I wanted to share with the NA RALO this chain (below) that illustrates some inspiring co-operation among RALO, ALAC and ICANN staff on communications about the pre-registration issue. There may have been a fair amount of to-ing and fro-ing with e-mails and what not, but positive things emerged: 1. Results. 2. Opening up or strengthening issue communication to Scott Pinzon. 3. Stepping back and setting down some actual procedures for "bottom up" policy communications. Thanks Evan, Darlene, Scott, Olivier et al for a semi-grueling procecural slog that hopefully will cut the work in half the next time around. Beau -----Forwarded Message----- From: Scott Pinzon Sent: Sep 1, 2011 5:06 PM To: Beau Brendler , "Thompson,Darlene" , Evan Leibovitch Cc: Olivier MJ Crepin-Leblond , Cheryl Langdon-Orr , Seth Greene , Heidi Ullrich , Michele Jourdan Subject: Re: Consumer information on domain "pre-registrations" Thanks for asking, Beau. The text I reproduced below was already cleared by ICANNâs Legal Depât, so permission granted from my end. Best, Scott On 9/1/11 1:38 PM, "Beau Brendler" <[1]beaubrendler@earthlink.net> wrote: This is really great to see (not the bad behavior, of course, but us working together and being responsive). I would like permission to forward this exchange to the NA RALO list. Beau -----Original Message----- From: Scott Pinzon Sent: Sep 1, 2011 3:39 PM To: "Thompson, Darlene" , Evan Leibovitch Cc: Beau Brendler , Olivier MJ Crepin-Leblond , Cheryl Langdon-Orr , Seth Greene , Heidi Ullrich , Michele Jourdan Subject: Re: Consumer information on domain "pre-registrations" Re: Consumer information on domain "pre-registrations" Wow, and here we go again: [2]http://www.key-systems.net/press/next_big_dot_thing.php (with a link from there to:) [3]http://www.preorderyourdomain.com/ Nine thousand+ âpre-ordersâ of non-existent domains. Compliance Depât and the Registrar Liaison have been made aware of this one, too. I repeat: thanks for surfacing the issue. I will bump up the user education materials a couple of notches in our lengthy queue of materials to create. Best Regards, Scott On 9/1/11 11:14 AM, "Thompson, Darlene" <[4]DThompson1@GOV.NU.CA> wrote: Thank you to Evan for brining this forward to Scott and thank you so much Scott for having this attended to so quickly! Darlene NARALO Secretariat Darlene A. Thompson Community Access Program Administrator Nunavut Dept. of Education / N-CAP P.O. Box 1000, Station 910 Iqaluit, NU X0A 0H0 Phone: (867) 975-5631 Fax: (867) 975-5610 E-mail: [5]dthompson@gov.nu.ca <[6]mailto:dthompson@gov.nu.ca> From: Scott Pinzon [[7]mailto:scott.pinzon@icann.org] Sent: Thursday, September 01, 2011 1:58 PM To: Evan Leibovitch Cc: Beau Brendler; Thompson, Darlene; Olivier MJ Crepin-Leblond; Cheryl Langdon-Orr; Seth Greene; Heidi Ullrich; Michele Jourdan Subject: Re: Consumer information on domain "pre-registrations" Hi Evan, Your United Domains example was really helpful. I have interacted with the ICANN Compliance Department, who responds in part: Scott, Thank you for bringing this to my attention. We will work with the registrar in question to make sure that they address the confusion about ICANN registrar accreditation and pre-registrations in speculative new gTLDs. ICANN has not authorized anyone to offer such pre-registrations. Our compliance and registrar liaison teams will work to make sure that registrars understand this, and we will be happy to work with the communications team on ways to better educate the public as suggested by Evan. In the spirit of the thread earlier, ICANN will send the word out to all registrars (not merely United Domains) that they shouldnât offer âpre-registrationsâ and that claiming one is authorized to do so because the organization is âICANN-accreditedâ is off limits. This is not the end of this issue, but itâs a constructive step; thanks again for putting the issue front and center. Best Regards, Scott On 8/29/11 11:45 AM, "Evan Leibovitch" <[8]evan@telly.org> wrote: Hi Scott, Thanks for the quick reply. So, next step where I would deeply appreciate ALAC help is if you can provide examples of such pre-registration offers being made. This will help us know how to outline our educational materials, as weâll know what kinds of tricks and come-ons are being attempted. The example of pre-registration which prompted the most recent policy discussions in NARALO