Amr, (& Dan)

I have been traveling so please excuse my delay in responding to you and 
Dan, and thanks Lori and Klaus for your comments. I have two short 
clarification comments.

1. The time slot for this Webinar was set where it is because of time 
constraints and the main target participants (South East Asian Civil 
Society Organizations).

2. There is a slight confusion around the term "brand protection". 
Within the walls of the ICANN community the term Brand Protection (Upper 
Case to stress the point) has an "in house" meaning with a long history. 
It is useful to think of the underlying issue in a more generic sense, 
with a focus more (in this Webinar) on the issues around "brand" 
confronting South East Asian Civil Society Organizations. This in no way 
ignores the issues around individual protections, including consumer 
protection, human rights issues, etc. , or some of the contentious 
problems between stakeholder interests.

Civil Society and Not-for-Profit organizations have their own identities 
to protect and if you will recall, that was one of the initial factors 
in the creation of NPOC, and NPOC is hosting this webinar. Much of the 
standard list of issues around brand protection impact individuals and 
organizations, but there are  two that are of particular importance to 
the Civil Society Organization constituency:

  * Civil Society organization slow awareness and engagement with the
    DNS system, losing the opportunity of good domain names to others,
    both innocent registrants and cyber-squatters. This is the "you
    snooze, you lose" risk, and part of the intent of awareness raising
    within the Civil Society organization community.  I am talking about
    Civil Society organizations whose mission and vision have nothing to
    do with the Internet Ecosystem (e.g. health, poverty, gender, etc.),
    but who increasingly depend on properties of that system to pursue
    their work.
  *   South East Asia is a region particularly prone to natural
    disasters (typhoons, floods, earthquakes, etc.) and Civil Society
    organizations, and consumer/donor interests, are often the target of
    rogue Internet efforts designed to steal donations. [I recently
    participated in closing down one operation that involved an Eastern
    European effort, using crowd sourcing, and trying to scam donation
    money in the name of Ebola relief.]

Lastly, it is important, on occasion, for us (within ICANN) to remember 
that our internal language will have different meanings in different 
contexts. That is especially important when outreach includes awareness 
raising and greater engagement in Internet ecosystem issues from "their 
perspective", which for NPOC means a focus more on Civil Society at the 
organization level, while not ignoring the issues of individuals in 
Civil Society. This is in addition to ICANN's interest in Civil 
Society's greater engagement in ICANN's multistakeholder processes.

Hope that helps clear some things up a bit.

Sam L.


On 2015-02-03 10:22 AM, Amr Elsadr wrote:
> Hi Sam,
>
> Unfortunately, this webinar will take place midway through 
> constituency day, so it’ll be pretty difficult for those who wish to 
> participate in their own groups’ meetings (either in person or 
> remotely) to attend the webinar.
>
> I am certainly interested to listen in, and will try to in the future. 
> One of the topics I find to be of great interest is brand protection. 
> I find the mix of civil society online, domain names and brand 
> protection to be more than just a little odd. Now I’m not saying that 
> protection of brands is a bad thing, but when it comes to gTLD 
> policies, I have found that achieving almost all of the goals that I 
> have come to believe are important to civil society put us in direct 
> conflict with the interests of brand owners.
>
> I would assume (and hope) that there is some way for civil society to 
> approach this issue differently than the Intellectual Property 
> Constituency (IPC), but it looks like one of the presenters of this 
> topic is actually one of the IPC’s GNSO councillors.
>
> Will there be a recording of the webinar? Like I said, I’d be very 
> interested to hear more on this.
>
> Thanks.
>
> Amr
>
> On Feb 3, 2015, at 1:41 PM, Sam Lanfranco <[log in to unmask] 
> <mailto:[log in to unmask]>> wrote:
>
>> Singapore Pathfinder Webinar Program
>>
>> *"**What every Civil Society Organization should Know about**
>> **its use of the Internet and Never Dared to Ask! - Part 2"*
>>
>> (South East Asia Regional Webinar)
>>
>> *Date &**Time: February 10, 2015 11:30-13:00 SGT (3:30-5:00 UTC)*
>>
>> *Event Location: Moor Room, Raffles City Convention Centre, Singapore*
>>
>> Civil Society and Non-Governmental Organizations are the Internet’s 
>> largest stakeholder group, and they are becoming increasingly 
>> dependent on how the Internet operates in order to carry out work in 
>> pursuit of their vision and Mission.
>>
>> This regional Pathfinder webinars and dialogues series is designed to 
>> address vital operational concerns, explore challenges and present 
>> effective strategic uses of the Internet by Civil Society and NGO 
>> organizations. Presenters from Internet stakeholder groups will 
>> address issues that directly impact Civil Society organization use of 
>> the Internet. This is Pathfinder’s second regional session. The first 
>> was in Washington D.C. in early January. There are more to follow. 
>> Pathfinder is an initiative of the Global Knowledge Partnership 
>> Foundation . This South East Asia Regional Webinar is hosted by 
>> ICANN’s Not-For-Profit Operational Concerns Constituency (NPOC) with 
>> assistance from Katten Muchin Rosenman LLP (Washington D.C.) and the 
>> Alpha & Omega Law Corporation (Singapore)
>>
>> Topic 1:*"Making it work for you: Emerging Opportunities and 
>> Challenges for Civil Society Organizations on the Internet"*
>> Presenter: Sam Lanfranco, Chair, NPOC Policy Committee; Chair, 
>> ISOC-Canada Public Policy Committee
>>
>> Topic 2:*"Civil Society Online: Domain Names, Brand Protection and 
>> Abuse Prevention"*
>> Presenters: Renee Xavier, Director, Alpha & Omega Law Firm 
>> (Singapore); Brian J. Winterfeldt, Head of Internet Practice, Katten 
>> Muchin Rosenman LLP (Washington D.C.)
>>
>> Topic 3:*"ICANN's Role in Civil Society Organization Internet 
>> Opportunities and Challenges"*
>> Presenters: Jean-Jacques Sahel, Civil Society Engagement, ICANN; 
>> Nigel Hickson, IG matters, ICANN
>>
>> Moderator: Rudi Vansnick, Chair, Not-for-Profit Operational Concerns 
>> Constituency (NPOC)
>>
>> For information on remote participation and questions 
>> see:http://www.gkpf.org/portal.php?p=webinarSg150210
>