Registration Abuse Policies Working Group

RAP WG is the abbreviation for the Registration Abuse Policies Working Group (also known as WGRAP, or Working Group on Registration Abuse Policies). On 25 September 2008, the Generic Name Support Organization (GNSO) adopted a motion requesting a report on the issues regarding the abuse provisions for the registry and registrar agreements. The resulting report highlighted the provisions relevant to abuse in the registry-registrar agreements, and also included several recommendations. Considering this, the GNSO Council in December 2008 agreed to charter a Working Group to look into the open problems mentioned in the Report; the RAP WG was chartered in February 2009.

Overview

The main objective of the RAP WG was to gather facts, provide the necessary focus, and define terms for the various policy issues so that the GNSO Council would be able to make quality decisions on whether there was a need to initiate a Policy Development Process (PDP) on registration abuse.

The RAP WG's task was to define domain name registration abuse independently from abuse that occurs from the use of a registered domain name. The RAP WG was also to to identify what issues regarding registration abuse fall under the purview of ICANN's mission, as well as to identify the various policies set by ICANN that were binding to gTLD operators and ICANN accredited registrars.

ICANN also mandated that the RAP WG conduct additional research about the practices of relevant entities other than the contracted parties, such as abusers, registrants, law enforcement, service providers, etc. ICANN also stipulated that, based on this research, the WG was to identify and recommend certain policy issues and processes for further consideration.

Structure

The RAP WG consisted of interested stakeholders and constituency representatives who worked together with other knowledgeable organizations and individuals in order to research the various issues in the Registration Abuse Policies Issues Report, and then subsequently take the necessary steps as mentioned in the Charter.

The RAP WG functioned on the basis of consensus, meaning that all points of view were to be considered in full before coming to any decisions. Consensus views were recorded along with the names and affiliations of those in agreement, and anyone holding a minority view was invited to include a discussion in the WG report.

Generic Names Supporting Organization. Develops and recommends to the Board substantive policies relating to generic top-level domains and other responsibilities set forth in the Bylaws (ICANN Bylaws).