[nc-org] Re: Dot org report

[Thomas Roessler <roessler@does-not-exist.org>]

On 2001-11-08 13:23:43 -0500, Milton Mueller wrote:

>In effect, Roessler is asking us to write a detailed Request for 
>Proposals (RFP), which asks for such things as a detailed business 
>plan, the contractual and legal capabilities of the sponsoring 
>organization to enforce an outsourcing contract, etc.

That's a slight mis-characterization of what I've been writing.

Of course, I am suggesting requirements for an RFP.  However, most 
of these suggestions are in response to elements of an RFP which are 
already contained in version 3.3 of the policy.  Thus, your argument 
that the task force "isn't writing an RFP" doesn't hold at all.  In 
fact, you're doing precisely that: prepare a high-level outline of 
ICANN's request for proposals.  Where the task force's high-level 
ideas introduce problems, covering implementation details may become 
necessary.



1. My notes concerning the non-profit question are clearly a 
suggestion for what should go into the RFP.  So is the task force's 
decision to mandate a non-profit sponsoring organization.

I still have strong doubts whether this decision is actually 
reflecting community consensus - in particular, I'm missing _any_ 
outreach efforts into the circle of current .org registrants.  The 
NCDNHC is hardly representative of these registrants.

As a corollary of this, if the task force insists on this 
requirement, it should also make sure that this requirement does not 
put the stability of .org at risk.  In particular, this means that a 
non-profit sponsoring organization should have to fulfill the same 
conditions a for-profit SO would have to conform to, as far as 
stability (including business stability) is concerned.




2. My comments concerning the requiremnt of a solid business plan, 
etc, in particular with un-incorporated candidates: This is in 
response to the task force's idea that "a new organization need not 
be formally incorporated prior to submitting its application" 
(section 2 of the report).

Once again, the task force introduces a requirement on the RFP which 
may have unintended side effects, and just like in the non-profit 
vs. for-profit case, the task force should make clear that an 
unincorporated sponsoring organization candidate must present 
evidence that it is as credible as an incorporated candidate.

(Also, I'm not sure whether or not getting proposals from 
unincorporated organizations may produce legal risks [who's the 
contracting party?], or is even practically possible [who pays the 
lawyers? where are the employees?].)




3. My notes about outsourcing are in response to the part of section 
2 of the report which states that a sponsoring organization should 
be "authorized to contract with commercial service providers".

Normally, one may actually even argue that the task force is doing 
unnecessary micro-management here ("of course services can and will 
be bought elsewhere"), but in this specific case, with few possible 
registry operators and a single huge player (Verisign) on that 
market, the selection of the partner and the contractual conditions 
of this kind of outsourcing (which may happen immediately or at a 
later point of time) quickly become a policy issue.

In fact, the risks involved become even larger when the task force 
wants to favor small non-profit sponsoring organizations: Such 
organizations may easily be the considerably weaker party in 
contracts with registry service outsourcing partners.  Such a 
situation could possibly become rather ugly, and make contracts 
worth less than the paper they are written on - because litigation 
would be too costly (and, thus, there's no possibility for a 
credible threat of litigation).

For this reason, I'm asking the task force to include requirements 
on the Sponsoring Organization which should help to mitigate (or at 
least assess) this kind of risk.



4. My notes about participation plans are basically about putting 
some meat to the task force's RFP requirement about "international 
support and participation".  Without that, this requirement boils 
down to a lip-service to some kind of politically correct zeitgeist, 
and could just as well be removed from the policy.



5. Concerning non-refundable application fees, I think that opening 
up the RFP process to low-budget (or, far worse, no-brain) 
organizations would be unwise. It would, in fact, consume resources 
which are needed more urgently in the assessment of serious 
proposals.  A slightly higher non-refundable application fee may 
help to keep some problematic proposals away (and it may help to 
finance the selection process).

I won't re-iterate my notes about the cost the application process 
itself will create.



6. There's a questionable point I didn't note when I prepared my 
original comments: In 1b, third bullet point, the task force is 
talking about an adaption of the newly introduced CEDRP _if_ it can 
_not_ result in the cancellation of delegations, in order to assure 
SO and registrar diligence.  This looks like nonsense to me.  In 
particular, according to 
<http://www.icann.org/tlds/agreements/sponsored/sponsorship-agmt-att12-13oct01.htm>:

	1. Charter Eligibility Dispute Resolution Policy. The CEDRP 
	is followed by all ICANN-Accredited Registrars with respect 
	to the Sponsored TLD. The CEDRP is attached as Exhibit 1 to 
	this Attachment, and is made a part of the registration 
	agreement, enforceable by Sponsor, between the Registered 
	Name Holder and either Sponsor or the applicable registrar 
	(see Subsection 3.7).

Now, what kind of role should the CEDRP play if (1) "registrars 
should rely entirely on end-user choice to determine who registers 
in .org", and (2) the SpO "should not adopt ... dispute initiation 
procedures that could result in the cancellation of domain 
delegations"?  Also, how should the CEDRP ensure SO and registrar 
diligence given the above quote?



7. In Milton's latest draft (v4), section 3, there's the added 
sentence that "the new entity must keep the cost of registration as 
low as possible".  This is a dangerous requirement, and one that's 
incompatible with other requirements in the policy.  It's, in 
particular, incompatible with extensive registrant involvement 
(which produces costs).  And it's dangerous because it disregards 
the simple fact that quality of service is costly.  The task force's 
statement should NOT encourage practices which change .org into a 
low-cost low-quality TLD.  That's something you can try with a new 
TLD started from scratch.



Kind regards,
-- 
Thomas Roessler                        http://log.does-not-exist.org/