Danny: This issue was discussed pretty extensively prior to your joining the constituency. In particular, the position was established 6 or so months ago and a long public discussion was held at the Marrakech meeting. Mawaki is therefore authorized to note your dissent, but the constituency position is set as in 4.4 below. Happy to carry on the discussion with you, though. A renewal expectancy is the best way to provide suppliers of registry services with the incentive to invest in fixed infrastructure with nonrecoverable costs, and to invest in and preserve the value of their TLD name. If a supplier does not have those incentives, there will be a stronger tendency to seek short-term profits out of the TLD. Here's the key argument from an NCUC point of view. Suppose organization X comes up with an idea for a noncommercial TLD -- let's call it .free. After years of losing money, and sticking with it and getting a community to cohere around that TLD, ICANN puts it up for competitive bid. The company loses it to VeriSign, because with their estalbished infrastructure and economies of scale they can under bid the originator by, say, 5 cents a name. That doesn't sound fair or right to me -- the people who had the idea ought to be able to benefit from it when it succeeds, over the long term. The TLD shouldn't be taken away from them simply because some other operator says they can do it slightly better. The only reason to lose it should be some major problem. Another aspect of this is that competitive bids are just promises. Execution of those promises cannot be guaranteed. If the re-bids are pure auctions, in which price is the ONLY deciding variable, then service might suffer. If you try to take service and non-price variables into account, then you are running tens of beauty contests every year as the number of new TLDs expands. No thanks. The rebid fuss is rreally all about certain companies' desire -- or should I say lust-- to get .com away from VeriSign. That's a hunt we have no dog in. Don't drag us into it. There is a lot of economic literature on rebidding contracts or exclusive franchises. I suggest you explore it. 4.4 There should be renewal expectancy. A contract would be renewed provided that the license holder is not in material breach of the contract, or has not been found in repeated non-performance of the contract, and provided the license holder agrees to the any new framework contract conditions that are reasonably acceptable. Any new framework contract would take into account the consensus policies in place at that time. I do not favor presumptive renewal having noted the benefits of re-bids (that served to significantly lower the .net registry fees). There are registries (such as .pro) that are neither in material breach of their contracts nor are engaged in repeated contract non-performance that nevertheless should be re-bid in that the current sponsoring organization has not properly served its respective community -- .pro for example has only 4628 domains under management; see http://www.icann.org/tlds/monthly-reports/pro/registrypro-200605.pdf The broader community, in thousands of comments tendered on the .com, .biz, .info and .org registry contract proposals, has signaled overwhelming opposition to the concept of presumptive renewal. I would appreciate hearing the views of the constituency on this topic. In my view the community gains when contracts are put out for re-bid. I believe in the merits of the competition and would argue that they outweigh presumptive rights for incumbent registries. best regards, Danny --- Mawaki Chango <[log in to unmask]> wrote: > Attached, the "Amsterdam report" in progress from > the staff. > Constructive and focused comments are welcome. > > Mawaki > > --- Liz Williams <[log in to unmask]> wrote: > > > To: [log in to unmask] > > From: Liz Williams <[log in to unmask]> > > Subject: [gtld-council] GNSO PDP Dec 05: Draft > Recommendations > > Summary > > Date: Thu, 14 Sep 2006 15:31:51 +0200 > > > > > > Colleagues > > > > Please find attached a DRAFT Recommendations > Summary. It is a > > working document which will be refined and > completed as the > > Committee's Final Report is prepared. > > > > If you have comments or questions, please come > back to me. I would > > > > appreciate very much specific editing or > contextual changes -- > > please > > identify the recommendation number you are > referring to send me > > specific text. I will collate all the comments > from the group and > > > > work out the best way forward. I have read all > the comments which > > > > have been circulating on the many lists and will > work towards > > incorporating those where there is majority > agreement. > > > > I will have this document posted as a working > document on the GNSO > > > > website. > > > > Kind regards and, of course, any questions please > ask. > > > > Liz > > > > > > ..................................................... > > > > Liz Williams > > Senior Policy Counselor > > ICANN - Brussels > > +32 2 234 7874 tel > > +32 2 234 7848 fax > > +32 497 07 4243 mob > > > > > > > > > > > __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com