ICANN Opens Comment Period on Proposed Add Grace Period [...]

ICANN is today opening public comment periods on requests submitted by NeuStar,the .BIZ registry, and Afilias, the .INFO registry, to modify terms regardingthe add grace period (AGP) in their respective registry agreements.

On 5 February 2008, NeuStar and Afilias submitted separate but similar requeststhrough the Registry Services Evaluation Process to modify the AGP in theirrespective TLDs in order "to address the excessive delete problem" (i.e.domain tasting) in .BIZ and .INFO. Currently there are no limitations onthe number of deletions that a registrar can process and receive a refundduring the five-day AGP. The proposed service would limit the number ofAGP deletions where a registrar could receive a full registration fee crediteach month: either 50 per month or 10% of that registrar's net new monthlydomain name registrations, whichever is greater. A registrar would be permittedto delete as many names as it wished during the five-day AGP, receivingcredit throughout the month. However, at the end of the .BIZ or .INFO normalmonthly billing cycle the Registrar's account would be debited for thefull value of the domain name registrations that exceeded the month's setthreshold.

As provided for by existing consensus policy (https://www.icann.org/registries/rsep/rsep.html),ICANN has undertaken a preliminary determination to determine whether theproposed modifications might raise significant security or stability, orcompetition issues. ICANN's determination is that the proposed modificationsby NeuStar and Afilias do not raise such issues.

The next step in evaluation is that (because implementation of the proposalswould require changes to the .BIZ and .INFO Registry Agreements) ICANN willpost the proposed amendments, solicit public comment and refer the proposalsto the ICANN Board for consideration.

A copy of the proposed NeuStar amendment is availablehere [PDF, 25K], anda copy of the proposed Afilias amendment is availablehere [PDF, 25K]. Both amendments provide for changes to Appendix 7, Section3.1.1. Comments on the NeuStar amendment submitted to neustar-agp-proposal@icann.org willbe considered until 23:59 UTC 28 March 2008 and may be viewed at http://forum.icann.org/lists/neustar-agp-proposal/. Commentson the Afilias amendment submitted to afilias-agp-proposal@icann.org willbe considered until 23:59 UTC 28 March 2008 and may be viewed at http://forum.icann.org/lists/afilias-agp-proposal/. Pleasekeep in mind that these are separate proposals with separate public commentforums.

All documentation regarding the NeuStar proposal is available at https://www.icann.org/registries/rsep/submitted_app.html#2008001, whiledocumentation on the Afilias proposal is available at https://www.icann.org/registries/rsep/submitted_app.html#2008002.