Domain Tasting Design Team Motion

Revised - 26 February 2008

Whereas, the GNSO Council has discussed the Issues Report on Domain Tasting and the Final Outcomes Report of the ad hoc group on Domain Tasting;

Whereas, the GNSO Council resolved on 31 October 2007 to launch a PDP on Domain Tasting;

Whereas, the GNSO Council authorized on 17 January 2008 the formation of a small design team to develop a plan for the deliberations on the Domain Tasting PDP (the “Design Team”), the principal volunteers to which had been members of the Ad Hoc Group on Domain Tasting and were well-informed of both the Final Outcomes Report of the Ad Hoc Group on Domain Tasting and the GNSO Initial Report on Domain Tasting (collectively with the Issues Report, the “Reports on Domain Tasting”);

Whereas, the GNSO Council has received the Draft Final Report on Domain Tasting;

Whereas, PIR, the .org registry operator, has amended its Registry Agreement to charge an Excess Deletion Fee; and both NeuStar, the .biz registry operator, and Afilias, the .info registry operator, are seeking amendments to their respective Registry Agreements to modify the existing AGP;

The GNSO Council recommends to the ICANN Board of Directors that:

1.     The applicability of the Add Grace Period shall be restricted for any gTLD which has implemented an AGP (“Applicable gTLD Operator”). Specifically, for each Applicable gTLD Operator:

a.     During any given month, an Applicable gTLD Operator may not offer any refund for any domain names deleted during the AGP that exceed (i) 10% of its net new registrations in that month (defined as total new registrations less domains deleted during AGP), or (ii) fifty (50) domain names, whichever is greater. 

b.     A Registrar may seek an exemption from the application of such restriction in a specific month, upon the documented showing of extraordinary circumstances.  For any Registrar requesting such an exemption, the Registrar must confirm in writing to the Registry Operator how, at the time the names were deleted, these extraordinary circumstances were not known, reasonably could not have been known, and were outside of the Registrar’s control.  Acceptance of any exemption will be at the sole reasonable discretion of the Registry Operator, however "extraordinary circumstances" which reoccur regularly will not be deemed extraordinary.

c.     In addition to all other reporting requirements to ICANN, each Applicable gTLD Operator shall identify each Registrar that has sought an exemption, along with a brief descriptive identification of the type of extraordinary circumstance and the action (if any) that was taken by the Applicable gTLD Operator. 

2.     The above restriction on use of the Add Grace Period shall be considered an “ICANN adopted specification or polic[y] prohibiting or restricting warehousing of or speculation in domain names by registrars” in accordance with Section 3.7.9 of the Registrar Accreditation Agreement.  As such, a Registrar that engages in domain tasting, defined as using the AGP to register domain names in order to test their profitability, shall be deemed in material breach of the Registrar Accreditation Agreement.

3.     Implementation and execution of these recommendations shall be monitored by the GNSO.  Specifically;

a.     ICANN Staff shall analyze and report to the GNSO at six month intervals for two years after implementation, until such time as the GNSO resolves otherwise, with the goal of determining;

i.               How effectively and to what extent the policies have been implemented and followed by Registries and Registrars, and

ii.              Whether or not modifications to these policies should be considered by the GNSO as a result of the experiences gained during the implementation and monitoring stages,

b.      The purpose of these monitoring and reporting requirements are to allow the GNSO to determine when, if ever, these recommendations and any ensuing policy require additional clarification or attention based on the results of the reports prepared by ICANN Staff.