On 19/12/2011, at 2:22 PM, William Drake wrote:
Hi
As expected, the UN and other public intergovernmental organizations are now demanding that their names and acronyms be protected---not only at the top, but the second level as well—"Consistent with the rationale for protection envisaged for the important causes represented by the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies and the International Olympic Committee." The door has been opened, why wouldn't they want to go through it?
The letter is attached below. Kieren has an article on this at
http://news.dot-nxt.com/2011/12/14/igos-special-gtld-exemption. While I agree with him that there is no chance of a TLD application with an international organization's name or acronym making it through the application process anyway, that the second level demand is problematic, and that the guidebook mechanisms would seem sufficient, it's not obvious that ICANN can easily tell these organizations to just chill out and expect them to go away.
IMF, to take one example, is a three letter acronym that also can mean a mapping form (so IMF.map, for example, would seem a reasonable 2LD), a fictional spy agency (the Impossible Mission Force), and a publicly listed company in Australia specialising in litigation (who would probably strongly object to them not being able to even bid for
imf.com or imf.law), and scientific term for the Interplanetary Magnetic Field (so imf.space or imf.science or imf.astro etc). The idea that a TLA deserves special protection at the 2LD level is ridiculous, and characteristic of a level of cluelessness.