Page History
ICANN-accredited registrars and ICANN commenced a series of direct bilateral negotiations to amend and update the current Registrar Accreditation Agreement (RAA) in November, 2011. These negotiations are currently underway ICANN and the registrar negotiation teams have concluded their negotiations. The ICANN Board of Directors approved the new 2013 RAA on 27 June 2013.
Negotiation Goals/Objectives
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The Registrars Stakeholder Group and ICANN announced in Dakar the immediate commencement of negotiations on the RAA. These negotiations will occur regularly with the goal of issuing agreed amendments to the RAA for consideration by the ICANN Board.
Current Status
Update:
ICANN published the Proposed Final 2013 Registrar Accreditation Agreement for public comment at:
http://www.icann.org/en/news/announcements/announcement-22apr13-en.htm
For a detailed overview of the improvements to the Proposed Final 2013 RAA, please listen to the webinar recording or view the slides from the webinar conducted by ICANN Staff on April 30th.
ICANN and the Registrar Negotiating Team commenced negotiation on amendments to the RAA in October 2011. Since the 7 March 2013 version was posted, ICANN and the Registrars (through the Registrar Negotiating Team) continued to reach agreement on the proposed text of the 2013 RAA, which was posted for community comment on April 22, 2013. These include:
- ICANN's Posting Memorandum
- Proposed Final 2013 RAA
- Redline against the 7 May 13 posting
- Redline against the 2009 RAA
- Summary of Changes from the 2009 RAA
The Proposed Specifications and Addendums:
A Report of the Public Comments submitted in response to the 7 March 2013 posting of the RAA is available here [PDF, 178 KB].
Documents related to the revisions of the WHOIS Bulk Access provisions (Section 3.3.6 of the RAA):
- Letter to Kurt Pritz from Demand Media 6 May 2011
- Letter to Kurt Prtiz from Network Solutions, 23 January 2010
- Summary of Economic Analysis performed by Joshua Wright, Professor, George Mason University School of Law and Department of Economics
Documents related to the GNSO policy development process (PDP) to commence on the "remaining issues" left unresolved at the conclusion of the negotiations:
Archive
Archive of Documents Related to the Beijing Meeting:
In advance of the Beijing Meeting, on ICANN In advance of the Prague Meeting,on 4 June 2012, ICANN posted a group of documents on the status of negotiation of amendments to the Registrar Accreditation Agreement (RAA).
These documents note that while ICANN and the Registrars have made progress in the negotiations, the negotiations are not complete and there remain key areas of difference. Of highest priority for ICANN are the areas of Whois verification and data retention requirements, where ICANN and Registrars were not able to agree on certain aspects of the law enforcement recommendations. Because these two areas are so important, ICANN and the registrars were not able to post consolidated, negotiated amendments in advance of the Prague meeting. The RAA Negotiations Summary Memorandum posted on 4 June 2012 explains this more fully; the Draft RAA reflects ICANN's most recent proposal as of 4 June 2012.
These include:
- Public Comment Announcement for Draft RAA
- ICANN's Posting Memorandum
- Registrar Stakeholder Group Statement
- Proposed 2013 RAA
- Redline from 2009 RAA
- Redline from the June 2012 Posting
More information iis available by reviewing the archives of the Beijing Session.
Archive of Documents Related to the Toronto Meeting:
In advance of the Toronto Meeting, on 24 September 2012, ICANN posted a group of documents on the status of negotiation of amendments to the Registrar Accreditation Agreement (RAA). These include:
More information is available by reviewing the Transcript and recording of the Toronto Update on the RAA Session.
Archive of Documents Posted Prior to the Prague Meeting:Recent Developments since the Costa Rica Meeting
- Correspondence delivered from the Registrar Stakeholder Group on the status of the negotiations
- Law enforcement representatives produced updates to their recommendations with respect to two issues:
- Documents published with the 4 June 2012 announcement in advance of the ICANN Prague Meeting:
- Documents submitted by the Registrar Stakeholder Group for the Prague Meeting:
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- The ICANN Board’s Dakar resolution on the RAA is posted at: http://www.icann.org/en/minutes/resolutions-28oct11-en.htm#7
- To review the Final Report on Improvements to the RAA, please see: http://gnso.icann.org/issues/raa/raa-improvements-proposal-final-report-18oct01-en.pdf
- To review the Staff Discussion Paper published prior to Dakar, please see: http://gnso.icann.org/issues/final-raa-discussion-paper-13oct11-en.pdf
- To learn more about the RAA, please refer to the Non-Lawyers Guide to the RAA, posted at: http://www.icann.org/en/registrars/non-lawyers-guide-to-ra-agreement-15feb10-en.htm
- Reports of each of the RAA meetings and discussion of amendment topics addressed at each meeting will be posted on separate WIKI pages attached to this Home Page.
