This item originally posted on 11 February:
BobC
Dear SRS WG Members:
I think I have a good idea.
It began taking form in my mind yesterday when I was replying to a posting from
a guy who had applied for "brussels.web" from one Registrar and then found he
could apply from another Registrar. He wanted to send all of us to the wood
shed with the Ethics WG. :-{
It is quite natural that CORE will be tarred and feathered for such a
situation, even though it was POC which created this possibility when they told
us we could begin to take applications. Unfortunately, it is *CORE*, not POC,
which is being blamed.
What to do?
IMO, if we open up the SRS to start taking real registrations, we put to an end
the uncertainties over whether a given Registrant has put his name on a
specific SLD.TLD with a specific Registrar.
What new problems come wrapped with this new method of operation?
For one thing, we have a bunch of SLD.TLD's taken up for which no payment has
been made to CORE and, perhaps, no payment has been made by the Registrant.
How do we attack that problem? Perhaps we modify our model in which the
Registrar is stuck if the Registrant does not pay (the Orphan problem about
which William wrote last weekend). After all, the SLD.TLD is not yet active,
cannot be used by the Registrant until Ira Magaziner or someone says we can get
into the root.
Thus, the successful Registrar could notify the Registrant that his selection
is NOW in the CORE db, not just in one or more Registrars' databases.
As we approach the day we go live in the root, each Registrar would be able to
collect his fees from each Registrant and pay his fees to CORE ($15). If the
Registrant has flown the coop, the Registrar would be permitted to cancel the
Registration and be released from the obligation to pay the $15.
Another problem could be solved. Only Registrars who have made their monthly
contributions would be permitted to start Registering domains. Those
contributions could be set up as advances against Registrations, as planned.
Registrars would be limited to some temporary number of TempRegistrations, say
[TempRegistrations=$Contributions/$TempFee]. For example, if $TempFee=$2.5,
then a Registrar could make 2,000 TempRegistrations with a $Contribution of
$5,000.
As we approach going live on one or more TLD's, then Registrars would need to
increase their $Contributions to satisfy the $15 requirement -- for only those
TLD's which are ready to go into the root. The Registrars, then, would have
the opportunity to collect the full registration fee from the Registrants -- or
cancel those Registrations made by deadbeat Registrants.
What other problem could we solve with this strategy? For one thing, we would
shift the complaints which CORE and Registrars are receiving from our present
inventory of Applicants to the real source of the problem -- the USGovernment!
:-) I like that part.
What other problem could we address? How about Trademark/tradename fears? We
could provide open access to the public by a "Whois" type of system.
Disney/IBM/3m/Xerox could look in and see whether there is, indeed, a problem.
They could begin to address that problem. Lacking any list of exclusions from
the a lazy WIPO, CORE could proceed at once to accept temporary preemptive
exclusions from major holders of Trademarks, as was suggested to Disney at the
time of our D.C. meeting.
Well, it was 04:00 when this idea awakened me and it's now about 04:50. I
recognize that we need a lot more thought on this subject -- and a lot of good
heads working on it. I have chosen to vet it before the SRS WG and the
"Inner-CORE" only at this time.
Have at it, build it up, tear it down, I think it *can* get us off the dime and
shift the pressure from CORE to the GP.
Personal regards,
BobC