NCSG input on request for special privileges for Red Cross & International Olympic Committee regarding Internet domains

[Andrew A. Adams]

My general feeling is that it should be primarily usage associated with a
site and not the name that should be the focus of attention. However, in the
international arena, the Red Cross and associated names already have a broad
set of special privileges regarding both the name and signs they use and
agreed by various international treaties. Accordingly if we oppose any
application of these privileges to the DNS we risk losing any influence and
that a very broad set of privileges end up being granted (and possibly for
other organisations). Pragmatically, therefore I think we might allow the
sole case of the Red Cross as one very special case, but only for the EXACT
names that are defined in the treaties (there's precedent for this in the
country code designations) and vigorously defend any extension beyond exactly
the words specified in those treaties. This, I would suspect will be more
likely to succeed than any attempt to ignore the special status altogether. I
think the discussions here on the differences between the Red Cross and the
Olympics provide very useful arguments as to why similarities should be
ignored and that only the Red Cross has the true international standing with
respect to its names that justifies any derogation from the principles of
free speech which should underpin domain name systems.

(*) I am using Red Cross here as a blanket term for all the versions.


--
Professor Andrew A Adams                      aaa at meiji.ac.jp
Professor at Graduate School of Business Administration,  and
Deputy Director of the Centre for Business Information Ethics
Meiji University, Tokyo, Japan       http://www.a-cubed.info/