Some background - Under the old policy, the registries were essentially the last stop on enforcement. ICANN had no control over the enforcement of these policies. In my opinion, the registries failed miserably at holding up their end of the bargain. There were good intentions and several aborted attempts at progress, but in the end, none of them were able to take charge in a proactive manner.
ICANN's transfer policy task force had this in mind when it developed the transfer policy. We made a specific request that ICANN be the last word on the matter instead of the registries and this was what was ultimately implemented.
Fast forward - trolling through ICANN's correspondence archives the other day, I noticed that ICANN's Chief Registrar Liaison, Tim Cole, has made specific requests to both Melbourne IT and Dotster inquiring as to the nature of the events surrounding the panix.com fiasco. How ICANN deals with the responses from these two registrars and what measures ICANN ultimate takes remains to be seen, but the very fact that ICANN has gone on the record with inquiries into the matter sets a very definite precedent - a good one. I really hope that they continue in this manner at all levels within the enforcement process.
ICANN's correspondence archive is here: http://www.icann.org/correspondence/
The specific requests can be found here: http://www.icann.org/correspondence/cole-to-page-18jan05.htm and here: http://www.icann.org/correspondence/cole-to-tonkin-18jan05.htm
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-rwr
Contact info: http://www.blogware.com/profiles/ross Skydasher: A great way to start your day My weblog: http://www.byte.org
