Andrew and Ron both make some good points.  What we need to ask here is:

Why should ICANN have responsibility for this issue?  Certainly it seems
unlikely that ICANN should have *sole* responsibility, if any.

Also, strategies attempting to use TM infringement as the lever to enforce
fraud seem mismatched: outright fraud is only a small part of TM law, and
thus a narrower "hammer" ought to be devised for this narrow "nail" which
I'd expect everyone would agree should be addressed *somehow* (nobody wants
there to be rampant fraud with regard to charity fundraising -- I think we
can all agree on that much).

I think it's up to those who think ICANN in particular should ride to the
rescue here to have the burden of proof to demonstrate why that is the
case, with the default being that ICANN should not take charge of this.
They need to demonstrate why charity fundraising fraud "breaks the DNS" per
se and why existing law enforcement is somehow not up to the task of
addressing such instances without ICANN taking over some substantial law
enforcement authority.

For ICANN to assist law enforcement narrowly in legitimate goals is one
thing, but taking over law enforcement with potentially broad reach is
quite another.  Why exactly is it specifically ICANN's duty to fix this?

Dan


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At 1:21 AM -0400 7/23/12, Evan Leibovitch wrote:
>I don't know how welcome it is, but there has been some discussion of the
>issue at ALAC.
>
>(What follows is my own interpretation of the at-large PoV; others'
>mileage may vary.)
>
>Until recently there was widespread agreement with keeping the status quo.
>But the stance has of late become a little more nuanced.
>
>We have absolutely no sympathy for the IOC or its franchisees, or IGOs in
>general (that already have the elite ability to register in dot-int). But
>while we don't want to make any specific exemptions for the Red Cross, we
>feel there is a legitimate discussion to be had about attempts to spoof
>charities.
>
>There, are, unfortunately, real instances of domains created to
>deliberately confuse potential donors (especially domains quickly created
>in the aftermath of disasters), often by in part appropriating the names
>of known charities such as the Red Cross. There are many in At-Large who
>believe that the domain system has some responsibility to prevent such
>clear instances of abuse, which has the potential to expand significantly
>upon expansion of the TLD namespace. What is less clear is how to do this,
>but simply doing nothing does not appear to be a reasonable option. What
>is hoped for is a reasonably easy process to stop sites designed to
>commandeer charitable donations, in such a way that does not draw
>substantial funds or focus from the real charities' core objectives.
>
>This is more of a 2LD issue than a TLD one, but very real nonetheless. We
>would prefer to generalize it, since charities besides the Red Cross
>suffer from this kind of fraud. And we prefer to approach this from the
>PoV of safeguarding the trust and needs of donors and supporters as
>opposed to trademark and trademark-like "rights". However, a complete
>response of "do nothing, everything's OK" may indicate an ICANN that is
>insensitive to the public consequences of its policies, and indeed a
>mis-functioning (or at least imbalanced) MSM.
>
>- Evan