I'm glad you're a *credentialed* PRO. Folks like me would be forced to immediately comply with such a letter but given the pieces I've seen, I don't know [either] where you went wrong. I suppose the only area for question would be, Encirca does not *endorse* registrations from non-credentialed individuals but it does not appear to care or want to know (IMO), as long as you pay the money and don't write about it.:)

Good luck Bret! I'll be quietly behind you.

Bret,

You're not confused.

You know full well how EnCirca's ProForwarding service works.

You know full well that all registrations by EnCirca's ProForwarding service list EnCirca as the registrant of record supported by professional credentials.

And you can't identify any EnCirca-sponsored .pro domains registered by non-licensed professionals.

For you to pretend otherwise makes your postings disingenuous.

Tom

Tom,

You say that Bret is being "disingenuous" but I'm inclined to feel the same about you (and I assure you I have no personal grudge against you, I'm just very sceptical about what you've done with ICANN's processes).

You know very well that the purpose and intention of ICANN's .pro Registry agreement was to maintain a "restricted" TLD which kept out all parties that were not carefully scrutinised for their verifiable professional credentials.

You also know that EnCirca invented a device for circumventing these intentions, by offering non-credentialled people the chance to "own" .pro domains by acting as a kind of "pseudo-registrant" or "proxy registrant" for the unauthorised customers.

According to EnCirca's own statements, "YOUR domain is registered in the name of EnCirca's ProForwarding Service" and "YOU retain the full benefits of domain registration".

And in your Press Release here:
http://www.webhostdir.com/news/articles/shownews.asp?id=11643
you say:
"Through March 31, EnCirca is SELLING second-level .pro domains, such as www.fitness.pro, for $49 per year."

Back at your website, you say:

"You can sell, renew or cancel YOUR domain; set up nameservers for YOUR domain; and involve disputes involving YOUR domain."

So although technically EnCirca is "registering" the domains in their name, that is just a front for thousands of registrations that have taken place on behalf of unauthorised people, who when they click on 'submit' to pay the $49 within seconds have "THEIR" domains with "THEIR" details on the Registry whois.

You have "SOLD" them the domain and it is, in your own words, "THEIRS". They can re-sell it, renew it, manage it, because what in effect has happened - though your device uses EnCirca as the proxy registrant - is that they have had these thousands of domains registered for them and sold to them.

These unauthorised customers have managed to circumvent ICANN's intentions, and you must know that you are in breach of the spirit of the Registry Agreement (as ICANN have themselves suggested) because EnCirca is complicit in getting round the Registry requirements on a technicality.

EnCirca acts as the proxy registrant, but we all know that the real registrants (not in name but in practice) are the wholly unverified people who you have let in by the back door for a quick buck.

Of course, you are in business to make money. But I find it disappointing (as many at ICANN do - I have received private expressions of disapproval from the very highest people at ICANN) that you think your business device should take priority over the purposes of the Registry processes, and the conduct of business within the aims and purposes of that process.

These restricted TLDs were set up to be just that: restricted. The effect of your own business ambitions has been the circumvention of the planned policy outcomes which were established for the Internet as part of the NewTLDs process.

In short, I do not believe that a single registrar should be determining the policy outcomes of a TLD. At the very least I think you should have consulted with ICANN to see if your actions would, in their view, subvert the purposes of this restricted TLD.

So now we are left with a flood of unauthorised people who - if you choose not to call them 'registrants' because you act as proxy registrant instead - have paid for the registration, gained the 'ownership' implied by registration, obtained the rights implicit in registration of "THEIR" domains.

Yours sincerely,

Richard Henderson

Further to comments I made earlier today, I feel I should draw attention to the use of the term ‘registrants’ made by EnCirca in their own Press Release promoting their new ProForwarding product:

Press Release Author = EnCirca, Inc
Released on = March 2, 2005, 8:02 am

“The issues with .pro, until now, were that the cost was often prohibitive and the requirement to validate the registration with credentials of being a licensed professional was restraining,” said Tom Barrett, president of EnCirca.

(Now Encirca was resolving the obstacles for people “no matter where they reside” he continued in the release...)

This means that EnCirca now supports REGISTRANTS from all licensed professions anywhere in the world.

Through March 31, EnCirca is SELLING second-level .pro domains, such as www.fitness.pro, for $49 per year.

EnCirca also offers fully encrypted email and Web design tools, making it a one-stop-shop for the fundamental tools .pro REGISTRANTS need for search engine-driven Web marketing.

http://www.prleap.com/printer/4944/
http://www.prfree.com/index.php?cur=index&action=preview&id=23765
http://www.webhostdir.com/news/articles/shownews.asp?id=11643

By ambiguously using the term "selling" domains, when they surely mean "leasing" domains, and by referring to "registrants" when they are not actually meaning that, EnCirca seem in this text to be further blurring the difference to the consumer between what you might call the "paying domain name owner with full registrants rights" and their own role as "proxy registrant", which is little more than a device to circumvent the aims of the Registry Agreement.

In the context of these "registrations", it is abundantly clear that Encirca has found hundreds of new registrants, or call them what you will, who have gained these domains without any of the meticulous verification which the Registry Agreement intended for the TLD.

It is interesting to compare Thomas Barrett's attitude to ICANN's Registry Agreement (the intention of which was to preserve the .pro TLD exclusively for verified professionals) with his own words written to ICANN some 18 months ago:

“The entire DNS industry should ensure that the public has the highest confidence that changes are being introduced to the DNS according to a well-defined process based on consensus… The Internet Community, as well as the various ICANN constituencies deserves clarity in the process ICANN uses”

Thomas Barrett to ICANN, 13th Oct 2003.

http://www.icann.nl/correspondence/encirca-to-icann-13oct03.htm

It is this failure to consult with ICANN, or conform to the widely understood aims and purposes of the .pro TLD - as set out in the Registry Agreement - that I have found disappointing.

I have requested that ICANN make amendments to the Registry Agreement to re-assert the integrity and objectives of the .pro TLD and protect it from the likes of www.c*nt.pro and www.f*ck.pro and the thousands of other registrations which have been paid for by what (in any other circumstance) would be understood to be "registrants".

Yrs,

Richard Henderson