[council] Dot Org RFP
Louis, given the timeline, please accept this report from the
chair of the NC dot org task force as NC comments on the proposed dot org
RFP.
Philip Sheppard
NC Chair
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The reactivated NC Dot Org TF has been set at the NC of 24 April 2002 with the single task of providing comments to the NC on the Dot Org RFP. Subsequent to that request, the Dot Org TF convened a teleconference with Louis Touton on 30 April, to make a tour de table of matters of interest before RFC publication, mainly understanding of operational and financial elements and related facts. This teleconference was considered very useful. On 1 May the RFC has been posted on ICANN web site <http://www.icann.org/tlds/org/> The Non Commercial constituency was the only one commenting on the posted RFP draft. While in general comfortable with the RFP, the Non Commercial constituency emitted three minor comments: (1) to have in written that neither restriction or possible eviction of existing registrants will ever happen in Dot Org; (2) to consider the support from the Dot Org community as an important factor in the selection of Dot Org Registry (3) to state that Appenix K, which is a list of reserved domain names, does not apply to Dot Org (where all that names have been already registered since a long time). The Non Commercial constituency suggested that RFP could require registry operators to avoid exclusive agreements with Non-Profit organizations that are bidding for control of .org, so that any non-profit would have access to the same commercial operator on the same terms. This would address many of the concerns about fake non-profits being put forward, and would make it easier for the Board to choose both: the best non-profit bidder and the best registry operator. An issue of possible conflict of interest of ICANN Board member Dr. Robert Blokzijl, in the context of the reassignment of .ORG, has been reported to the NC Dot Org TF mailing list, see: http://www.dnso.org/clubpublic/nc-org/Arc00/msg00411.html On a personal note, I wish that the divestment of Dot Org preserves stability, an equal traitement of Registrants, and at the same time brings diversity and competition. Elisabeth Porteneuve |