearly different. That would make it effectively even more impossible to develop policy out of the non-contracting side of the house. Thanks, Mike Mike Rodenbaugh Rodenbaugh Law 548 Market Street San Francisco, CA 94104 +1.415.738.8087 www.rodenbaugh.com -----Original Message----- From: owner-council@gnso.icann.org [mailto:owner-council@gnso.icann.org] On Behalf Of Philip Sheppard Sent: Tuesday, July 14, 2009 6:55 AM To: 'Council GNSO' Subject: RE: [council] Registry Operators Gentleman, its an old debate No no no and no.
Hello All,
Agreed, it is an old, important issue that is still unresolved and must be resolved before the GNSO restructure can take place.
It is certainly worth considering further. Membership of the registry and registrar constituency has generally been very clear - based on the legal entity being a contracted party with ICANN as either a TLD manager or a gTLD registrar. This information is publicly available on the ICANN website. There are other parties involved in the process of the domain name value chain. E.g (1) Consultants - there are many consultants and lawyers that provide services to the members of the registry and registrar constituency or members of other constituencies - these consultants and lawyers can be split across the business constituency and the IP constituency. (2) Internet Service Providers - while some purely provide connectivity - many of these companies have moved into value added services - and many are significant suppliers of domain names (either as accredited registrars, or as resellers of accredited registrars). (3) Other domain name resellers - e.g portals (e.g Yahoo), software companies (e.g Microsoft), search engines (e.g Google), web hosting companies - there are wide range of domain name resellers. Some of thee are very large companies and supply large volumes (e.g over 100,000 names) of domain names to their customers. At different times staff or consultants/external lawyers of these companies have been members of registrar, business constituency or IP constituency. (4) Domainers - these companies operate a portfolio of domain names - they often do not supply domain name registration services to other parties - but may sell some of their domain name licences from time-to-time. They may be accredited registrars (usually to get the lowest possible wholesale price for domains), or may simply be resellers. Where they are not registrars - it is not clear what constituency that should be members of. They would probably consider themselves to be members of the business constituency - as they are "business users" of domain names (earn revenue from advertising, or from the future sale of the domain name licence), and not involved in supplying domain name registration services to third parties. For consultants or lawyers it is often complex as they may have some customers/clients that are associated with the domain name supply industry and some customers/clients that are not. In many cases large companies have different departments (or legal subsidiaries) - e.g a legal department, network connectivity department, domains/hosting department - and it can be convenient to have staff members of different departments/subsidiaries to join different constituencies (e.g Registrar, ISP constituency, IP constituency). So do you make the decision on the basis of the corporate entity (could be operating across multiple area of interest in the GNSO), or on the basis of the individual (may work for a particular department of a corporate, or may work for many clients). Ultimately this will probably be hard to resolve. Perhaps the best to hope for is that members of constituencies clearly define their potential conflicts of interest. This could be at a corporate level and at an individual level (e.g identify clients involved in different constituencies if a consultant). It would also be useful to require this to happen at the beginning of establishing working groups (not as a method of exclusion - but to clearly state potential conflicts). The reality is that many members of the GNSO community can potentially participate in multiple roles. Trying to create very tight exclusion rules (e.g you can be a member of constituency x - provided you have no other relationship with any member of another constituency) may unnecessarily restrict participation. Regards, Bruce Tonkin
Am I the only who is troubled by the fact that restricting membership in the registrar and registry constituency to entities that are ICANN contracted parties effectively gives ICANN control over which entities are and are not members and the timing by which entities become eligible for membership? -----Original Message----- From: owner-council@gnso.icann.org [mailto:owner-council@gnso.icann.org] On Behalf Of Bruce Tonkin Sent: Tuesday, July 14, 2009 9:25 PM To: Council GNSO Subject: RE: [council] Registry Operators Hello All,
Agreed, it is an old, important issue that is still unresolved and must be resolved before the GNSO restructure can take place.
It is certainly worth considering further. Membership of the registry and registrar constituency has generally been very clear - based on the legal entity being a contracted party with ICANN as either a TLD manager or a gTLD registrar. This information is publicly available on the ICANN website. There are other parties involved in the process of the domain name value chain. E.g (1) Consultants - there are many consultants and lawyers that provide services to the members of the registry and registrar constituency or members of other constituencies - these consultants and lawyers can be split across the business constituency and the IP constituency. (2) Internet Service Providers - while some purely provide connectivity - many of these companies have moved into value added services - and many are significant suppliers of domain names (either as accredited registrars, or as resellers of accredited registrars). (3) Other domain name resellers - e.g portals (e.g Yahoo), software companies (e.g Microsoft), search engines (e.g Google), web hosting companies - there are wide range of domain name resellers. Some of thee are very large companies and supply large volumes (e.g over 100,000 names) of domain names to their customers. At different times staff or consultants/external lawyers of these companies have been members of registrar, business constituency or IP constituency. (4) Domainers - these companies operate a portfolio of domain names - they often do not supply domain name registration services to other parties - but may sell some of their domain name licences from time-to-time. They may be accredited registrars (usually to get the lowest possible wholesale price for domains), or may simply be resellers. Where they are not registrars - it is not clear what constituency that should be members of. They would probably consider themselves to be members of the business constituency - as they are "business users" of domain names (earn revenue from advertising, or from the future sale of the domain name licence), and not involved in supplying domain name registration services to third parties. For consultants or lawyers it is often complex as they may have some customers/clients that are associated with the domain name supply industry and some customers/clients that are not. In many cases large companies have different departments (or legal subsidiaries) - e.g a legal department, network connectivity department, domains/hosting department - and it can be convenient to have staff members of different departments/subsidiaries to join different constituencies (e.g Registrar, ISP constituency, IP constituency). So do you make the decision on the basis of the corporate entity (could be operating across multiple area of interest in the GNSO), or on the basis of the individual (may work for a particular department of a corporate, or may work for many clients). Ultimately this will probably be hard to resolve. Perhaps the best to hope for is that members of constituencies clearly define their potential conflicts of interest. This could be at a corporate level and at an individual level (e.g identify clients involved in different constituencies if a consultant). It would also be useful to require this to happen at the beginning of establishing working groups (not as a method of exclusion - but to clearly state potential conflicts). The reality is that many members of the GNSO community can potentially participate in multiple roles. Trying to create very tight exclusion rules (e.g you can be a member of constituency x - provided you have no other relationship with any member of another constituency) may unnecessarily restrict participation. Regards, Bruce Tonkin
It gets very frustrating to go through this same issue over and over again. There is a very clear reason why the RyC and the RrC are restricted to those who have registry or registrar agreements with ICANN: In those agreements, registries and registrars commit in advance to implementing consensus policies that are within the picket fence without having any knowledge of the details of those polices. That is a very exceptional situation in the world of business contracting as I have to believe attorneys know full well. As a result of that 'blind' commitment, registries and registrars can be seriously impacted by policy development actions of the GNSO. I can accept the fact that some may not have any empathy for the contracted parties and may not like this but let's at least not continue to retread ground that we have covered many times before. Chuck
-----Original Message----- From: owner-council@gnso.icann.org [mailto:owner-council@gnso.icann.org] On Behalf Of Rosette, Kristina Sent: Tuesday, July 14, 2009 10:47 PM To: Council GNSO Subject: RE: [council] Registry Operators
Am I the only who is troubled by the fact that restricting membership in the registrar and registry constituency to entities that are ICANN contracted parties effectively gives ICANN control over which entities are and are not members and the timing by which entities become eligible for membership?
