ICANN participation

At-Large Begins Work on a Registrants 'Bill of Rights and Responsibilities' - Community Volunteers Needed

In August 2008, the At-Large Advisory Committee ("ALAC") sent an advisory to the Board of Directors of ICANN related to At-Large community views on amendments to the Registrar Accreditation Agreement ("RAA") (http://www.atlarge.icann.org/en/correspondence/community-views-raa-negotiation.htm)

A number of the proposals in the Advisory related to the protection of registrants, including:

"Add a clause in the RAA to require registrars to show a standardized description of registrant rights, to be provided by ICANN in different languages, as an appendix to the contract at the time of registration, and also to make it available in the registrant's domain management interface whenever available. Such obligation should also be passed onto resellers."

In the public consultation on a package of proposed draft amendments to the RAA begun in June 2008 (see http://www.icann.org/en/announcements/announcement-18jun08-en.htm), this proposal can be found as a redline addition to the RAA text:

"In the event that ICANN gives reasonable notice to Registrar that ICANN has published a webpage that identifies available registrant rights and responsibilities, and the content of such webpage is developed in consultation with registrars, Registrar shall provide a link to the webpage on any website it may operate for domain name registration or renewal clearly displayed to its Registered Name Holders at least as clearly as its links to policies or notifications required to be displayed under ICANN Consensus Policies."

The ALAC Coordinator of the Registrant / Registrar Relations Working group of At-Large has asked that work begin, in consultation with the registrar community, on producing such a document. Volunteers from the At-Large community who wish to work on this project are asked to subscribe to the RRA-WG list at: http://atlarge-lists.icann.org/mailman/listinfo/raa-wg_atlarge-lists.icann.org and send an email introducing yourself to that list.

The RRA Working Group URL is: https://st.icann.org/raa-policy/index.cgi?at_large_registrar_registrant_relations_working_group and you will find a new set of pages dedicated to this initiative along with reference information.