Domain tasting -- epilogue(?)
Hello everyone, At least many of you have been following and participating in the debate on the global At-Large list (and occasionally diverted into the ALAC's internal list) on the issue of Domain Tasting. The stance taken at last month's NARALO conference call was strong, clear, and dare I say even courageous given the motherhood statements that existed in the draft position. Our call to eliminate the add-grade period (AGP) is now part of the official ALAC document which resides at this URL: https://st.icann.org/data/workspaces/gnso-liaison/attachments/domain_tasting... I find it extremely unfortunate that ALAC could not itself take a strong anti-AGP stand, but the final outcome was -- to me -- much better than original drafts that tried to marginalize the position. There are some lingering issues, resulting from the debate, that I would like to address: 1) Some At-Large constituents have contacted me about the possibility of NARALO submitting its own position paper to GNSO independently of ALAC's submission. Personally I am not convinced this is now required, given that the final ALAC document reasonably captures and identifies our position. However, I think we need to at least be aware of the request. How strong is the need for us to create our own document? 2) One particular part of the discussions disturbed me greatly -- the assertion by Alan that ALAC has adopted a position of "silence means consent". Given the lack of input that ALAC usually gets for its initiatives -- and the (IMO) lack of effort it makes to reach out to extract the public point of view -- I find this position to be harmful to the whole At-Large process. I would rather ALAC honestly admit to not having enough feedback on issues, to reporting that it speaks on behalf of a community that has been silent. To me, the "silence equals agreement" position is indefensible and damages the reputation of ALAC -- and indeed ICANN -- amongst the public it is trying to reach. I would like to ask our ALAC representatives to consider this issue. Perhaps a subsequent discussion within NARALO is called for, but I would personally like our reps to officially ask ALAC to end any policy, formal or informal, of "silence means consent". Perhaps some here -- including non-ALAC reps with some history -- can offer why this policy exists in the first place. I would like to especially hear from anyone with a view that this policy needs to stay in place; I honestly don't understand any rationale except for disguising the inability to actually discern the grassroots viewpoint. 3) I'm not certain that the planned vote by ALAC to post internal policy related mail to a public website is sufficient to overturn a culture of secrecy. There are too many on ALAC who simply don't have the mindset that it is a completely public organization for which extremely few issues (mainly personal/personnel issues) should be in-camera. I'm not sure how to address this but I can be certain that it's affecting our credibility. Robert can be singled out for doing an exemplary job of trying to confront this, but I'm wondering if the necessary change in culture is really happening -- or if there is anything we can do about it. 4) Issues have been raised about addressing public complaints or interest to get involved. While I agree that ALAC itself is not equipped to be a consumer ombudsman within ICANN, perhaps we should start thinking of ways to enable/force it within ICANN. What does everyone think? 5) So that we do not get caught in making and defending positions at the last minute, are there any issues listed at http://icann.org/public_comment/ that warrant our specific work? The only one pressing on deadlines is the issue of single-letter second-level domains (ie. a.com or x.asia). - Evan
Wow! Awesome re-cap, Evan! Here are my replies to your points made: 1. No. Unless the NARALO has something significantly different to say/add, and I believe that we are past the deadline anyways. 2. Well said and I'm not sure how we could do better outreach but we certainly need to. 3. A vote means nothing unless people are actually willing to change their ways. I think that by having the Chairs and Secretariats on the internal mailing list and by reminding them intermittently might be helping this problem. Robert has been a true leader in this cause and deserves our thanks. 4. I agree that ALAC cannot become the complaints department for everything but, using the Registerfly example, maybe when things like this come up it denotes a policy area that hasn't been addressed. As somebody posted this last week, maybe we need to be a little more pro-active rather than re-active with this stuff. "How" is not clear to me as we all have other jobs and lives but if this is what we've signed on for... 5. Evan, we need some kind of mechanism for alerting the ALSs with up-coming deadlines. Maybe it means one of us monitoring the page that you flagged. I'm hoping to be able to spend some time over Christmas on ICANN stuff and maybe I can get some kind of schedule set up with a reminder system. I'll probably be just doing this using Outlook which is NOT the best way so if anybody can suggest something, it would be good! D Darlene A. Thompson Community Access Program Administrator Nunavut Department of Education/N-CAP c/o P.O. Box 1000, Station 910 Iqaluit, NU X0A 0H0 