-----Original Message----- From: owner-council@gnso.icann.org [mailto:owner-council@gnso.icann.org] On Behalf Of Bruce Tonkin Sent: Tuesday, July 14, 2009 9:25 PM To: Council GNSO Subject: RE: [council] Registry Operators
Hello All,
Agreed, it is an old, important issue that is still unresolved and must be resolved before the GNSO restructure can take place.
It is certainly worth considering further.
Membership of the registry and registrar constituency has generally been very clear - based on the legal entity being a contracted party with ICANN as either a TLD manager or a gTLD registrar. This information is publicly available on the ICANN website.
There are other parties involved in the process of the domain name value chain.
E.g
(1) Consultants - there are many consultants and lawyers that provide services to the members of the registry and registrar constituency or members of other constituencies - these consultants and lawyers can be split across the business constituency and the IP constituency.
(2) Internet Service Providers - while some purely provide connectivity - many of these companies have moved into value added services - and many are significant suppliers of domain names (either as accredited registrars, or as resellers of accredited registrars).
(3) Other domain name resellers - e.g portals (e.g Yahoo), software companies (e.g Microsoft), search engines (e.g Google), web hosting companies - there are wide range of domain name resellers. Some of thee are very large companies and supply large volumes (e.g over 100,000 names) of domain names to their customers. At different times staff or consultants/external lawyers of these companies have been members of registrar, business constituency or IP constituency.
(4) Domainers - these companies operate a portfolio of domain names - they often do not supply domain name registration services to other parties - but may sell some of their domain name licences from time-to-time. They may be accredited registrars (usually to get the lowest possible wholesale price for domains), or may simply be resellers. Where they are not registrars - it is not clear what constituency that should be members of. They would probably consider themselves to be members of the business constituency - as they are "business users" of domain names (earn revenue from advertising, or from the future sale of the domain name licence), and not involved in supplying domain name registration services to third parties.
For consultants or lawyers it is often complex as they may have some customers/clients that are associated with the domain name supply industry and some customers/clients that are not.
In many cases large companies have different departments (or legal subsidiaries) - e.g a legal department, network connectivity department, domains/hosting department - and it can be convenient to have staff members of different departments/subsidiaries to join different constituencies (e.g Registrar, ISP constituency, IP constituency).
So do you make the decision on the basis of the corporate entity (could be operating across multiple area of interest in the GNSO), or on the basis of the individual (may work for a particular department of a corporate, or may work for many clients).
Ultimately this will probably be hard to resolve. Perhaps the best to hope for is that members of constituencies clearly define their potential conflicts of interest. This could be at a corporate level and at an individual level (e.g identify clients involved in different constituencies if a consultant). It would also be useful to require this to happen at the beginning of establishing working groups (not as a method of exclusion - but to clearly state potential conflicts).
The reality is that many members of the GNSO community can potentially participate in multiple roles. Trying to create very tight exclusion rules (e.g you can be a member of constituency x - provided you have no other relationship with any member of another constituency) may unnecessarily restrict participation.
Regards, Bruce Tonkin
I'll take that as an "I'm not", Chuck. If you could, please, connect the dots for me. I don't understand the connection you've drawn. How would admitting registry operators (or the IDN constituency or the Cities constituency) to the RyC/RC Group affect the prior commitment to be bound by consensus policy? I'm definitely not getting it. Not sure of the point behind the lack of empathy/retread comment. I didn't start this thread and my question is one that I don't believe I've ever raised or heard raised. -----Original Message----- From: Gomes, Chuck [mailto:cgomes@verisign.com] Sent: Tuesday, July 14, 2009 11:02 PM To: Rosette, Kristina; Council GNSO Subject: RE: [council] Registry Operators It gets very frustrating to go through this same issue over and over again. There is a very clear reason why the RyC and the RrC are restricted to those who have registry or registrar agreements with ICANN: In those agreements, registries and registrars commit in advance to implementing consensus policies that are within the picket fence without having any knowledge of the details of those polices. That is a very exceptional situation in the world of business contracting as I have to believe attorneys know full well. As a result of that 'blind' commitment, registries and registrars can be seriously impacted by policy development actions of the GNSO. I can accept the fact that some may not have any empathy for the contracted parties and may not like this but let's at least not continue to retread ground that we have covered many times before. Chuck
-----Original Message----- From: owner-council@gnso.icann.org [mailto:owner-council@gnso.icann.org] On Behalf Of Rosette, Kristina Sent: Tuesday, July 14, 2009 10:47 PM To: Council GNSO Subject: RE: [council] Registry Operators
Am I the only who is troubled by the fact that restricting membership in the registrar and registry constituency to entities that are ICANN contracted parties effectively gives ICANN control over which entities
are and are not members and the timing by which entities become eligible for membership?
