[NCUC-DISCUSS] An interesting development

Mon Jul 23 19:41:45 CEST 2018

Sent from my mobile
Kindly excuse brevity and typos

On Mon, 23 Jul 2018, 18:28 Benjamin Akinmoyeje, <benakin at gmail.com> wrote.
Some experienced members informed the group it was a criminal offense, and
it would be easy for the government to influence the ccTLD (NIRA) to give
up the registered domain.

SO: The above is indeed what will eventually happen. So long as the current
registrant is unable to prove that he/she owns that brand NigeriaAir (by
incorporation) and remember govt also have a stake in this so it will be
quite easy for this to be resolved.

It's like someone registering fuoye.edu.ng, ofcourse that person would be
wasting his or her time if such person is not the official rep of FUOYE.

Regards

Also, some felt if the owner had paid for privacy on the said domain, it
> would have been difficult to know that he is based in Nigeria, hence
> Nigerian govt would not have had jurisdiction over him.
>
> In another group made up of IG veterans and regulatory agencies members
> (some of those who crafted the laws) argued that domain names with national
> relevance like NigeriaAir, Nigeria Airforce, etc especially on  .NG should
> have due diligence process or government approval before registering such.
> Some felt it was outrightly cybersquatting - especially as someone
> declared: "This is the reason I personally drafted S.25 into the Nigerian
> Cybercrime Act. Whoever registered the domain should enjoy his 15 minutes
> of fame!"
> Others felt the law is killing innovation, another person felt the
> NigeriaAir team did not tidy up their act before going public with the idea
> - some negligence on their part he claimed.
> Others felt ICANN's rule does not affect this and it is solely a NIRA
> (.NG) issue.
> Finally, the entire community believes this is bringing the necessary
> attention to the domain space, as a viable real estate worth investing and
> they hope this high profile case will test the Cybercrime Act and bring the
> most desired attention to the DNS business in Nigeria.
> It has been an intense and interesting conversation that is still ongoing
> ...it will require a major secretariat duty to summarize the different
> views.
>
>
> However, a communique a stumbled upon still on the platform later today,
> showed that the NigeriaAir team responding to many questions about the
> prospective airline showed that they have the domain name
> *www.flynigeriaair.ng <http://www.flynigeriaair.ng>. *
>
> This is an interesting incident, that has changed the way people look at
> the DNS ownership and the effect of this case is yet to be known.
>
>
> Thanks again for joining in this conversation,
> Benjamin
>
>
> On Mon, Jul 23, 2018 at 8:31 AM Farell FOLLY <farell at benin2point0.org>
> wrote:
>
>> Dear Benjamin,
>>
>> I couldn’t be as clear as Kathy was. All details are within.
>>
>> FYI and if anybody else is interested, please remember that I (the
>> penholder) and many NCUC/NCSG member including Kathy wrote a couple of
>> public comments one year ago regarding the DNS Abuse report
>> <https://drive.google.com/open?id=11k9M2J8dm5oNbaqkk2a7aIbkNp8cEMjf>(new
>> gTLDs), which details all types of DNS abuse and made some recommendations
>> to mitigate them. Our 2017 public comments are available here
>> <https://community.icann.org/display/gnsononcomstake/Public+Comments+-+2017> (look
>> for SADAG report and nine safeguards).
>>
>>
>> @__f_f__
>>
>> Best Regards
>> ____________________________________
>> Farell FOLLY
>> NCUC Rep. to the NCSG Policy Committee
>> linkedin.com/in/farellf
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On 23 Jul 2018, at 04:55, Kathy Kleiman <kathy at KATHYKLEIMAN.COM> wrote:
>>
>> Hi Benjamin,
>>
>> You raise some interesting questions. First and foremost, this is an easy
>> problem to avoid. Before launching any new venture, announcing any new
>> movie, posting the name of any new organization, people in charge of the
>> venture should register the domain names they would most like to have.
>> These domain names are always far cheaper to register before the new
>> venture (movie, organization) is named publicly.
>>
>> That said, if this was a gTLD, it would probably be a case of
>> cybersquatting. The reason we know this is that a famous "cybersquatter" in
>> the early days (mid to late 1990s), named John Zuccarini sent shivers
>> through the trademark world by registered as domain names many famous
>> brands, including AmericanAirlines.com. He worked within the US, and was
>> one the inspirations for the US Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act
>> (ACPA) and, later, the Uniform Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP). He lost
>> some of his domain names in  ACPA lawsuits, and he lost
>> AmericanAirlines.com in a 2000 UDRP decision by the National Arbitration
>> Forum, http://www.adrforum.com/domaindecisions/95695.htm. The decision
