Comment on IOC/ICRC Proposal

[Dan Krimm]

:-) May expand onto a second page if necessary...   ;-)

Dan



At 12:18 PM -0500 3/4/12, Alain Berranger wrote:
>Thanks Andrew,
>
>This would make an excellent start to the one-pager briefing to the Board
>suggested before by Dan!
>
>Alain
>
>On Sat, Mar 3, 2012 at 8:08 PM, Andrew A. Adams
><<mailto:aaa at meiji.ac.jp>aaa at meiji.ac.jp> wrote:
>
>I strongly object to both the process that led to and the outcome of this
>proposal.
>
>There was a very long period of discussion and the development of an aplicant
>guidebook during which neither the IOC nor the ICRC, so far as I am aware,
>engaged with ICANN processes. At the last minute before the new gTLD system
>came into force these two organisations then put pressure on through the GAC
>for special treatment. This has then been rushed through with too little
>debate and too much pressure to cave in to pressure exerted through one of
>the ICANN stakeholders. The resulting proposal is deeply flawed on both the
>specifics and the general principle and opens up the name space to future
>claims by a myriad of other organisations.
>
>The two organisations are completely different in nature and scope and the
>limited discussions that have taken place appear to have treated them the
>same, with no consideration of their differences.
>
>The case for the IOC is based upon an international treaty which only
>protects their graphical trademark and not the words Olympic or Olympics.
>Indeed, as we can see from the current second level names registered there
>are huge numbers of commercial and non-commercial (e.g. geographic regions,
>not least the region from where the name is drawn) who have currently
>registered variants on the name and who hold trademarks on such names.
>Privileging the IOC in any way in the gTLD name space is unjustified and
>expansionary.
>
>The case for the ICRC is slightly better, given that the existing
>international treaties do protect their names from actual use. I believe that
>these treaties provide sufficient protection against any misuse of their name
>and thus no added protection is needed. Any group which uses a name in such a
>way as to create confusion amongst net users would be subject to severe
>penalties and an application to have such domains blocked would easily be
>accepted under existing rules. THis proposal is again expansionary in that
>the current proposal restricts registration of names in languages not covered
>by the existing international treaty and also includes the concept that names
>not explicitly mentioend but "similar" should be protected.
>
>So, firstly, when the GNSO votes on this matter the two proposals should be
>separated. Even if one accepts that case for the ICRC, the case for the IOC
>is far, far weaker.
>
>Second, the GNSO votes should include more nuanced considerations of
>restricting the scope of any protection offered, in particular paying close
>attention to non-expansionary processes.
>
>Finally, if any protections are extended, these should be explicitly stated
>as exceptions to the rules, apply only to the current round of gTLD expansion
>and require any future protections to be argued for via ICANN's usual
>bottom-up policy process and not forced on the community by one stakeholder
>at the eleventh hour. Such limited and clearly exceptional protections must
>be clearly constrained to prevent other organisations seeking to bypass the
>bottom-up processes and force their own restrictions on others'
>self-identification into the domain name system without proper balance being
>considered in a measured and true consensus manner.
>
>In accepting these proposals, I believe the GNSO would do much more
>significant harm to ICANN than would follow to anyone by allowing the
>existing treaties to provide the rules and the existing mechanisms to follow
>those rules.
>
>
>--
>Professor Andrew A Adams
> <mailto:aaa at meiji.ac.jp>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/>http://www.a-cubed.info/
>
>
>
>
>--
>Alain Berranger, B.Eng, MBA
>Member, Board of Directors,
>CECI, <http://www.ceci.ca/en/about-ceci/team/board-of-directors/>http://www.ceci.ca
>
>Executive-in-residence, Schulich School of Business,
><http://www.schulich.yorku.ca>www.schulich.yorku.ca
>Trustee, Global Knowledge Partnership Foundation,
><http://www.gkpfoundation.org>www.gkpfoundation.org
>NA representative, Chasquinet Foundation,
><http://www.chasquinet.org>www.chasquinet.org
>interim Membership Committee Chair, NPOC, NCSG,
>ICANN, <http://npoc.org/>http://npoc.org/
>O:+1 514 484 7824; M:+1 514 704 7824
>Skype: alain.berranger