-----Original Message----- From: owner-council@gnso.icann.org [mailto:owner-council@gnso.icann.org] On Behalf Of Bruce Tonkin Sent: Tuesday, July 14, 2009 9:25 PM To: Council GNSO Subject: RE: [council] Registry Operators
Hello All,
Agreed, it is an old, important issue that is still unresolved and must be resolved before the GNSO restructure can take place.
It is certainly worth considering further.
Membership of the registry and registrar constituency has generally been very clear - based on the legal entity being a contracted party with ICANN as either a TLD manager or a gTLD registrar. This information is publicly available on the ICANN website.
There are other parties involved in the process of the domain name value chain.
E.g
(1) Consultants - there are many consultants and lawyers that provide services to the members of the registry and registrar constituency or members of other constituencies - these consultants and lawyers can be
split across the business constituency and the IP constituency.
(2) Internet Service Providers - while some purely provide connectivity - many of these companies have moved into value added services - and many are significant suppliers of domain names (either as accredited registrars, or as resellers of accredited registrars).
(3) Other domain name resellers - e.g portals (e.g Yahoo), software companies (e.g Microsoft), search engines (e.g Google), web hosting companies - there are wide range of domain name resellers. Some of thee are very large companies and supply large volumes (e.g over 100,000 names) of domain names to their customers. At different times staff or consultants/external lawyers of these companies have been members of registrar, business constituency or IP constituency.
(4) Domainers - these companies operate a portfolio of domain names - they often do not supply domain name registration services to other parties - but may sell some of their domain name licences from time-to-time. They may be accredited registrars (usually to get the lowest possible wholesale price for domains), or may simply be resellers. Where they are not registrars - it is not clear what constituency that should be members of. They would probably consider themselves to be members of the business constituency - as they are "business users" of domain names (earn revenue from advertising, or from the future sale of the domain name licence), and not involved in supplying domain name registration services to third parties.
For consultants or lawyers it is often complex as they may have some customers/clients that are associated with the domain name supply industry and some customers/clients that are not.
In many cases large companies have different departments (or legal subsidiaries) - e.g a legal department, network connectivity department, domains/hosting department - and it can be convenient to have staff members of different departments/subsidiaries to join different constituencies (e.g Registrar, ISP constituency, IP constituency).
So do you make the decision on the basis of the corporate entity (could be operating across multiple area of interest in the GNSO), or on the basis of the individual (may work for a particular department of a corporate, or may work for many clients).
Ultimately this will probably be hard to resolve. Perhaps the best to
hope for is that members of constituencies clearly define their potential conflicts of interest. This could be at a corporate level and at an individual level (e.g identify clients involved in different constituencies if a consultant). It would also be useful to require this to happen at the beginning of establishing working groups (not as
a method of exclusion - but to clearly state potential conflicts).
The reality is that many members of the GNSO community can potentially participate in multiple roles. Trying to create very tight exclusion rules (e.g you can be a member of constituency x - provided you have no other relationship with any member of another constituency) may unnecessarily restrict participation.
Regards, Bruce Tonkin
Kristina, I think Chuck's frustration also stems from the impression that some would apply standards to the contracted parties that they do not apply to themselves. The IRT may be seen as an example of that. Although I understand that this needed to be a closed group to make it possible to complete the - truly extraordinary in my view - amount of work it needed to do in only 8 weeks, you know that many take exception to what they see as a closed "lawyers only club". The IPC had full control over who was to be included in the group and it ended up with an overwhelming majority of lawyers on it. My honest opinion is that this was necessary for the IRT to work. Why? Because of the IRT's special circumstances. I think the domain ecosystem is also a "special circumstance" and that this is highlighted in many ways, one of which is the way the GNSO is structured. In a normal environment, you might not even expect a body such as ICANN to open up its discussions with its contracted parties to anyone else. But the GNSO allows for many groups that have interests in the domain ecosystem, commercial or otherwise, to interact and work together. Within that, there are different sets of circumstances. Those parties that sign contracts with ICANN and are then bound by those contracts obviously have a different position within the ecosystem from those parties that do not. The GNSO is structured in such a way as to represent that, and it seems to me that is both a fair and a good thing. You make the point that ICANN has control over which entities it contracts, but isn't that also a good thing? I think the community as a whole has often pushed for even tighter controls by ICANN over those entities it accredits, either as registrars or registries. For good reason. Making sure the accredited entities abide by a certain standard means that the end-users run less risk of doing business with dodgy entities. It also helps even the playing field for those contracted parties, a clear requisite to allow new entities to come into the business for example. Just some personal ideas. This is a complex discussion that would obviously need many more pages of emails... Thanks, Stéphane Le 15/07/09 06:22, « Rosette, Kristina » <krosette@cov.com> a écrit :
I'll take that as an "I'm not", Chuck.
If you could, please, connect the dots for me. I don't understand the connection you've drawn. How would admitting registry operators (or the IDN constituency or the Cities constituency) to the RyC/RC Group affect the prior commitment to be bound by consensus policy? I'm definitely not getting it.
Not sure of the point behind the lack of empathy/retread comment. I didn't start this thread and my question is one that I don't believe I've ever raised or heard raised.
-----Original Message----- From: Gomes, Chuck [mailto:cgomes@verisign.com] Sent: Tuesday, July 14, 2009 11:02 PM To: Rosette, Kristina; Council GNSO Subject: RE: [council] Registry Operators
It gets very frustrating to go through this same issue over and over again. There is a very clear reason why the RyC and the RrC are restricted to those who have registry or registrar agreements with ICANN: In those agreements, registries and registrars commit in advance to implementing consensus policies that are within the picket fence without having any knowledge of the details of those polices. That is a very exceptional situation in the world of business contracting as I have to believe attorneys know full well. As a result of that 'blind' commitment, registries and registrars can be seriously impacted by policy development actions of the GNSO.
