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