>> transferred americanairlines.com from Zuccarini to American Airlines,
>> Inc.
>>
>> That said, country codes (ccTLDs) do not have policies created by ICANN.
>> Only generic top level domains (gTLDs) such as .COM, .ORG, .XYZ and .NINJA,
>> have policies created by consensus through the multistakeholder community.
>> Country-code TLDs create a few policies together through ICANN (e.g., they
>> are working on a global policy for the retirement of ccTLDs, e.g., when the
>> name of a country changes), but in general, their policies are created
>> within the country and within the ccTLD.
>>
>> This would include domain name dispute policies for .NG in Nigeria. To
>> your questions:
>>
>> 1. Is this a case of cybersquatting -- that would depend on Nigerian law
>> and dispute resolution policies of .NG -- and ultimately, decisions of a
>> court or arbitration panel.
>>
>> 2. Is this a case of protection of geographic names -- I don't think so
>> because this is the name of a newly organized company - NigeriaAir. There
>> are many, many organizations and companies which very legitimately and
>> legally include geographical names in their own names, or as their own
>> names (e.g., in the US, Budweiser renamed its beer "America" for the
>> summer, and American Airlines is a private company which did not ask
>> permission from the US government before creating its new brand name).
>>
>> 3. If the WHOIS is not open, how will he be identified? Again, that
>> depends on the rules of .NG. Nigeria's ccTLD makes its own WHOIS database
>> rules, and they would likely depend on Nigerian privacy laws. But in the
>> gTLD Whois, even the changes in the WHOIS database have not stopped the
>> UDRP disputes. When a UDRP is filed, if it is otherwise complete, but no
>> name for the domain name registrant is known, WIPO, NAF or other UDRP
>> Provider, will ask the Registrar for the Registrant information -- to allow
>> the Registrant to be notified of an action against their domain name.
>> Generally, the Registrar responds with the Registrant data; sometimes the
>> Registrar agrees to pass on the notification to the Registrant and give
>> him/her/it the option to respond and thereby reveal their identity.
>>
>> 4. Will the government be violating his rights if they go after him?
>> According to the article you linked to, "the minister revealed that the
>> Nigerian government owns only a meagre 5% equity of Nigeria Air, therefore,
>> it would be run as a private entity." In that case, this might become an
>> action filed by the new Nigerian Air company as an arbitration or civil
>> litigation. However,  given the Nigerian law that you shared, it may be
>> possible for Nigerian prosecutors to pursue a criminal case as well.
>>
>> Tx you for sharing this case -- and I would be very interested to hear
>> what happens next!  You wrote that there is an interesting conversation in
>> Nigeria among IG and DNS Stakeholders -- can you share a bit about this
>> discussion?
>>
>> Best, Kathy
>>
>> On 7/22/2018 10:14 AM, Benjamin Akinmoyeje wrote:
>>
>> Hi All,
>> There is an interesting domain name discussion or dispute going on in
>> Nigeria and I just like to get views of members of this list on this issue.
>>
>> The Nigerian government announced a new national carrier - NigeriaAir a
>> few days ago and immediately an individual registered the domains
>> NigeriaAir.ng and NigeriaAir.com.ng <http://nigeriaair.com.ng/>; which
>> he is not offering for sale.
>>
>> Few things are at play here,
>> Is this cybersquatting?
>> Is this a case of protection geographic names, although this is with the
>> ccTLD?
>> If the WHOIS was not open or if there was tiered access,  how will he be
>> identified?
>> Will the government by violating his rights if they go after him?
>>
>> The development of the DNS industry as a profitable
>>
>> Full story on this link
>> https://techpoint.ng/2018/07/20/nigeria-air-domain-taken/
>>
>> See attached an excerpt from the provision of the Nigeria Cybercrime law.
>>
>> I just like to get some views as this may change the DNS business
>> landscape in Nigeria,
>>
>> This is an interesting conversation going on in Nigeria amongst IG and
>> DNS stakeholders since yesterday - I like to know your thoughts.
>>
>> Regards,
>> Benjamin
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Ncuc-discuss mailing listNcuc-discuss at lists.ncuc.orghttps://lists.ncuc.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/ncuc-discuss
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Ncuc-discuss mailing list
>> Ncuc-discuss at lists.ncuc.org
>> https://lists.ncuc.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/ncuc-discuss
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
> Ncuc-discuss mailing list
> Ncuc-discuss at lists.ncuc.org
> https://lists.ncuc.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/ncuc-discuss
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.ncuc.org/pipermail/ncuc-discuss/attachments/20180723/e60a519e/attachment.html>