[registrars] Stockholm Update
Hello All: Attached please find the minutes from Friday's meeting. This has been a VERY active meeting. Listed in the minutes is a schedule for voting on the newly approved positions. I would like feedback from those registrars that were unable to attend. One of the more controversial issues that was discussed during Friday's meetings, which resulted in an emergency meeting Sunday morning, was the recent announcement by VeriSign to auto NAC transfers when a registrant fails to respond to their inquiry about the transfer. This is a practice that Register.com also employs and which is the subject of an existing complaint filed by TUCOWS. Both VeriSign and Register.com believe that they are entitled to employ this practice. The other registrars believe that it violates the spirit of the current industry standard, and creates an undue burden on a gaining registrar that has already received apparent authority from the registrant and in most cases already received payment. This Sunday meeting was mentioned at Friday's meeting. However, I was unable to announce it to the list because the Internet connection between the US and Stockholm was down so I could not send an e-mail. In the alternative, I relied upon word of mouth. The fact that 23 registrars attended suggest that word was spread properly. There appeared to be consensus that the auto NACing transfers in the absence of an affirmative act by the registrant in reply to the losing registrar's inquiry was a CRITICAL issue that must be addressed IMMEDIATELY. There were 20 registrars that voted in favor of having a losing registrar auto ACK a transfer request when the losing registrar received to response from a registrant. Two registrars voted against this position, VeriSign and Register.com. One registrar after the meeting opted to change his initial vote to an abstention. There are many options available to us. Based upon the discussion of a number of registrars in attendance, a multi-prong approach was advocated. However, the PREFERRED METHOD was internal resolution within the registrar constituency as originally advocated by Ken Stubbs. Therefore, I welcome Register.com & VeriSign to propose to the group a potential acceptable resolution to the group. I have created an initial dialogue with a number of other constituencies while in Stockholm since their support will be necessary if we opt for the creation of new policies and procedures within the DNSO structure. If there are no major objections I would like to start circulating a letter identifying the registrars concerns to the other constituencies. I will be attempting to schedule a teleconference on this matter if possible. Best regards, Mike P.S. I will be off line until approx. Wednesday morning when I arrive back to the States. Minutes-Stockholm-01-June-2001.doc |