what problem are we solving? (was Re: ICANN opens up Pandora's Box of new TLDs)

Sat Jun 28 12:49:54 UTC 2008

On Jun 27, 2008, at 8:59 PM, WWWhatsup wrote:
> David Conrad wrote:
>> With that said, personally, I agree that more attention should be
>> spent on the welfare of the registrants.  Unfortunately, given I work
>> for ICANN, my providing comments in the RAA public consultation along
>> those lines would be a bit ... awkward.
>
> Would you agree with Danny Younger (I believe this is his position)  
> then that there should be a
> properly constituted & recognized registrants constituency?

Obviously speaking personally, conceptually I agree, but the challenge  
here has always been how do you "properly constitute and recognize  
registrants" in a way that doesn't allow for capture.  For example,  
you could say 'only folks who have domain names can be part of that  
constituency', but in reality, the majority of domain names are held  
by registrars.  You could add the restriction that 'registrants' must  
be natural persons, but how would one verify this across the entire  
planet?  It obviously isn't impossible, but people already complain  
about how big ICANN is -- I can't see how having some mechanism to  
validate a registrant constituency won't make ICANN _much_ larger...

However, lacking this, I personally believe there should be strong  
explicit registrant protections built into the RAA.  But that's just me.

Regards,
-drc