Page History

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Click here for the final ALAC Statement (PDF format) transmitted to the Board on 09 May 2011.

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Proposed open letter to the ICANN Board

Revised by Alan Greenberg and Evan Leibovitch, 02 May 2011

(Previous version can be viewed at revision 6 of this document - https:

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//community.icann.org/x/RorT)

When the new Registrar Accreditation Agreement (RAA) was approved in 2009, the GNSO Council committed to a process which would lead to further RAA amendments, looking at both the subjects to be included and the process by which it could happen. The ALAC and At-Large was pleased to participate in this process.

It now appears It has come to the ALAC's attention that the GNSO Council is deadlocked on how to handle the renegotiation of the Registrar Accreditation Agreement (RAA).  The RAA WG, a bottom-up consensus-based working group which the ALAC has participated in, has made a set of recommendations for community observers to take part in the RAA negotiation process. These recommendations have been rejected by the GNSO Council.

Within the GNSO Council, another motion by the Non Contracted Parties to at least require periodic reports and community comment was rejected by the Contracted Parties House.

the RAA. Moreover the Council has considered two motions addressing future RAA work. The first would have allowed non-contracted parties to act as observers in the RAA amendment discussions (as suggested by the non-contracted party participants in the RAA Working Group). It was rejected. The second would have accepted no observers but required regular reports of the negotiations and required a strict but liberal time schedule. That motion too was rejected.

This has the potential to both delay the RAA amendment process and This refusal has the potential to keep the RAA negotiation process as opaque as it ever was. To date, ICANN staff has been silent as to how it believes that RAA revision process should be handled.

The ALAC wishes to make its concern formally known that not only is the ICANN community being prevented from proper participatory process in creating Registrar policy, but that the Transparency and Accountability required by ICANN By-laws and the AoC is effectively being abrogated by the decisions made in the GNSO Council.

The ALAC wishes to advise the Board of this critical transparency and accountability issue.

Indeed, the ALAC reminds the Board that while the RAA has the form of a contract between the registrars and ICANN, this should not mean that only the directly contracted parties should be part of the discussion: ICANN uses contracts merely as a tool to formalize what should be the result of a larger participatory process; the contract is the tool, not the framework.

This subject touches upon the fundamental understanding of what issue is fundamental to ICANN's function, perception and credibility as a multi-stakeholder and , bottom-up institution ICANN is and the responsibility it assumes de facto as global competition authority for the secondary domain name marketplace.

We maintain that “ICANN” "ICANN" has a multi-stakeholder model, as described in its organizational diagram and at no moment is “ICANN” "ICANN" restricted to ICANN Staff.

We therefore ask request that the Board to look again into the RAA examine this procedural issue and for it to act accordingly to make sure that the results of the bottom-up consensus model are carried in the GNSO PDP processas the steward of the process and the trustee of the multi-stakeholder principle upon which ICANN is based.