EFF raises deep concerns on .ORG contract renewal to ICANN

[Kathy Kleiman]

Hi Stephanie, Sam and All,

As you write this important letter to the Board on behalf of NCSG, let 
me share the very recent work of the Electronic Frontier Foundation. 
EFF, as you know, filed a petition for reconsideration on ICANN's 
renewal/replacements of the .ORG with significantly different terms. /On 
Monday, EFF filed its response to ICANN.
/

In addition to removing the price caps, ICANN extended to .ORG "rights 
protections mechanisms" which were not created for noncommercial 
registrants. These include the Uniform Rapid Suspension (URS), an 
ultra-fast, ultra-cheap method of suspending a domain in New gTLDs -- 
never intended commercial vs. noncommercial use of domain names (such as 
criticism and comparison). EFF is very concerned, as was NCSG in our 
comments.

EFF's rebuttal (filed Monday) is here -- 
https://www.icann.org/en/system/files/files/reconsideration-19-3-electronic-frontier-requestor-rebuttal-board-proposed-determination-19nov19-en.pdf

The full EFF Request for Reconsideration matter is here -- 
https://www.icann.org/resources/pages/reconsideration-19-3-electronic-frontier-request-2019-08-01-en

****

Some central paragraphs of EFF"s letter of Monday to the ICANN Board:

"What cost-benefit analysis was made of the dangers to .ORG registrants 
from being thrown into URS proceedings, or the likelihood that a system 
ill-equipped for these cases would make erroneous decisions, increasing 
the risk of unjustified suspensions of .ORG registrations?3 According to 
the Proposed Determination, ICANN staff had no obligation to demonstrate 
that it had considered this whatsoever4—which is exactly why the 
Multistakeholder Model is so important here. At no time has ICANN org 
shown any knowledge of the dangers of applying the URS to millions of 
legacy, noncommercial registrants. At no time has ICANN org refuted 
EFF’s concerns for itself and other .ORG registrants."

"...pending before the GNSO’s Rights Protections Mechanisms Policy 
Development Process Working Group right now is the question of whether 
we—the GNSO and ICANN—should extend the URS from new gTLDs to legacy 
gTLDs. As EFF wrote in its Reconsideration Request, this question has 
been directed by the GNSO Council to the currently in-progress RPM PDP 
Working Group as a charter question for that group."

To the question of weighing the efficiency of having one contract for 
all gTLDs vs following the Multistakeholder Model on the policies we 
negotiate and the applications we set for them:

" 'Efficiency' alone cannot outweigh the Core Value of “open, 
transparent and bottom-up, multistakeholder policy development 
processes.” ICANN’s Mission of coordinating the allocation and 
assignment of names in the DNS through the policies “developed through a 
bottom-up consensus-based multistakeholder process” must supersede the 
slight convenience of harmonization among RAs.

"IV. The Recent News that Internet Society Intends to Sell the Public 
Interest Registry to a Private Equity Firm Magnifies Concerns About the 
Agreement’s Impact on .ORG Registrants."

Best, Kathy

-- 

Kathy Kleiman
American University Washington College of Law

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