NCUC's current statement on the Domain Name Tasting issue is here: http://ipjustice.org/wp/2007/12/07/ncuc-statement-on-domain-name- tasting/ AND the GNSO's initial report (7 Jan) has been posted for public comment at: http://gnso.icann.org/issues/domain-tasting/gnso-initial-report- domain-tasting-07jan08.pdf The comment period will be from 8 January 2008 to 28 January 2008. Comments may be submitted by email to: <domain- [log in to unmask]> and may be viewed at http://forum.icann.org/ lists/domain-tasting-2008/. Thanks, Robin On Jan 8, 2008, at 2:18 AM, Milton L Mueller wrote: > Was Evan at the ALAC-NCUC meeting where we discussed this at some > length? Has he read our complete comments? (Can't blame him if the > answer is no, because there are so many rounds of comments at > different > times and in different places that it would be easy to miss. Robin, > can > you dig them up?) > > First, I would recommend informing him that someone who disagrees with > his particular position is not necessarily unconcerned about the > public > interest. Indeed, one reason we were unwilling to jump on the anti-AGP > bandwagon was precisely that we saw only a few special interests > for it > and not a big public interest rationale. On the whole, the issue > affects > noncommercial registrants and the general public hardly at all. > > Further, his grasp of the political and economic interests seems a bit > shaky. In our experience, it has been the registries (aside from > VeriSign) and in particular Afilias-associated registries who were > screaming most loudly about AGP. Some registries have complained about > the cost of handling all the traffic associated with short-term > registrations. This is a valid argument, but it was quickly and > adequately addressed by imposing fees (as PIR did). If the registries > have stopped supporting elimination of AGP, it is probably because the > imposition of "re-stocking fees" addresses the infrastructure burden > problem more than adequately. > > He should not be surprised about the Business constituency position, > because they are all about regulating the domain name market as > strongly > as possible to protect trademarks. Many businesses see domainers as > contributing to typosquatting. So they are more than happy to > eliminate > business opportunities for small speculators, regardless of whether > there are other ways to eliminate typosquatting (there are), just as > they would be more than happy to eliminate all new TLDs in order to > protect trademarks. > > The "possible" benefit of ADP to registrants is the one that > originally > motivated creating it: providing a cost-free way to correct mistakes. > > Our take on this issue is that the attack on AGP is basically an > attack > on domainers; i.e., on making a business out of pay per click based on > popular domain names. We don't view domaining per se as a problem. As > I've said (and this may be not shared by some on the list) we are the > non-commercial constituency not the "anti-commercial" constituency. If > the problems of typosquatting are addressed by litigation (and they > have > been) and the problems of registry infrastructure burden are addressed > by the fees, we just don't see the point of eliminating AGP > altogether, > what does it accomplish that serves the public interest? IP JUSTICE Robin Gross, Executive Director 1192 Haight Street, San Francisco, CA 94117 USA p: +1-415-553-6261 f: +1-415-462-6451 w: http://www.ipjustice.org e: [log in to unmask]