Phone: (867) 975-5631 Fax: (867) 975-5610 dthompson@gov.nu.ca -----Original Message----- From: na-discuss-bounces@atlarge-lists.icann.org [mailto:na-discuss-bounces@atlarge-lists.icann.org] On Behalf Of Evan Leibovitch Sent: Monday, December 10, 2007 12:57 PM To: NA Discuss Subject: [NA-Discuss] Domain tasting -- epilogue(?) Hello everyone, At least many of you have been following and participating in the debate on the global At-Large list (and occasionally diverted into the ALAC's internal list) on the issue of Domain Tasting. The stance taken at last month's NARALO conference call was strong, clear, and dare I say even courageous given the motherhood statements that existed in the draft position. Our call to eliminate the add-grade period (AGP) is now part of the official ALAC document which resides at this URL: https://st.icann.org/data/workspaces/gnso-liaison/attachments/domain_tas ting_documents:20071206203659-0-11802/files/05-12-2007-Domain-Tasting-St atement.pdf I find it extremely unfortunate that ALAC could not itself take a strong anti-AGP stand, but the final outcome was -- to me -- much better than original drafts that tried to marginalize the position. There are some lingering issues, resulting from the debate, that I would like to address: 1) Some At-Large constituents have contacted me about the possibility of NARALO submitting its own position paper to GNSO independently of ALAC's submission. Personally I am not convinced this is now required, given that the final ALAC document reasonably captures and identifies our position. However, I think we need to at least be aware of the request. How strong is the need for us to create our own document? 2) One particular part of the discussions disturbed me greatly -- the assertion by Alan that ALAC has adopted a position of "silence means consent". Given the lack of input that ALAC usually gets for its initiatives -- and the (IMO) lack of effort it makes to reach out to extract the public point of view -- I find this position to be harmful to the whole At-Large process. I would rather ALAC honestly admit to not having enough feedback on issues, to reporting that it speaks on behalf of a community that has been silent. To me, the "silence equals agreement" position is indefensible and damages the reputation of ALAC -- and indeed ICANN -- amongst the public it is trying to reach. I would like to ask our ALAC representatives to consider this issue. Perhaps a subsequent discussion within NARALO is called for, but I would personally like our reps to officially ask ALAC to end any policy, formal or informal, of "silence means consent". Perhaps some here -- including non-ALAC reps with some history -- can offer why this policy exists in the first place. I would like to especially hear from anyone with a view that this policy needs to stay in place; I honestly don't understand any rationale except for disguising the inability to actually discern the grassroots viewpoint. 3) I'm not certain that the planned vote by ALAC to post internal policy related mail to a public website is sufficient to overturn a culture of secrecy. There are too many on ALAC who simply don't have the mindset that it is a completely public organization for which extremely few issues (mainly personal/personnel issues) should be in-camera. I'm not sure how to address this but I can be certain that it's affecting our credibility. Robert can be singled out for doing an exemplary job of trying to confront this, but I'm wondering if the necessary change in culture is really happening -- or if there is anything we can do about it. 4) Issues have been raised about addressing public complaints or interest to get involved. While I agree that ALAC itself is not equipped to be a consumer ombudsman within ICANN, perhaps we should start thinking of ways to enable/force it within ICANN. What does everyone think? 5) So that we do not get caught in making and defending positions at the last minute, are there any issues listed at http://icann.org/public_comment/ that warrant our specific work? The only one pressing on deadlines is the issue of single-letter second-level domains (ie. a.com or x.asia). - Evan ------ NA-Discuss mailing list NA-Discuss@atlarge-lists.icann.org http://atlarge-lists.icann.org/mailman/listinfo/na-discuss_atlarge-lists .icann.org Visit the NA-RALO Wiki at https://st.icann.org/naralo/ ------
Thompson, Darlene wrote:
2. Well said and I'm not sure how we could do better outreach but we certainly need to.
My thoughts are that -- if this issue has enough support -- Beau and/or Robert would propose a formal motion to ALAC to rescind any existing "silence is consent" policy, and change it to one that requires ALAC be up-front with the level of public interest/input in any position it is submitting. Generally, IMO silence should be treated as an abstention, not affirmation, as it is in just about every other form of decision-making mechanism I can think of.
4. I agree that ALAC cannot become the complaints department for everything but, using the Registerfly example, maybe when things like this come up it denotes a policy area that hasn't been addressed. As somebody posted this last week, maybe we need to be a little more pro-active rather than re-active with this stuff. "How" is not clear to me as we all have other jobs and lives but if this is what we've signed on for...