I can accept the fact that some may not have any empathy for the contracted parties and may not like this but let's at least not continue to retread ground that we have covered many times before.
Chuck
-----Original Message----- From: owner-council@gnso.icann.org [mailto:owner-council@gnso.icann.org] On Behalf Of Rosette, Kristina Sent: Tuesday, July 14, 2009 10:47 PM To: Council GNSO Subject: RE: [council] Registry Operators
Am I the only who is troubled by the fact that restricting membership in the registrar and registry constituency to entities that are ICANN contracted parties effectively gives ICANN control over which entities
are and are not members and the timing by which entities become eligible for membership?
-----Original Message----- From: owner-council@gnso.icann.org [mailto:owner-council@gnso.icann.org] On Behalf Of Bruce Tonkin Sent: Tuesday, July 14, 2009 9:25 PM To: Council GNSO Subject: RE: [council] Registry Operators
Hello All,
Agreed, it is an old, important issue that is still unresolved and must be resolved before the GNSO restructure can take place.
It is certainly worth considering further.
Membership of the registry and registrar constituency has generally been very clear - based on the legal entity being a contracted party with ICANN as either a TLD manager or a gTLD registrar. This information is publicly available on the ICANN website.
There are other parties involved in the process of the domain name value chain.
E.g
(1) Consultants - there are many consultants and lawyers that provide services to the members of the registry and registrar constituency or members of other constituencies - these consultants and lawyers can be
split across the business constituency and the IP constituency.
(2) Internet Service Providers - while some purely provide connectivity - many of these companies have moved into value added services - and many are significant suppliers of domain names (either as accredited registrars, or as resellers of accredited registrars).
(3) Other domain name resellers - e.g portals (e.g Yahoo), software companies (e.g Microsoft), search engines (e.g Google), web hosting companies - there are wide range of domain name resellers. Some of thee are very large companies and supply large volumes (e.g over 100,000 names) of domain names to their customers. At different times staff or consultants/external lawyers of these companies have been members of registrar, business constituency or IP constituency.
(4) Domainers - these companies operate a portfolio of domain names - they often do not supply domain name registration services to other parties - but may sell some of their domain name licences from time-to-time. They may be accredited registrars (usually to get the lowest possible wholesale price for domains), or may simply be resellers. Where they are not registrars - it is not clear what constituency that should be members of. They would probably consider themselves to be members of the business constituency - as they are "business users" of domain names (earn revenue from advertising, or from the future sale of the domain name licence), and not involved in supplying domain name registration services to third parties.
For consultants or lawyers it is often complex as they may have some customers/clients that are associated with the domain name supply industry and some customers/clients that are not.
In many cases large companies have different departments (or legal subsidiaries) - e.g a legal department, network connectivity department, domains/hosting department - and it can be convenient to have staff members of different departments/subsidiaries to join different constituencies (e.g Registrar, ISP constituency, IP constituency).
So do you make the decision on the basis of the corporate entity (could be operating across multiple area of interest in the GNSO), or on the basis of the individual (may work for a particular department of a corporate, or may work for many clients).
Ultimately this will probably be hard to resolve. Perhaps the best to
hope for is that members of constituencies clearly define their potential conflicts of interest. This could be at a corporate level and at an individual level (e.g identify clients involved in different constituencies if a consultant). It would also be useful to require this to happen at the beginning of establishing working groups (not as
a method of exclusion - but to clearly state potential conflicts).
The reality is that many members of the GNSO community can potentially participate in multiple roles. Trying to create very tight exclusion rules (e.g you can be a member of constituency x - provided you have no other relationship with any member of another constituency) may unnecessarily restrict participation.
Regards, Bruce Tonkin
Please forgive my frustration Kristina. I should avoid responding at night and wait until morning because I am definitely a morning person. Let me try to explain my line of thought. During the lengthy discussions about GNSO improvements as the BGC WG was finalizing its recommendations a lot of time was spent on the question of where suppliers in general should fit in the GNSO. You will recall I am sure that it was noted that ISPs are suppliers and the idea of including them on the supplier side was considered. Resellers are another example. During those discussions it was pointed out that all suppliers are not situated similarly in terms of how they impacted with regard to consensus policies. Suppliers who have contracts with ICANN as registries or registrars are required to implement applicable consensus policies; other suppliers have no such obligation. This in no way means that other suppliers are not impacted by consensus policies but they definitely do not incur new contractual requirements. When it was initially decided to include the requirement to implement consensus policies in registry and registrar agreements, it was fully understood that this was a very unique contractual term. It has been pointed out many times over the years by various parties that any parties who execute such agreements are committing themselves to abide by policies that are unknown when they sign the agreements. Therefore, some bounds were put around what could be a consensus policy (e.g., the picket fence) to try to control the risk in a reasonable manner. In the development of existing voting rules in the Council, this same issue was considered and that resulted in what we know today as weighted voting, an effort to create some balance between those who are required to implement consensus policies and those who do not. There of course has been a lot of objection to this, but in my opinion, before weighted voting was put in place, the contracted parties had little influence over policy development even though they were directly impacted. Now to the point at hand. If we had a supplier house that included contracted and non-contracted parties, entities with no obligation to fulfill consensus policies could have significant influence over those who do. Let's use the RySG as an example. Right now we have 14 members who all have contracts with ICANN. If we added potential new registry operators as voting members, the RySG could be overwhelmed by those without contracts and the 14 who are required to follow consensus policies could end up having very little voice even though their business models could be directly impacted. I believe that the BGC WG and ultimately the full Board recognized the significance of this issue in deciding to make a registry or registrar agreement a prerequisite to membership in what we now know as the Contracted Party House. None of this is new. In fact, everything I have said has been