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| Mr. Patrick Jones Registry Liaison Manager ICANN RE: Amendment for Partial Bulk Transfer http://www.icann.com/en/announcements/announcement-16oct09-en.htm "Bulk Transfer After Partial Portfolio Acquisition (BTAPPA) is a registry service available to consenting registrars in the circumstance where, pursuant to VeriSign's policies: (1) one ICANN-accredited registrar purchases (the 'gaining registrar'), by means of a stock or asset purchase, merger or similar transaction, a portion, but not all, of another ICANN-accredited registrar's domain name portfolio (the 'losing registrar') in the dot-COM top-level domain; or (2) a gaining registrar receives a request from a registrant to transfer a significant number of its domain names from a losing registrar to that gaining registrar. "At least fifteen business days (which excludes federal holidays in the United States) before completing a BTAPPA, the losing registrar must provide to all domain name registrants for names involved in the bulk transfer, written notice of the bulk change of sponsorship. The notice must include a statement that all transfer rules and policies set by ICANN and the registry shall remain in effect and instructions on how a registrant can opt-out of the bulk transfer if the losing registrar has indicated its willingness to continue to serve as the registrar for the domain name." Dear Mr. Jones, Sorry previous correspondence was harsh. Please answer these questions: 1) Will Registrars that are believed by small businesses and personal domain holders to maintain their domain names for life, be permitted to sell shares, "sponsorships," or "partial portfolios" of those domains without prior consent of the registrant, with no recourse for the registrant pending the 15 days notice, once the transaction is complete? 2) Does not a 15-day notice offer Registrars, who have access to traffic data and expirations of domains, an insiders' advantage to target the most valuable domains for purchase? 3) Will a notice of "pending transaction" be given, PRIOR to the effective date of the sale, so that the domain name owner has longer than 15 days to switch to a new registrar? So far the language of the amendment says, "no." 4) Will a department be in place to address illegal transfers, due to non-compliance of the Losing Registrar? 5) Are domains set to expire within 30-60 days of transaction unable to opt out? Are they stuck transferring to the winning registrar? 6) If Registrars are allowed to - without the owner's prior consent - buy, sell, or trade portfolios, or partial portfolios, of domains on which they have insider access information, would not that violate US anti-trust principles? 7) Does 15-day notice and inability to transfer domains near expiration not violate ICANN's resolve to "promote and encourage robust competition in the domain name space?" The winning Registrar could launch predatory takeovers using insider knowledge of domain name expirations. 8) Would the new gTLD Applicant Guidebook pricing specifications, which DO NOT CAP AFTER-TRANSFER-DOT-COM PRICES, allow Registrars to unfairly leverage offers to Losing Registrars, based prospective income of future price increases? Registrants might fund the predatory takeover of their own domain names! Registrants did not consent to be transferred, and do not profit from the sale of their intellectual property. 9) With only two comments on the public comment board as of this date, would ICANN consider extending the public comment deadline, so affected parties - the domain name holders - could become have a say in the sale of their intellectual property (i.e., domains)? http://forum.icann.org/lists/vrsn-btappa-amendment 10) With Go Daddy's July filing of a patent for a method of selling equity in domain names and protecting the domain names in which the equity is issued, http://www.freepatentsonline.com/y2009/0171823.html , and one for protecting the domain name during investment, http://www.freepatentsonline.com/y2009/0171678.html , does ICANN favor Go Daddy, the largest registrar, in its directives regarding bulk and partial bulk transfers of Winning Registrants over domain owners associated with Losing Registrants? How does "bottom-up" policy ICANN advocates, BENEFIT registrants with regard to this amendment, instead of throwing registrants under the proverbial bus? Please address the above questions. Sincerely, Louise Timmons cc President Obama, US Deparment of Commerce / NTIA , US Securities and Exchange Commission, US Attorney General Anti Trust Division, California Franchise Tax Bureau, Calfornia Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, Honorable Al Gore, Mr. Vint Cerf, Mr. Karl Auerbach, Mr. Milton Mueller, Ms. Viviane Reding, Mr. Rod Beckstrom, Mr. Paul Levins, Mr. Warren Adelman, Mr. John Berryhill, Mr. Josh Bourne, Mr. Phil Lodico, Ms. Laurianne McLaughlin, Mr. Grant Gross, Mr. Roy Mark, Mr. Andrew Allemann, Mr. Darren McDermott, Mr. Mathew Fordahl, Mr. James Temple, Mr. Mathew Goldstein, Mr. Michael Froomkin, Mr. Thomas Claburn, Mr. Otto Timmons, Mr. David Rickley, Forbes, ZD News, NY Times, USA Today, Entropy Economics |