Thanks Andrew, This would make an excellent start to the one-pager briefing to the Board suggested before by Dan! Alain On Sat, Mar 3, 2012 at 8:08 PM, Andrew A. Adams <[log in to unmask]> wrote: > I strongly object to both the process that led to and the outcome of this > proposal. > > There was a very long period of discussion and the development of an > aplicant > guidebook during which neither the IOC nor the ICRC, so far as I am aware, > engaged with ICANN processes. At the last minute before the new gTLD system > came into force these two organisations then put pressure on through the > GAC > for special treatment. This has then been rushed through with too little > debate and too much pressure to cave in to pressure exerted through one of > the ICANN stakeholders. The resulting proposal is deeply flawed on both the > specifics and the general principle and opens up the name space to future > claims by a myriad of other organisations. > > The two organisations are completely different in nature and scope and the > limited discussions that have taken place appear to have treated them the > same, with no consideration of their differences. > > The case for the IOC is based upon an international treaty which only > protects their graphical trademark and not the words Olympic or Olympics. > Indeed, as we can see from the current second level names registered there > are huge numbers of commercial and non-commercial (e.g. geographic regions, > not least the region from where the name is drawn) who have currently > registered variants on the name and who hold trademarks on such names. > Privileging the IOC in any way in the gTLD name space is unjustified and > expansionary. > > The case for the ICRC is slightly better, given that the existing > international treaties do protect their names from actual use. I believe > that > these treaties provide sufficient protection against any misuse of their > name > and thus no added protection is needed. Any group which uses a name in > such a > way as to create confusion amongst net users would be subject to severe > penalties and an application to have such domains blocked would easily be > accepted under existing rules. THis proposal is again expansionary in that > the current proposal restricts registration of names in languages not > covered > by the existing international treaty and also includes the concept that > names > not explicitly mentioend but "similar" should be protected. > > So, firstly, when the GNSO votes on this matter the two proposals should be > separated. Even if one accepts that case for the ICRC, the case for the IOC > is far, far weaker. > > Second, the GNSO votes should include more nuanced considerations of > restricting the scope of any protection offered, in particular paying close > attention to non-expansionary processes. > > Finally, if any protections are extended, these should be explicitly stated > as exceptions to the rules, apply only to the current round of gTLD > expansion > and require any future protections to be argued for via ICANN's usual > bottom-up policy process and not forced on the community by one stakeholder > at the eleventh hour. Such limited and clearly exceptional protections must > be clearly constrained to prevent other organisations seeking to bypass the > bottom-up processes and force their own restrictions on others' > self-identification into the domain name system without proper balance > being > considered in a measured and true consensus manner. > > In accepting these proposals, I believe the GNSO would do much more > significant harm to ICANN than would follow to anyone by allowing the > existing treaties to provide the rules and the existing mechanisms to > follow > those rules. > > > -- > 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/ > -- Alain Berranger, B.Eng, MBA Member, Board of Directors, CECI, http://www.ceci.ca<http://www.ceci.ca/en/about-ceci/team/board-of-directors/> Executive-in-residence, Schulich School of Business, www.schulich.yorku.ca Trustee, Global Knowledge Partnership Foundation, www.gkpfoundation.org NA representative, Chasquinet Foundation, www.chasquinet.org interim Membership Committee Chair, NPOC, NCSG, ICANN, http://npoc.org/ O:+1 514 484 7824; M:+1 514 704 7824 Skype: alain.berranger