I can appreciate the importance of politics and compromise here. But ...

Why don't Red Cross apply for it's god-forsaken string? If it has no 
interest in it than why should it be protected. It has no interest in it!

Let's say in 10 years time most online game have their own gTLD, for 
some yet to be determined technical reasons. The very famous block 
buster Red Cross than comes along and apply. They have interest in it. 
It has a very innovative business case too. Oh they could probably use 
another string, but why for the name of anything that is sensible should 
it not be allowed to use it just because Red Cross is an Org recognised 
by States??

This has absolutely no bearing on the TLD issue. Why not give the string 
to Red Cross-the-game. I don't see the Red Cross the (admittedly 
saintly) organization being hurt by this.

Then again, see my first sentence.

Nicolas

On 10/5/2011 10:20 AM, Andrew A. Adams wrote:
> 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.
>
>