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 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.

There is, I think a real discussion to be had on this point, however like 
many other discussions in this area, I think the domain space is actually the 
wrong focus for the discussion (certainly as a stand-alone discussion, see 
below). In many ways this is symptomatic of the problems of Internet 
governance in general. People within ICANN tend to believe ICANN and its most 
visible function (domain names) are more important than they've turned out to 
be, based on an early importance in the rush to register .com domains. 
There's also a tendency for people outside ICANN to believe that ICANN must 
be able to "control the Internet" because they can't believe a piece of 
infrastructure as important as the Internet turned out to be actually has 
little in the way of actual control going on.

That's not to say that the domain name system has no place in discussions of 
fraud (Phishing and Pharming also come into this along similar lines) online 
and how to combat it. However, we need to have a broader discussion and to 
craft solutions which are:

a) effective in combatting the various frauds which occur online
b) have minimal and acceptable costs in terms of other onlines freedoms
c) avoid privileging charities with valuable social missions with powers 
which can be easily mis-used (I'm thinking of the attempt by the RSPCA to 
have bonsai kitty shut down)

ICANN has a place in that discussion, but it would need to include relevant 
law enforcement, payment service providers, charity regulators and charity 
representatives as well as civil liberties groups (such as NCUC, EFF, ORG).

Suggesting that somehow preventing redcross.<newtld> being registered would 
have any significant impact on fake charity is living in cloud cuckoo-land 
and in fact is probably a net negative because such security theatre would 
convince people that the problem had been dealt with instead of prompting 
them to continue to search for better ways of reducing fraud (you'll never 
get rid of it entirely and at some point we reach diminishing returns due to 
the costs of trying).

-- 
Professor Andrew A Adams                      [log in to unmask]
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/