Jobs? Lives? Really? ;-)
5. Evan, we need some kind of mechanism for alerting the ALSs with up-coming deadlines. Maybe it means one of us monitoring the page that you flagged. I'm hoping to be able to spend some time over Christmas on ICANN stuff and maybe I can get some kind of schedule set up with a reminder system. I'll probably be just doing this using Outlook which is NOT the best way so if anybody can suggest something, it would be good!
How about using the At-Large Google Calendar that is already in place? It can send alerts in many ways, and this is IMO a totally appropriate use. Right now there are two calendars available ... one started by me (originally to post the San Juan schedule), another created by Nick. I suggest that Nick's calendar be the default one for At-Large, and should perhaps include such relevant deadlines. Whether my original calendar should be re-purposed for North American use or simply deleted is yet to be determined. - Evan
Evan, Question #4 is particularly challenging: ICANN as an organization has always been reluctant to find itself cast in the role of a regulator. The problem, of course, is that while the ccTLD community is sufficiently well regulated, the gTLD community under ICANN's auspices has become the equivalent of the Wild West (with the Sheriff nowhere to be found). ICANN likes to think of itself as promoting industry self-regulation and as serving to coordinate "best practices". The issue, as we know, is that registrars have routinely failed to adopt best practices, have never adopted a Code of Conduct, and seem to go out of their way to avoid self-regulatory activities. Accordingly, we see contract language with phrases like "a registrar SHOULD" instead of "a registrar MUST". God forbid that ICANN should actually create enforceable contract language -- that might mean that if ICANN failed to enforce a provision and a registrant consequently suffered, that ICANN could be held liable... and in no circumstances will ICANN ever expose itself to increased liability. There is, however, a way to deal with consumer complaints that seems to work. AuDa has a Consumer Complaint Resolution Mechanism that thus far has stood the test of time (and apparently hasn't suffered from liability issues)... see http://www.auda.org.au/policies/auda-2007-03/ Perhaps it's time to discuss such an approach with ICANN to deal with gTLD issues. Here's some of the relevant auDa language: 5.2 Under Federal Government policy, the Australian domain name industry is self-regulatory. This means that industry participants are themselves responsible for determining appropriate responses to any problems that arise within the industry. In accordance with this self-regulatory approach, auDA is an office of last resort with regard to making a complaint about a registrar or reseller. Before auDA will investigate a complaint, you must have first attempted to resolve the complaint with the registrar or reseller involved. Under the .au Domain Name SuppliersÂ’ Code of Practice, all registrars and resellers must have adequate complaints-handling policies and procedures in place. 5.3 Before making a complaint to auDA, you must allow a reasonable period of time for the registrar or reseller to respond to your complaint. auDA will not investigate your complaint unless you have done so. You should also collect any relevant supporting documentation, such as registration agreements, policies, emails and other correspondence with the registrar or reseller. Failure to do so may mean that auDA is unable to investigate your complaint for lack of evidence. 5.4 If your complaint is upheld, auDA may take one or more of the following actions: a) request the registrar or reseller to issue you with a full explanation and apology; b) request the registrar or reseller to remedy their error and/or refund any payment for services not received; c) in the case of an unauthorised transfer, instruct the registry to reverse the transfer (refer to the Transfers (Change of Registrar of Record) Policy 2003-03)); d) request the registrar or reseller to amend the practice or procedure that led to your complaint; e) notify the registrar or reseller that they are in breach of the Registrar Agreement, the .au Domain Name SuppliersÂ’ Code of Practice or an auDA Published Policy, and request them to remedy the breach; or f) refer your complaint to the relevant government authority. Please Note: auDA is not a government agency or statutory authority, therefore it does not have legislative power to impose fines or other penalties on a registrar or reseller. PS. The Registry Constituency has released their Domain Tasting Statement: http://www.gtldregistries.org/pdf/ConstituencyStatement-DomainTastingv1.0.pd... --- Evan Leibovitch <evan@telly.org> wrote:
Hello everyone,
At least many of you have been following and participating in the debate on the global At-Large list (and occasionally diverted into the ALAC's internal list) on the issue of Domain Tasting.
