hi Brenden,

responses after your comments below:

-ron

On Thu, 26 Nov 2009, Brenden Kuerbis wrote:

> Hi Ron,
>
> Thanks for following this issue so closely and your draft responses. My few
> comments are in line below.  I realize I'm coming late to this, so if the
> point I've raised has already been discussed just let me know.
>
> Best regards,
>
> Brenden
>
> On Thu, Nov 26, 2009 at 3:56 AM, Ron Wickersham <[log in to unmask]>wrote:
>
> <snip>
>
>>   2. Whether expiration-related provisions in typical registration
>> agreements are clear and conspicuous enough;
>>
>> While "typical" registration agreements (especially for the larger
>> registrars) are good, it is not the case that every registrant receives
>> a registration agreement.
>>
>> Process are in place to assure that the Registries handle every domain in
>> a uniform manner.   Expiration issues should be equally uniform, and not
>> be considered in the realm of "competitive" variations.
>
>
> Do you mean "Expiration policies should be equally uniform,..."?  If not,
> I'm unclear what "Expiration issues" are.
>
> More importantly, while I agree there should be a baseline of policy
> uniformity, I wonder if we want to allow registries/resellers the
> flexibility to set policies that could be even _more_ favorable for
> consumers?

the expiration issues brought up to the WG are that some registration
agreements are quite loose on the registrar's responsibilities with 
respect to renewal notifications...even so far as stating that the
registrar _may or may not_ notify the registrant on expiration dates,
but has no obligation to do so.

the auto-renewal policy on .com and .net (between the registry and 
registrars) also means that the registry's whois expiration date is 
extended a year even though the domain has expired.

while most registries have a 30-day "grace" period after a domain's
expiration date, and during the grace period there is variation on
what happens to the DNS records which affects e-mail delivery and
host addresses.  since for many individual domain holders, the domain
is purchased from their hosting company, the same company handles the
DNS and affects the operation of the domain, even if the root-servers
(or more specifically the gtld-servers) still point to the same name
server records.

also at least one registrar has no grace period, the domain is
immediately deleted from the registry's active list upon expiration.

###

yes, some registries say that their policies are "value-added" 
competitive features.  it is nice to think about policies that
are worded so that registrars/resellers can be even more favorable
to consumers.   the other side of that is that when registrars/
resellers call for more consumer education as the solution to
confusion around expiration issues, this education is immensely
complicated if you can't go to ICANN's pages and find how to
renew or recover a late registration, or google to find an answer,
or if someone trying to help a friend with an expiration issue
has no idea how to proceed when agreements are quite different and
subject to change without notice.

with the number of participants in the WG so heavily dominated by
registries, registrars, and resellers, there are plenty of eyes
looking out for the type of flexibility you bring up.

>> In matters of this type, education of the Registrant has been suggested as
>> the solution.  NCUC believes that education can only suceed if the policies
>> around expiration are identical from any registrar or reseller.
>>
>>
> Again, do we want entirely identical policies, or some identical baseline
> policies?

i'm thinking back to the days of internic when contracts were let for
writing domain policies clearly and in one place for consumer education.
(internic was IIRC divided into three independent organizations briefly
at the end to have the education aspect assigned to a different entity
than the one making the policies).

ICANN replaces this role, and it would be good if consumers could be
directed to an ICANN web page that had authoritative information on
expiration policies and domain recovery issues (available but buried in 
the details of registry and registrar agreements is not the ideal way
offer help to educate a consumer).

having different registrars/resellers offer additional services/features
included with the registration payment is one thing, and i think you are
advocating for the benefits to the conumer that this has brought.

but the policy extent in this working group is the area of recovery of 
a domain name after it's expiration.  this is a critical time for the 
consumer and variation and complexity of agreements (especially since 
most agreements state that they can be changed without notice by posting 
them on the web site).

would suggesting that ICANN have a uniform policy that must be included
with any registration agreement that protects a consumer's right to
recoveer a domain name the same way regardless of registrar/reseller/
registry but allow for extensions to be added at the end that could be
even more favorable to the consumer?

> Thanks,
>
> Brenden

thanks for responding and helping.

-ron