said many times over and that was the source of my frustration. You were correct in your observation that ICANN controls who becomes a member of the Contracted Party House because they are a party to the contracts. But as it stands now, ICANN also controls who becomes members of the SGs in the Non-contracted Party House via SG and Constituency Charter approval. I seriously doubt that ICANN Staff speed up or delay registry or registrar agreement execution because of wanting to control the timing of when registries or registrars become eligible to join a constituency and I don't believe there is any evidence to support that. I think the question at hand is where do potential registries and registrars fit until they do execute contracts. In the case of potential registries, they are definitely welcome in the RyC (soon to be RySG) as observers and I think the same is true for registrars. Should they be allowed in non-contracted party constituencies or SGs? I am sure that some organizations who may become registries already are members of non-contracted party constituencies so it is a natural occurrence. Should new members who specifically want to become involved to be a registry or registrar be admitted into those constituencies until such time as they execute contracts? That is a decision for those constituencies and the Board in their approval of charters. I personally have tried to avoid trying to suggest what other constituencies should do. A side topic that we have not spent much time talking about is this: Many organizations have multiple lines of business that fit into different GNSO boxes. For example, from an interest point of view, VeriSign fits into the RyC, the CBUC and the IPC. In the case of the IPC, we have been allowed to participate; in the case of the CBUC, we have not been allowed. I support what the President Strategy Committee recommends: organizations should be allowed to participate in multiple constituencies but should only be allowed to vote in one. There are chances that this issue will be expanded in a new way with new gTLDs if registrars become registries. Sorry for going on so long. Hope this helps. Chuck
-----Original Message----- From: owner-council@gnso.icann.org [mailto:owner-council@gnso.icann.org] On Behalf Of Rosette, Kristina Sent: Wednesday, July 15, 2009 12:22 AM To: Council GNSO Subject: RE: [council] Registry Operators
I'll take that as an "I'm not", Chuck.
If you could, please, connect the dots for me. I don't understand the connection you've drawn. How would admitting registry operators (or the IDN constituency or the Cities constituency) to the RyC/RC Group affect the prior commitment to be bound by consensus policy? I'm definitely not getting it.
Not sure of the point behind the lack of empathy/retread comment. I didn't start this thread and my question is one that I don't believe I've ever raised or heard raised.
-----Original Message----- From: Gomes, Chuck [mailto:cgomes@verisign.com] Sent: Tuesday, July 14, 2009 11:02 PM To: Rosette, Kristina; Council GNSO Subject: RE: [council] Registry Operators
It gets very frustrating to go through this same issue over and over again. There is a very clear reason why the RyC and the RrC are restricted to those who have registry or registrar agreements with ICANN: In those agreements, registries and registrars commit in advance to implementing consensus policies that are within the picket fence without having any knowledge of the details of those polices. That is a very exceptional situation in the world of business contracting as I have to believe attorneys know full well. As a result of that 'blind' commitment, registries and registrars can be seriously impacted by policy development actions of the GNSO.
I can accept the fact that some may not have any empathy for the contracted parties and may not like this but let's at least not continue to retread ground that we have covered many times before.
Chuck
-----Original Message----- From: owner-council@gnso.icann.org [mailto:owner-council@gnso.icann.org] On Behalf Of Rosette, Kristina Sent: Tuesday, July 14, 2009 10:47 PM To: Council GNSO Subject: RE: [council] Registry Operators
Am I the only who is troubled by the fact that restricting membership in the registrar and registry constituency to entities that are ICANN contracted parties effectively gives ICANN control over which entities
are and are not members and the timing by which entities become eligible for membership?
-----Original Message----- From: owner-council@gnso.icann.org [mailto:owner-council@gnso.icann.org] On Behalf Of Bruce Tonkin Sent: Tuesday, July 14, 2009 9:25 PM To: Council GNSO Subject: RE: [council] Registry Operators
Hello All,
Agreed, it is an old, important issue that is still
unresolved and
must be resolved before the GNSO restructure can take place.
It is certainly worth considering further.
Membership of the registry and registrar constituency has generally been very clear - based on the legal entity being a contracted party with ICANN as either a TLD manager or a gTLD registrar. This information is publicly available on the ICANN website.
There are other parties involved in the process of the domain name value chain.
E.g
(1) Consultants - there are many consultants and lawyers that provide services to the members of the registry and registrar constituency or members of other constituencies - these consultants and lawyers can be
split across the business constituency and the IP constituency.
(2) Internet Service Providers - while some purely provide connectivity - many of these companies have moved into value added services - and many are significant suppliers of domain names (either as accredited registrars, or as resellers of accredited registrars).
(3) Other domain name resellers - e.g portals (e.g Yahoo), software companies (e.g Microsoft), search engines (e.g Google), web hosting companies - there are wide range of domain name resellers. Some of thee are very large companies and supply large volumes (e.g over 100,000 names) of domain names to their customers. At different times staff or consultants/external lawyers of these companies have been members of registrar, business constituency or IP constituency.
(4) Domainers - these companies operate a portfolio of domain names - they often do not supply domain name registration services to other parties - but may sell some of their domain name licences from time-to-time. They may be accredited registrars (usually to get the lowest possible wholesale price for domains), or may simply be resellers. Where they are not registrars - it is not clear what constituency that should be members of. They would probably consider themselves to be members of the business constituency - as they are "business users" of domain names (earn revenue from advertising, or from the future sale of the domain name licence), and not involved in supplying domain name registration services to third parties.
For consultants or lawyers it is often complex as they may have some customers/clients that are associated with the domain name supply industry and some customers/clients that are not.
In many cases large companies have different departments (or legal subsidiaries) - e.g a legal department, network connectivity department, domains/hosting department - and it can be convenient to have staff members of different departments/subsidiaries to join different constituencies (e.g Registrar, ISP constituency, IP constituency).
So do you make the decision on the basis of the corporate entity (could be operating across multiple area of interest in the GNSO), or on the basis of the individual (may work for a particular department of a corporate, or may work for many clients).