is United Domains <[9]https://www.uniteddomains.com/ntld/pre-register-new-domains> . While this is indeed a specific example, I am concerned that concentrating on one specific instance may simply lead to a game of "whack-a-mole", in which one effort may go away just to be followed by another. In addition to specific examples I think it's necessary to alert the public to the practice in general, as the effort will most certainly appear in marketplaces outside our direct view. And thanks, Beau, for offering to share the load on this -- and I hope you get your electricity back soon. :-) - Evan On 29 August 2011 13:49, Scott Pinzon <[10]scott.pinzon@icann.org> wrote: Hi Evan, Thanks for reaching out to me with your email. We are on the same page regarding this issue. I believe that the scope of ICANNâs communications about new gTLDs should include end-user education about potential frauds such as you describe. Since ICANNâs official stance is that no proposed new gTLD can be assumed to exist in the future until it goes through all the evaluations described in the Applicant Guidebook, of course reserving second-level domain names under non-existent top-level domains is improper. Iâve been keeping half an eye on this issue since I first saw a YouTube video from a fly-by-night company offering reservations in non-existent proposed TLDs. By the time I had alerted other ICANN staff about the issue, the YouTube video had been taken down, and the site it pointed to was also gone. So, next step where I would deeply appreciate ALAC help is if you can provide examples of such pre-registration offers being made. This will help us know how to outline our educational materials, as weâll know what kinds of tricks and come-ons are being attempted. Thanks again for raising the issue, and I look forward to working cooperatively with At-Large in defense of the Internetâs individual users. Best Regards, Scott On 8/26/11 9:29 PM, "Evan Leibovitch" <[11]evan@telly.org <[12]http://evan@telly.org> > wrote: Hi Scott, Currently in NARALO (the North American region of At-Large) a significant concern has been raised about the concept of "pre-registrations" ... that is, some companies are offering to reserve for potential registrants, domains in TLDs that don't yet exist (but are expected to be approved in the new gTLD process). Some in At-Large believe that offering non-existent domains constitutes a form of consumer fraud, even if no money changes hands initially. Others are concerned that if the companies doing this are neither registries, registrars or gTLD applicants and they are beyond reach of ICANN regulatory mechanisms. While this issue is currently under debate as related to ICANN policy, I am wondering if I can interest you in it, as part of your mandate to have the public better educated about the domain registration process. Would it be possible to do some kind of public ICANN information that at very least describes what pre-registration is (and what it is not), from the point of view of having more-aware registrants? Whether or not there is escalation for ICANN to do anything at a regulatory or policy level, perhaps we can at least tackle the educational component of this issue -- whether pre-registrations are legally fraud or not, they are most certainly (in my opinion at least) a significant source of registrant confusion. Some trusted factual information is certainly appropriate as a minimum. What do you think? PS: While I an a NARALO member and ALAC Vice-Chair, I am writing this on my own initiative as a personal request for your consideration based on my involvement in the issue so far. Should you be interested to pursue this further there are others far better versed on the issue than I to assist with the educational process. Evan Leibovitch, Toronto Canada Em: evan at telly dot org Sk: evanleibovitch Tw: el56 References 1. file://localhost/tmp/beaubrendler@earthlink.net 2. http://www.key-systems.net/press/next_big_dot_thing.php 3. http://www.preorderyourdomain.com/ 4. file://localhost/tmp/DThompson1@GOV.NU.CA 5. file://localhost/tmp/dthompson@gov.nu.ca 6. mailto:dthompson@gov.nu.ca 7. mailto:scott.pinzon@icann.org 8. file://localhost/tmp/evan@telly.org 9. https://www.uniteddomains.com/ntld/pre-register-new-domains 10. file://localhost/tmp/scott.pinzon@icann.org 11. file://localhost/tmp/evan@telly.org 12. http://evan@telly.org/