US Govt Agrees with NCUC on ICANN's "Inappropriate" Plan to Police Morality and Public Order

[Konstantinos Komaitis]

My personal view is that ICANN should abandon the whole new gTLD process
altogether ­ at least for the time being ­ in order to address all the
issues that seem to generate concerns. From my reading of the proposal my
understanding has been that ICANN has voiced, but not quite addressed, the
issues that would make the addition of new gTLDs debatable. The proposal
seems draft as in all three categories that ICANN suggests there are serious
legitimate objections that ICANN has not managed to resolve. I think that
this time ICANN¹s effort can be seen as a massive failure. Unlike the UDRP
(still a policy making process falling outside ICANN¹s remit) which came
straight from the MoU and was curing the problematics of the former NSI
policy as well as the general issue of domain names vs trademarks, the new
policy serves no such purpose. The way I see it, it is an attempt of ICANN
to politically position itself once again only this time in a more
substantial way. It is a very big move which at the same time signals and
offers some insight as to what ICANN is capable of doing when it comes fully
independent (after the expiration of the JPA).
If the new policy raises objections from the US Government and some part of
the trademark constituency then I think we need to put more pressure on
ICANN and we stand a better chance of having our voices heard.

Happy holidays to everyone.

Best

KK 


On 20/12/2008 16:31, "Milton L Mueller" <mueller at SYR.EDU> wrote:

> Well the news is partly good and partly bad. As a whole the letter seems to be
> an attempt by NTIA to get ICANN to stop or delay for another 2 years or so any
> addition of new TLDs. We know that lots of business/trademark lobbies have
> been complaining loudly about the new gTLD process. While the paragraph cited
> by Robin does indeed agree with our position, the general upshot is ³back to
> square one.² I would like to solicit constituency comment: is this new gTLD
> process so bad that we want to stop it altogether? In many ways this would
> have to be seen as a massive failure ­ after 10 years, ICANN still cannot
> define an ongoing process to add new TLDs?
>  
> 
> 
> From: Non-Commercial User Constituency [mailto:NCUC-DISCUSS at LISTSERV.SYR.EDU]
> On Behalf Of Robin Gross
> Sent: Saturday, December 20, 2008 1:49 AM
> To: NCUC-DISCUSS at LISTSERV.SYR.EDU
> Subject: [NCUC-DISCUSS] US Govt Agrees with NCUC on ICANN's "Inappropriate"
> Plan to Police Morality and Public Order
>  
> The US Govt submitted its comments to ICANN on the introduction of new gTLDs.
> 
>     http://forum.icann.org/lists/gtld-guide/msg00175.html
> 
>  
> 
> And the US Govt agreed with a point NCUC has been making throughout this
> entire process.  The US suggests ICANN "Focus on coordinating technical
> functions related to the management of the DNS and not on matters more
> appropriately addressed by governments, such as adjudication of morality and
> public order and the community objections in accordance with international
> human rights law.  The proposed mechanisms are inappropriate."
> 
>  
> 
> Interesting to say the least.
> 
>  
> 
> Best,
> 
> Robin
> 
>  
> 
> 
> -- 
> Dr. Konstantinos Komaitis,
> Lecturer in Law,
> GigaNet Membership Chair,
> University of Strathclyde,
> The Lord Hope Building,
> 141 St. James Road,
> Glasgow, G4 0LT,
> UK
> tel: +44 (0)141 548 4306
> email: k.komaitis at strath.ac.uk 

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