Ultimately this will probably be hard to resolve. Perhaps the best to
hope for is that members of constituencies clearly define their potential conflicts of interest. This could be at a corporate level and at an individual level (e.g identify clients involved in different constituencies if a consultant). It would also be useful to require this to happen at the beginning of establishing working groups (not as
a method of exclusion - but to clearly state potential conflicts).
The reality is that many members of the GNSO community can potentially participate in multiple roles. Trying to create very tight exclusion rules (e.g you can be a member of constituency x - provided you have no other relationship with any member of another constituency) may unnecessarily restrict participation.
Regards, Bruce Tonkin
Very helpful, thanks very much. I now understand the connection you were drawing. Didn't mean to suggest that ICANN staff actually speed up or delay action on registry or registrar execution. To me it's more of a perception/appearance issue in that they could theoretically do so. K -----Original Message----- From: Gomes, Chuck [mailto:cgomes@verisign.com] Sent: Wednesday, July 15, 2009 10:13 AM To: Rosette, Kristina; Council GNSO Subject: RE: [council] Registry Operators Please forgive my frustration Kristina. I should avoid responding at night and wait until morning because I am definitely a morning person. Let me try to explain my line of thought. During the lengthy discussions about GNSO improvements as the BGC WG was finalizing its recommendations a lot of time was spent on the question of where suppliers in general should fit in the GNSO. You will recall I am sure that it was noted that ISPs are suppliers and the idea of including them on the supplier side was considered. Resellers are another example. During those discussions it was pointed out that all suppliers are not situated similarly in terms of how they impacted with regard to consensus policies. Suppliers who have contracts with ICANN as registries or registrars are required to implement applicable consensus policies; other suppliers have no such obligation. This in no way means that other suppliers are not impacted by consensus policies but they definitely do not incur new contractual requirements. When it was initially decided to include the requirement to implement consensus policies in registry and registrar agreements, it was fully understood that this was a very unique contractual term. It has been pointed out many times over the years by various parties that any parties who execute such agreements are committing themselves to abide by policies that are unknown when they sign the agreements. Therefore, some bounds were put around what could be a consensus policy (e.g., the picket fence) to try to control the risk in a reasonable manner. In the development of existing voting rules in the Council, this same issue was considered and that resulted in what we know today as weighted voting, an effort to create some balance between those who are required to implement consensus policies and those who do not. There of course has been a lot of objection to this, but in my opinion, before weighted voting was put in place, the contracted parties had little influence over policy development even though they were directly impacted. Now to the point at hand. If we had a supplier house that included contracted and non-contracted parties, entities with no obligation to fulfill consensus policies could have significant influence over those who do. Let's use the RySG as an example. Right now we have 14 members who all have contracts with ICANN. If we added potential new registry operators as voting members, the RySG could be overwhelmed by those without contracts and the 14 who are required to follow consensus policies could end up having very little voice even though their business models could be directly impacted. I believe that the BGC WG and ultimately the full Board recognized the significance of this issue in deciding to make a registry or registrar agreement a prerequisite to membership in what we now know as the Contracted Party House. None of this is new. In fact, everything I have said has been said many times over and that was the source of my frustration. You were correct in your observation that ICANN controls who becomes a member of the Contracted Party House because they are a party to the contracts. But as it stands now, ICANN also controls who becomes members of the SGs in the Non-contracted Party House via SG and Constituency Charter approval. I seriously doubt that ICANN Staff speed up or delay registry or registrar agreement execution because of wanting to control the timing of when registries or registrars become eligible to join a constituency and I don't believe there is any evidence to support that. I think the question at hand is where do potential registries and registrars fit until they do execute contracts. In the case of potential registries, they are definitely welcome in the RyC (soon to be RySG) as observers and I think the same is true for registrars. Should they be allowed in non-contracted party constituencies or SGs? I am sure that some organizations who may become registries already are members of non-contracted party constituencies so it is a natural occurrence. Should new members who specifically want to become involved to be a registry or registrar be admitted into those constituencies until such time as they execute contracts? That is a decision for those constituencies and the Board in their approval of charters. I personally have tried to avoid trying to suggest what other constituencies should do. A side topic that we have not spent much time talking about is this: Many organizations have multiple lines of business that fit into different GNSO boxes. For example, from an interest point of view, VeriSign fits into the RyC, the CBUC and the IPC. In the case of the IPC, we have been allowed to participate; in the case of the CBUC, we have not been allowed. I support what the President Strategy Committee recommends: organizations should be allowed to participate in multiple constituencies but should only be allowed to vote in one. There are chances that this issue will be expanded in a new way with new gTLDs if registrars become registries. Sorry for going on so long. Hope this helps. Chuck
-----Original Message----- From: owner-council@gnso.icann.org [mailto:owner-council@gnso.icann.org] On Behalf Of Rosette, Kristina Sent: Wednesday, July 15, 2009 12:22 AM To: Council GNSO Subject: RE: [council] Registry Operators
I'll take that as an "I'm not", Chuck.
If you could, please, connect the dots for me. I don't understand the connection you've drawn. How would admitting registry operators (or the IDN constituency or the Cities constituency) to the RyC/RC Group affect the prior commitment to be bound by consensus policy? I'm definitely not getting it.
Not sure of the point behind the lack of empathy/retread comment. I didn't start this thread and my question is one that I don't believe I've ever raised or heard raised.
-----Original Message----- From: Gomes, Chuck [mailto:cgomes@verisign.com] Sent: Tuesday, July 14, 2009 11:02 PM To: Rosette, Kristina; Council GNSO Subject: RE: [council] Registry Operators
It gets very frustrating to go through this same issue over and over again. There is a very clear reason why the RyC and the RrC are restricted to those who have registry or registrar agreements with ICANN: In those agreements, registries and registrars commit in advance to implementing consensus policies that are within the picket fence without having any knowledge of the details of those polices. That is a very exceptional situation in the world of business contracting as I have to believe attorneys know full well. As a result of that 'blind' commitment, registries and registrars can be seriously impacted by policy development actions of the GNSO.
