Hello Claire,
I just wanted to document my Zoom intervention on today’s CPWG call here via the mailing list to hopefully spur additional discussion.
Claire I will document my concerns here and in the CPWG mailing list. Louie Touton’s original General Counsel
had a saying that ICANN’s mission is to protect competition, not individual competitors’ business models. All too often in ICANN’s current PDP, Registrars and Registrars flex their de facto veto authority at the GNSO to impede real, meaningful change. Why
this is BAD for ICANN is that it demonstrates that certain aspects of ICANN’s multistakeholder model have been captured, thus leaving disenfranchised members to resort to national laws, see NIS2, Chinese Real Name Verification, India litigation, etc.
Sadly, one can see the handwriting on the wall on how this PDP will end, and one needs to look no further back in history than the transfer PDP. The registrars will get almost everything they want, and ALAC will get some consolation footnote about addressing
their concerns in future work.
Registrars will be out in force in this PDP as they are the tip of the Abuse spear since most Registries have now gone thin. Registries will largely remain silent because they do not want to alienate their channel or incur higher listing/placement fees. In
fact, the importance of Registries NOT upsetting their Registrar channel is a topic of an upcoming session at the ICANN Contractual Party Summit, see
https://cpsummit2026.sched.com/event/2GbE1/how-to-engage-and-not-enrage-the-channel
Thoughts? Comments?
Best regards,
Michael