The Post-Expiration Domain Name Recovery Policy Development Process (PEDNR PDP) was requested by the ALAC in 2008 to investigate gTLD registrant rights related to renewing or recovering a domain that had inadvertently expired.
The PEDNR Working Group (WG) delivered its Final Report
[PDF, 999 KB] to the GNSO Council on 14 June 2011. The GNSO Council adopted the Final Report and its recommendations at its meeting on 21 July 2011. As required by the ICANN Bylaws, public comments are being requested prior to consideration by the ICANN Board of these recommendations. Comments are due no later than 23:59 on 15 September 2011.
The issue has been overseen within At-Large by Alan Greenberg, who also acted as the Chair of the GNSO WG. At its meeting of 23 August 2011, the ALAC requested that Alan draft a statement for discussion and ultimate approval by the ALAC. The initial draft was reviewed by the regional representatives on the ALAC ExCom and the revised draft below is the result. ALAC Chair, Olivier Crépin-Leblond, has requested that comments be submitted by ALAC and At-Large for a five day period ending [TO BE FILLED IN BY STAFF]
Comments submitted by others can be viewed at http://forum.icann.org/lists/pednr-board-recommendations/.
*DRAFT* ALAC Statement on the Post-Expiration Domain Name Recovery Recommendations for ICANN Board Consideration
The Post Expiration Domain Name Recovery PDP was initiated at the request of the ALAC in 2008, and we are pleased to see that it may now come to a positive conclusion.
The original request was made because, at that time, there were absolutely no guarantees in place that a registrant could renew or otherwise recover a gTLD domain name if it was inadvertently allowed to expire. Earlier ICANN actions including the creation of a Redemption Grace Period (RGP) for most registries, and developing the Expired Domain Deletion Policy (EDDP Consensus Policy PDP) had been carried out with the intent of putting such guarantees in place, but business practices had changed and the guarantees no longer existed.
The originators of the request for the Issue Report which triggered the PDP had hopes that the end-result would be far more pro-registrant than what has ultimately come out of the PDP. This can be attributed to a number of causes, including the need of the PDP Working Group (WG) to come to a consensus on the outcomes, and this of course had to include the Registrar Stakeholder Group.
However, the largest problem can arguably be said to be the extreme difficulty in getting active and continued participation in an ICANN WG by those parties whose livelihood and business success do not depend on the PDP. To be clear, it is a major challenge to get users who are participating in ICANN purely as volunteers to participate, particularly in a process which often takes close to three years. This clearly endangers the balance of the ICANN multi-stakeholder model.
Given these conditions, the ALAC is pleased that some progress was made in advancing gTLD registrant rights and that ICANN will be taking positive action to educate, inform and support gTLD registrants, who are ultimately one of its core, often forgotten, stakeholders. As such, the ALAC encourages the Board to ratify the PDP Recommendations as approved by the GNSO.
At the same time, the ALAC advises that the Board duly consider what might be done to ensure that, in the future, the multi-stakeholder model can be strengthened to allow users to more equitably influence the outcomes in future policy discussions. Such evolution is a core necessity identified by ICANN's Accountability and Transparency review as to meet the goals of its Strategic Plan.