Ed,
You appear to be looking at the ICANN Registrar Accreditation Agreement
instead of the NSI-Registrar License and Agreement that I referenced. Try
this URL: http://www.icann.org/nsi/nsi-rla-04nov99.htm
Regarding your comments, it appears to me that our primary disagreement is
this: you believe that the fact that the registry does not contain domain
holder information is a problem; I do not. That is why I asked for specific
examples of where this has been a problem.
Chuck
-----Original Message-----
From: Ed Gerck [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
Sent: Monday, January 10, 2000 1:15 PM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Cc: '[EMAIL PROTECTED]'
Subject: Re: [IFWP] missing the dot
"Gomes, Chuck" wrote:
> Regarding Ed's claims in the third paragraph of his message below, please
> refer to Section 2.10 and Exhibit B of the NSI-Registrar License and
> Agreement.
Your reference cannot be found at
http://www.icann.org/nsi/icann-raa-04nov99.htm -- which lists the
current Registrar Accreditation Agreement to be entereded by ICANN
with Registrars, including NSI-Registrar as stated in that URL. I call your
particular attention to Section II.H "Rights in Data" which states that a
Registrar has "the rights of an owner to the data elements listed in
Sections II.E.1.d and e and II.F.1.d through i concerning that
registration".
I also call your attention to the absence of the words "slamming or "slam"
in the entire document.
Notheless, for the benefit of our undertstanding, I will discuss your email
as if the document you mentioned is the currently valid one by ICANN and
as if it could be unilaterally defined by NSI-Registrar.
> I believe you will find the following: (1) domain slamming is a
> violation of the License and Agreement that every registrar must sign with
> the NSI Registry and (2) domain names are registered to domain holders
> (registrants) not registrars and the registrants have ultimate authority
of
> the names, not the registrar.
As above, I will take your word for it. However, this is NOT in
disagreement
with my email RE: "Missing the dot". The dot (er, point) being missed here
is that *to the Registrar* the above two points are valid but:
(1) to the Registry, domain name slamming for the registrant does not exist
because the Registry has no data whatsoever on the registrant and only
deals with the Registrar. The NSI Registry cannot thus intend to prohibit
what it purposefully ignores.
(2) to the Registry, domain names are registered to Registrars and the
Registrars have ultimate authority over the names, not the registrant (aka
"domain name name holder" in the previous system). No registrant can ever
come into dispute with the Registry under the Shared Registry Protocol,
because the Registry has NO data whatsoever on the registrant, NO
contractual
privity with registrants and NO obligation at large to any registrant.
> The fact that the Registry does not have any registrant information is
> irrelevant except for those who advocate centralized control of this
> process.
Wait. I do not advocate "centralized control of this process" -- so, I
presume
I am not included in your "explanation" above. Which, by the way, explains
nothing because, in logical terms:
1. you do acknowledge the problem I mentioned under the SRS: "the Registry
does not have any registrant information",
2. you provide no solution to that problem and the ensuing problems,
3. you say the problem is irrelevant to me that do not advocate centralized
control,
so, must I conclude that the problem does not exist to me? This is a non
sequitur -- it is not useful to deny the problem instead of solving it.
Thus, to me that do not advocate centralized control, "[t]he fact that the
Registry does not have any registrant information" is the 'missing dot'
here -- the basic flaw of the Shared Registry System.
> The Shared Registration System that is in place obviously does not
> follow the centralized control model.
Let's see -- The Shared Registration System centralizes all domain
name registration to the rules of ICANN, including a Unform Dispute
Policy (UDRP) that all must obey. The Shared Registration System
centralizes all domain name registration by each registrant to Registrars,
where the registrant cannot deal directly with the Registry in a
decentralized way.
Therfore, since all domain names are effectively registered to Registrars
under the SRS, centralized control of domain names is now possible
(and proved by the UDRP) by dealing with a few Registrars using
freedom of contract in business to business contracts, when compared
to +100 million of registrants in private contracts subject to increasing
consumer protection laws. So, touching upon the second theme of your
reply, I fail to see why the SRS is a decentralized system. In fact, I see
it
as providing much more room for centralized control than anything else
I can imagine -- in that, it is very effective in this regard.
Thus, what is being lost is the connection between "domain name" and
"registrant", severed by a SRS that only registers domain names to
Registrars.
Regarding the ensuing whois problems (mentioned in my previous
message), what we have is also a full loss of the idea of Registry itself
-- since we cannot know what is in the Registry just by looking at
fragmented views from its Registrars.
Here, Marx Brothers fans will recall the scene in "A Day at the Races"
in which Groucho, intending to put his money on Sun-up, is induced
instead to buy a coded tip from Chico and is able to establish the
identity of the horse only, at some cost in terms of time and money, by
successive purchases from Chico of the code book, the master code book,
the breeders' guide and various other works of reference, by the end of
which the race is over, Sun-up having won.
Cheers,
Ed Gerck
PS: Personal comment and reply:
> It appears that Ed is still fighting for the centralized model.
No, not at all -- you are missing the dot, Chuck ;-) And, I am also
not "still fighting for the centralized model", because I have never
been as list archives may prove. Besides, for me this is not a
"fight" but an opportunity to mine the gold of truth.
