Allen Grogan served as ICANN’s Chief Contracting Counsel from May 2013 to September 2014, and in that position oversaw the implementation and rollout of the Registry Agreements for the New gTLD Program, all of which included Specification 11 PICs. From October 2014 to December 2016, he served as Chief Contract Compliance Officer for ICANN, overseeing Contractual Compliance and Consumer Safeguards, and in that position he was responsible, among other things, for enforcement of Public Interest Commitments made by Registries. He currently serves as an advisor to Ethos.
Except where otherwise noted, all postings by Allen Grogan on CircleID are licensed under a Creative Commons License.
Since Ethos announced its investment in PIR last fall, Ethos has welcomed the opportunity to engage with .ORG registrants and users to hear their ideas and answer their questions. We listened to concerns expressed in the community, and we worked to address them. We announced a number of voluntary commitments that Ethos is prepared to make, and then we listened to feedback from the community on the scope of those commitments, as well as on the enforceability of those commitments. more
Ethos Capital has recently announced that it has voluntarily proposed to add an amendment to Public Interest Registry's (PIR) .ORG Registry Agreement with ICANN in the form of a Public Interest Commitment, also known as a "PIC." In the press release Ethos indicated that the PIC would become "legally binding" and "enforceable" both by ICANN and by members of the community. I anticipate that some would ask a number of logical questions: How would that work in practice? more