I can accept the fact that some may not have any empathy for the contracted parties and may not like this but let's at least not continue to retread ground that we have covered many times before.
Chuck
-----Original Message----- From: owner-council@gnso.icann.org [mailto:owner-council@gnso.icann.org] On Behalf Of Rosette, Kristina Sent: Tuesday, July 14, 2009 10:47 PM To: Council GNSO Subject: RE: [council] Registry Operators
Am I the only who is troubled by the fact that restricting membership in the registrar and registry constituency to entities that are ICANN contracted parties effectively gives ICANN control over which entities
are and are not members and the timing by which entities become eligible for membership?
-----Original Message----- From: owner-council@gnso.icann.org [mailto:owner-council@gnso.icann.org] On Behalf Of Bruce Tonkin Sent: Tuesday, July 14, 2009 9:25 PM To: Council GNSO Subject: RE: [council] Registry Operators
Hello All,
Agreed, it is an old, important issue that is still
unresolved and
must be resolved before the GNSO restructure can take place.
It is certainly worth considering further.
Membership of the registry and registrar constituency has generally been very clear - based on the legal entity being a contracted party with ICANN as either a TLD manager or a gTLD registrar. This information is publicly available on the ICANN website.
There are other parties involved in the process of the domain name value chain.
E.g
(1) Consultants - there are many consultants and lawyers that provide services to the members of the registry and registrar constituency or members of other constituencies - these consultants and lawyers can be
split across the business constituency and the IP constituency.
(2) Internet Service Providers - while some purely provide connectivity - many of these companies have moved into value added services - and many are significant suppliers of domain names (either as accredited registrars, or as resellers of accredited registrars).
(3) Other domain name resellers - e.g portals (e.g Yahoo), software companies (e.g Microsoft), search engines (e.g Google), web hosting companies - there are wide range of domain name resellers. Some of thee are very large companies and supply large volumes (e.g over 100,000 names) of domain names to their customers. At different times staff or consultants/external lawyers of these companies have been members of registrar, business constituency or IP constituency.
(4) Domainers - these companies operate a portfolio of domain names - they often do not supply domain name registration services to other parties - but may sell some of their domain name licences from time-to-time. They may be accredited registrars (usually to get the lowest possible wholesale price for domains), or may simply be resellers. Where they are not registrars - it is not clear what constituency that should be members of. They would probably consider themselves to be members of the business constituency - as they are "business users" of domain names (earn revenue from advertising, or from the future sale of the domain name licence), and not involved in supplying domain name registration services to third parties.
For consultants or lawyers it is often complex as they may have some customers/clients that are associated with the domain name supply industry and some customers/clients that are not.
In many cases large companies have different departments (or legal subsidiaries) - e.g a legal department, network connectivity department, domains/hosting department - and it can be convenient to have staff members of different departments/subsidiaries to join different constituencies (e.g Registrar, ISP constituency, IP constituency).
So do you make the decision on the basis of the corporate entity (could be operating across multiple area of interest in the GNSO), or on the basis of the individual (may work for a particular department of a corporate, or may work for many clients).
Ultimately this will probably be hard to resolve. Perhaps the best to
hope for is that members of constituencies clearly define their potential conflicts of interest. This could be at a corporate level and at an individual level (e.g identify clients involved in different constituencies if a consultant). It would also be useful to require this to happen at the beginning of establishing working groups (not as
a method of exclusion - but to clearly state potential conflicts).
The reality is that many members of the GNSO community can potentially participate in multiple roles. Trying to create very tight exclusion rules (e.g you can be a member of constituency x - provided you have no other relationship with any member of another constituency) may unnecessarily restrict participation.
Regards, Bruce Tonkin
The issues of organisations with multiple interest that span ICANN constituencies is easily solved. Where is the organisation's primary interest? There it should be, and no where else as any organisation will tend to exert influence directly or indirectly, consciously or sub consciously in pursuit of its main interest. Influence within a constituency goes far beyond votes. Indeed influence within the BC is almost entirely about dialogue and persistence. Can we expect Verisign to pursue a policy in the IPC that runs directly contrary to its interests as a registry of .com? I think not. By all means let organisations exist in trade groups elsewhere but in the ICANN context they should choose and vote where their primary interest lies. And if future structural change in the industry means that it is no longer obvious where that interest exists in a constituency, it would be a flag to reform the constituency model to fit that future. Philip PS I support Tim's contention that recent constituency applications seem to be splinter groups seeking to leverage their factional interests. Adding this complexity to our existing byzantine organisation is not healthy.
I have been advised of another category to the list below. (5) Data Escrow providers They are contracted to ICANN so could be in the contracted parties house - but don't fit neatly into either registry or registrar constituencies. They also probably provide services to those in the user house. Regards, Bruce
-----Original Message----- From: owner-council@gnso.icann.org [mailto:owner-council@gnso.icann.org] On Behalf Of Bruce Tonkin Sent: Wednesday, 15 July 2009 11:25 AM To: Council GNSO Subject: RE: [council] Registry Operators
Hello All,
Agreed, it is an old, important issue that is still unresolved and must be resolved before the GNSO restructure can take place.
It is certainly worth considering further.
Membership of the registry and registrar constituency has generally been very clear - based on the legal entity being a contracted party with ICANN as either a TLD manager or a gTLD registrar. This information is publicly available on the ICANN website.
There are other parties involved in the process of the domain name value chain.
E.g
(1) Consultants - there are many consultants and lawyers that provide services to the members of the registry and registrar constituency or members of other constituencies - these consultants and lawyers can be split across the business constituency and the IP constituency.
(2) Internet Service Providers - while some purely provide connectivity - many of these companies have moved into value added services - and many are significant suppliers of domain names (either as accredited registrars, or as resellers of accredited registrars).
