[wg-review] Document: Procedure to Establish Consensus
Dear Members: I share the view of some that ICANN made
a critical mistake in allowing for the representation of interest groups by way
of the establishment of the Domain Name Supporting Organization constituencies,
and within this context feel an obligation to articulate my dissenting point of
view relative to that which now appears to be the Review Working Group’s polled
consensus position regarding the establishment of an Independent Domain Name
Holders Constituency; it is my position that these formal constituencies should
be decommissioned and folded into the General Assembly membership, thereby
allowing for the consequent bottoms-up formation of alliances that would, of necessity,
fluidly coalesce and shift with the emergence of new issues that call for
consensus-based policy directives. The arguments presented thus far in
favor of the creation of a new constituency have not, in my humble opinion,
been sufficiently compelling to warrant support (as they have failed to
demonstrate a clear and overriding need for such an organization). ICANN, by way of its Public Forums,
Working Groups, General Assembly, and ample mechanisms for public comment, provides
venues for dialogue that are nominally adequate to convey the positions of all interested
parties; a new constituency is not needed merely to express a new set of
opinions. In recent months the public
has used these vehicles to express their outrage on issues such as: §
domain name hoarding and domain name
sales on the part of Registrars §
the lack of a Registrars uniform expired
domain name policy §
unauthorized automatic renewals of domain
names by Registrars §
the release of Bulk WHOIS data by
Registrars to third-party marketing groups §
inadequacies of the Uniform Dispute Resolution
Procedure §
the failure of Registrars to prevent fraudulent
domain name registrations §
pre-registration schemes by Registrars §
lethargy on the part of Registrars with
regard to disconnecting spammers As the above issues generally reflect a
public perception that ICANN needs to amend its contractual policies with
Registrars and Registries rather than allowing for decentralized and
unregulated decision-making, this Review Working Group was obligated to focus
its efforts on defining the procedures needed to establish that which
constitutes actionable consensus… it was, in fact, our mandate. Knowing that ICANN maintains contracts that require registries and registrars
to agree to both present and future consensus policies and to implement those
policies via Terms of Service Contracts with registrants, it is undeniably of
the utmost importance to draft a document that outlines a “Procedure to
Establish Consensus”. I refer the
members of this group to the following document http://www.domainnotes.com/news/article/0,,5281_473381_6,00.html as well as to
the position paper submitted by register.com, which documents some of the flaws
in our current approach. The creation of
such a document will serve the goals of transparency, accountability and
outreach. I ask all members to voice
their opinions on this topic. Best wishes, Danny Younger
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