From: Philip Sheppard [mailto:philip.sheppard@xxxxxx]
Sent: Thursday, 6 January 2005 12:49 AM
To: Bruce Tonkin
Cc: council@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Draft Agenda for Council meeting Thursday 13 January 2005
Bruce, would you be kind enough to table this resolution for the 13 January Council meeting on behalf of the BC?
Issue - Re-selling of valuable deleted domain names in a secondary market
The typical model for selling deleted TLDs is first-come first-served and this works well for ordinary names where the profit to registries and registrars is small and similar. But it does not work for special names where the domain name equity is much higher, either because the name has perceived value, or there is a desirable level of associated traffic with the name. A secondary market has grown up to remarket the names. Some names are bought for speculative resell; others because they have traffic still active and are resold to redirect the traffic to other, sometimes undesirable, sites. This market has created a new business opportunity for registrars and a problem for the registries. Certain registrars are “slaming” the registries with automated requests for desirable names. Because the present system provides equal access to all registrars, some registrars have created new ICANN accredited daughter registrars whose sole purpose is to request deleted names – thus increasing the chance for the parent registrar to get desirable names. This massive set of requests is affecting the ability of the registrars to manage their existing bona fide business efficiently. This impacts on stability. The implication of these new types of ICANN accredited registrars needs to be assessed.
Proposal
Council needs to investigate the issue fully and so should consider the need for a PDP with a request for ICANN staff to write an issues report.Draft resolution
Whereas the re-selling of certain deleted or expiring names has lead to unforeseen strains on the ability of registries and registrars to manage their business efficiently,Whereas this affects the service level provided to users and the meaning of ICANN accredited as it applies to registrars,
Council resolves,
to request the ICANN staff manager to write an issues report (as specified in annex A to the ICANN by-laws) on the "Re-selling of valuable deleted/expiring domain names in a secondary market", so that Council can subsequently decide if a policy development process would be appropriate.
Many thanks
PhilipPS I am open to friendly amendments to improve the wording of the resolution should this help clarity.