- The GNSO Final Issue Report delivered by Staff in response to the Board Dakar Resolution identifies the policy avenues for addressing these amendment topics.
- A Status Report on the RAA Negotiations was published on the ICANN website on 1 March 2012, at http://www.icann.org/en/news/announcements/announcement-01mar12-en.htm
- An updated Status Report on the RAA Drafting Team recommendations as of 1 March 2012
Community Consultation in Prague
At the Prague Update on the RAA Negotiations Session scheduled on Monday 25 June 2012 from 11:00-12:30, Staff will seek input on the following:
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AGENDA FOR PUBLIC MEETING
Key Areas for Community Input
Below we provide some key questions and points of information that we hope to guide the community discussions in Prague. We seek a discussion and input from the community as to where ICANN should hold firm to the proposals within the law enforcement recommendations on Whois verification and data retention issues, and where further negotiation might be required. The pros and cons on these and other issues that should be discussed in a public session are provided below. We also seek discussion on how to assure that, when the new RAA is eventually approved, all Registrars will move to the new agreement.
Specific questions and points to help pinpoint the issues are:
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- Should the process of registering domain names be changed to perform Whois validation and verification before domain names are allowed to resolve?
- Will pre-verification address law enforcement’s concern?
- How big of a change is this to the current registration marketplace?
- What are the costs to Registrars in modifying their systems to allow for pre-verification?
- What are the costs to registrants?
- How does the fact that registrants often submit a domain name registration request in order to obtain an email address affect the discussion?
Phone Verification
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- Should registrants be required to have a phone number? (Currently the registrar only has to publish telephone numbers for the administrative and technical contacts, not for the Registered Name Holder.) How else might this impact registrants?
- What are the actual technical and financial burdens for Registrars?
- Will this encourage the use of proxy services? (Proxy services might also be required to verify the contact details of their customers.)
- What goals will phone verification achieve?
Annual Re-verification
The law enforcement proposal requires annual re-verification of registrant information. The Whois Reminder Policy has limited effect on Whois accuracy, and some in the community argue that it should be augmented with annual verification.
The Registrars are willing to maintain responsibility for sending Whois reminder policy notices OR verifying information when changed by the registrant. Registrars state that an annual re-verification requirement imposes significant costs without additional benefit.
- How much of a burden would annual verification impose on legitimate registrants, including those registering large numbers of names?
- Is requiring the cancellation of a domain name if the annual re-verification cannot be completed too high a penalty? Are the possible unintended consequences disproportionate?What are the actual technical and financial burdens for Registrars?
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Data Retention
Law enforcement has requested that all identified data elements be kept for two years past the life of the registration.
The Registrars have raised questions regarding their universal ability to retain the data identified by law enforcement, citing various data privacy laws. Registrars are willing to retain most of the information requested by law enforcement. Registrars state that some elements such as transaction data can only be retained for six months (not six months after the expiration of the domain name, just six months). Registrars state that this is due to data privacy laws in certain jurisdictions. The Registrars have expressed concerns that registrars in jurisdictions with less-restrictive data protection/privacy regimes will be put at a disadvantage if they are required to maintain registrant data for the full term requested by law enforcement, which is two years past the life of registration, while registrars in other countries may not be able to keep this information for more than 6 months from creation.
- Is the duration proposed by law enforcement proportionate with their objective, or does it place too high a burden on registrants and Registrars?
- How should ICANN monitor compliance with a two-year plus retention period when many of its accredited Registrars might not be permitted to meet that duration? Is this counter to a goal of uniformity in contracts across Registrars?
- Does the GAC (or do the governments participating through the GAC) agree with the clarifications proffered by law enforcement? Can authorities expert in data privacy assist in proposing how ICANN and the Registrars should address the competing legal regimens into a standard that can be uniformly implemented?
- Are any of these requirements already imposed at a national level?
Universal Adoption of RAA
The Registrar Negotiating Team has requested, and ICANN agrees, that it is essential to consider how to require and/or incentivize universal adoption of this new RAA. The accreditation model is based upon having a uniform contract applicable to all ICANN-accredited Registrars, and those moving to the new RAA will face many new obligations. ICANN and the Registrars have been working hard to create a globally acceptable improved RAA. How can global implementation be best achieved?
Some ideas that have been suggested either in negotiations or publicly by interested parties:
- Begin limitations on the terms of accreditations and renewals under the 2009 RAA to allow all registrars to move to the new RAA together.
- Creating milestones for the phasing in of certain terms under the new RAA, so that more Registrars would be subject to the new RAA when the terms come into effect.
- Providing incentives for adoption of the new RAA prior to the expiration of a Registrar’s current RAA.
- Use of a Registrar Code of Conduct process to require certain terms to be followed by all Registrars, regardless of whether they are on the 2009 RAA or the new RAA.
- Requiring use of the new agreement when registering names in new gTLDs.
If you have general feedback you'd like to provide, please provide them by submitting comments below.
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