The stance taken at last month's NARALO conference call was strong, clear, and dare I say even courageous given the motherhood statements that existed in the draft position. Our call to eliminate the add-grade period (AGP) is now part of the official ALAC document which resides at this URL:
https://st.icann.org/data/workspaces/gnso-liaison/attachments/domain_tasting...
I find it extremely unfortunate that ALAC could not itself take a strong anti-AGP stand, but the final outcome was -- to me -- much better than original drafts that tried to marginalize the position.
There are some lingering issues, resulting from the debate, that I would like to address:
1) Some At-Large constituents have contacted me about the possibility of NARALO submitting its own position paper to GNSO independently of ALAC's submission. Personally I am not convinced this is now required, given that the final ALAC document reasonably captures and identifies our position. However, I think we need to at least be aware of the request. How strong is the need for us to create our own document?
2) One particular part of the discussions disturbed me greatly -- the assertion by Alan that ALAC has adopted a position of "silence means consent". Given the lack of input that ALAC usually gets for its initiatives -- and the (IMO) lack of effort it makes to reach out to extract the public point of view -- I find this position to be harmful to the whole At-Large process. I would rather ALAC honestly admit to not having enough feedback on issues, to reporting that it speaks on behalf of a community that has been silent. To me, the "silence equals agreement" position is indefensible and damages the reputation of ALAC -- and indeed ICANN -- amongst the public it is trying to reach.
I would like to ask our ALAC representatives to consider this issue. Perhaps a subsequent discussion within NARALO is called for, but I would personally like our reps to officially ask ALAC to end any policy, formal or informal, of "silence means consent". Perhaps some here -- including non-ALAC reps with some history -- can offer why this policy exists in the first place. I would like to especially hear from anyone with a view that this policy needs to stay in place; I honestly don't understand any rationale except for disguising the inability to actually discern the grassroots viewpoint.
3) I'm not certain that the planned vote by ALAC to post internal policy related mail to a public website is sufficient to overturn a culture of secrecy. There are too many on ALAC who simply don't have the mindset that it is a completely public organization for which extremely few issues (mainly personal/personnel issues) should be in-camera.
I'm not sure how to address this but I can be certain that it's affecting our credibility. Robert can be singled out for doing an exemplary job of trying to confront this, but I'm wondering if the necessary change in culture is really happening -- or if there is anything we can do about it.
4) Issues have been raised about addressing public complaints or interest to get involved. While I agree that ALAC itself is not equipped to be a consumer ombudsman within ICANN, perhaps we should start thinking of ways to enable/force it within ICANN. What does everyone think?
5) So that we do not get caught in making and defending positions at the last minute, are there any issues listed at http://icann.org/public_comment/ that warrant our specific work? The only one pressing on deadlines is the issue of single-letter second-level domains (ie. a.com or x.asia).
- Evan
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Danny Younger wrote:
Question #4 is particularly challenging:
Indeed, for all the reasons you've given.
ICANN likes to think of itself as promoting industry self-regulation and as serving to coordinate "best practices". The issue, as we know, is that registrars have routinely failed to adopt best practices, have never adopted a Code of Conduct, and seem to go out of their way to avoid self-regulatory activities.
Perhaps the industry will not voluntarily create a code of conduct, but ICANN can create a Charter of Rights (or a Bill of Rights, for our American friends) for Internet users. Maybe not even one but two -- one for registrants, one for Internet users, since the groups have different levels of technical sophistication and at times different needs. I've heard the idea buzzed around. Perhaps, with the RALOs fully constituted, the idea is within reach. Dare I say, perhaps first drafts of these documents might be the primary goal of the Summit (assuming there still is one) :-P
There is, however, a way to deal with consumer complaints that seems to work. AuDa has a Consumer Complaint Resolution Mechanism that thus far has stood the test of time (and apparently hasn't suffered from liability issues)... see http://www.auda.org.au/policies/auda-2007-03/
[... an interesting approach ...]
Perhaps it's time to discuss such an approach with ICANN to deal with gTLD issues.
Hmm. You just said that voluntary measures, and prodding with "you _should_" language, doesn't work in ICANN's world. And yet,
auDA is not a government agency or statutory authority, therefore it does not have legislative power to impose fines or other penalties on a registrar or reseller.
So what is the "or else" plan if their directions are not followed? - Evan PS: What was you take on the other issues I raised, Danny?
participants (3)
-
Danny Younger -
Evan Leibovitch -
Thompson, Darlene