(3) Other domain name resellers - e.g portals (e.g Yahoo), software companies (e.g Microsoft), search engines (e.g Google), web hosting companies - there are wide range of domain name resellers. Some of thee are very large companies and supply large volumes (e.g over 100,000 names) of domain names to their customers. At different times staff or consultants/external lawyers of these companies have been members of registrar, business constituency or IP constituency.
(4) Domainers - these companies operate a portfolio of domain names - they often do not supply domain name registration services to other parties - but may sell some of their domain name licences from time-to-time. They may be accredited registrars (usually to get the lowest possible wholesale price for domains), or may simply be resellers. Where they are not registrars - it is not clear what constituency that should be members of. They would probably consider themselves to be members of the business constituency - as they are "business users" of domain names (earn revenue from advertising, or from the future sale of the domain name licence), and not involved in supplying domain name registration services to third parties.
For consultants or lawyers it is often complex as they may have some customers/clients that are associated with the domain name supply industry and some customers/clients that are not.
In many cases large companies have different departments (or legal subsidiaries) - e.g a legal department, network connectivity department, domains/hosting department - and it can be convenient to have staff members of different departments/subsidiaries to join different constituencies (e.g Registrar, ISP constituency, IP constituency).
So do you make the decision on the basis of the corporate entity (could be operating across multiple area of interest in the GNSO), or on the basis of the individual (may work for a particular department of a corporate, or may work for many clients).
Ultimately this will probably be hard to resolve. Perhaps the best to hope for is that members of constituencies clearly define their potential conflicts of interest. This could be at a corporate level and at an individual level (e.g identify clients involved in different constituencies if a consultant). It would also be useful to require this to happen at the beginning of establishing working groups (not as a method of exclusion - but to clearly state potential conflicts).
The reality is that many members of the GNSO community can potentially participate in multiple roles. Trying to create very tight exclusion rules (e.g you can be a member of constituency x - provided you have no other relationship with any member of another constituency) may unnecessarily restrict participation.
Regards, Bruce Tonkin
As I pointed out months ago on this list, there is a fundamental disconnect in two significant GNSO changes: a) the bicameral model b) new constituencies. The bicameral model compromise thrashed out last summer was an agreement between the existing constituencies who all neatly fit into the two Houses. The subsequent belief that new constituencies are needed has exposed the impossibility of the bicameral compromise: they do not fit. Trying to fit supply-related constituencies to the user-related House introduces such conflict and dilution that it brings the very credibility of ICANN into question. There are solutions: a) change the Houses to be Supply-side and User-side b) abandon new Constituencies c) abandon the bicameral approach and remove contract parties from the GNSO leaving their main ICANN involvement as bilateral negotiators (and as participants in GNSO working groups) I suggest none of these solutions has universal appeal. Philip
I believe you are correct Philip than none of the solutions you listed has universal appeal. We already explored a), making one house a supply side; the key problem from my perspective with that is that it mixes those who have blind contractual obligations to follow consensus policies with those who have no such obligation, thereby giving those without such obligations significant influence over those who do. Abandoning new constituencies is contrary to the Board approved recommendations of expanding participation unless a means of accomplishing that objective can be developed differently than through constituencies. Abandoning the bicameral approach would mean starting all over, an option that would set us back several years. The only option that seems to me to have any potential is developing a way to encourage participation of new groups without requiring them to be in constituencies; maybe this is worth further focus. The problems being encountered really only become significant when voting is required. Assuming that we are successful at moving effectively to an improved working group model for policy development that minimizes the need for voting (and I am one who is optimistic about that) and assuming that the Council becomes a manager of that process rather than a policy development body itself, then Council votes should become much less important. One area where they are important is with regard to GNSO Board seats; that is why we designed a specific solution for that. Other Council votes should primarily be related to confirming that the new PDP is adequately followed, that WG's follow the new guidelines being developed, etc. Chuck
-----Original Message----- From: owner-council@gnso.icann.org [mailto:owner-council@gnso.icann.org] On Behalf Of Philip Sheppard Sent: Wednesday, July 15, 2009 4:11 AM To: 'Council GNSO' Cc: 'Bruce Tonkin' Subject: [council] Registry Operators et al
As I pointed out months ago on this list, there is a fundamental disconnect in two significant GNSO changes: a) the bicameral model b) new constituencies.
The bicameral model compromise thrashed out last summer was an agreement between the existing constituencies who all neatly fit into the two Houses. The subsequent belief that new constituencies are needed has exposed the impossibility of the bicameral compromise: they do not fit.
Trying to fit supply-related constituencies to the user-related House introduces such conflict and dilution that it brings the very credibility of ICANN into question.
There are solutions: a) change the Houses to be Supply-side and User-side b) abandon new Constituencies c) abandon the bicameral approach and remove contract parties from the GNSO leaving their main ICANN involvement as bilateral negotiators (and as participants in GNSO working groups)
I suggest none of these solutions has universal appeal.
Philip
Hello Chuck,
The only option that seems to me to have any potential is developing a way to encourage participation of new groups without requiring them to be in constituencies; maybe this is worth further focus.
This was essentially what gave rise to the formation of working groups within the new gTLD process. The IDN working group was opened to allow participation from community members that were not members of existing constituencies. This occurred after a public forum run by the GNSO Council where several people came to the microphone claiming that they had either been refused membership at a particular constituency, or did not feel that there was a constituency that they could join. Regards, Bruce Tonkin
So how does this response help? I'll simply proceed with my Registry Service Providers Constituency application and let the Board decide (and wait until the BC veto's their decision). Thanks. Adrian Kinderis From: owner-council@gnso.icann.org [mailto:owner-council@gnso.icann.org] On Behalf Of Philip Sheppard Sent: Tuesday, 14 July 2009 11:55 PM To: 'Council GNSO' Subject: RE: [council] Registry Operators Gentleman, its an old debate No no no and no.
participants (7)
-
Adrian Kinderis -
Bruce Tonkin -
Gomes, Chuck -
Mike Rodenbaugh -
Philip Sheppard -
Rosette, Kristina -
Stéphane Van Gelder