The ICANN Staff questions are: 1. Who benefits from domain tasting, and who is harmed? Who benefits? domain speculators (not necessarily domainers in general). Some registrars who were set up specifically to be domain speculators. Who is harmed? legitimate domainers who purchase domains in good faith. Some registrars who were set up to be legitimate registrars. The Internet population in general by the use of bad-faith speculators. 2. Who would benefit from cessation of the practice and who would be harmed? The reverse of #1 3. How are registry operators being affected by domain tasting? It destabilizes the registry in the manner that domains - instead of staying in the system for the 1-year registration period - are constantly added and deleted over the course of a week. 4. How are registrars being affected by domain tasting? Those who allow tasting bring it on themselves. 5. How are registrants being affected by domain tasting? In general, most good-faith registrants are not effected. The domains which are entered into the system due to misspellings/typos should be charged the full fee anyway and put through the system like any other domain. Bad-faith registrants are affected because it gives them a viable business model in which to operate. 6. Are there different categories of registrants affected differently? Yes, as stated above. 7. What enforceable rules could be applied toward domain tasting activity? None, the AGP should be done away with in entirety. 8. What would be the impact (positive or negative) of establishing limitations, guidelines or restrictions on registrars' use of the AGP? The only impact possible would be negative because it would still be misused on a grand scale by the registrars themselves. 9. What would be the impact (positive or negative) on registries, registrars, and registrants of eliminating the AGP? The positive impact is the registry would be more stable, without the constant adding and deleting of domains, the registration periods for domains would be predictable. The AGP has never served the purpose for which it was excused to be. The negative impact is that bad-faith registrars and registrants would lose a valuable revenue source. re: On 7/8/07, Danny Younger <dannyyounger@yahoo.com> wrote:
The ICANN Staff Issues report on Domain Tasting raised a number of questions. In view of these questions the GNSO Council decided to defer the initiation of a Policy Development Process (PDP) until such time as a "small ad-hoc group of GNSO representatives" reported back with their findings.
The ICANN Staff questions are:
1. Who benefits from domain tasting, and who is harmed?
2. Who would benefit from cessation of the practice and who would be harmed?
3. How are registry operators being affected by domain tasting?
4. How are registrars being affected by domain tasting?
5. How are registrants being affected by domain tasting?
6. Are there different categories of registrants affected differently?
7. What enforceable rules could be applied toward domain tasting activity?
8. What would be the impact (positive or negative) of establishing limitations, guidelines or restrictions on registrars' use of the AGP?
9. What would be the impact (positive or negative) on registries, registrars, and registrants of eliminating the AGP?
Frankly, fact-finding is supposed to be the reponsibility of the ALAC who under the bylaws is charged with reporting "their findings and recommendations to the Board".
I would recommend that if the ALAC really cares about this issue that the above questions be answered in an ALAC submission to the GNSO (along with any other pertinent findings that may be of use to the council).
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