>> Henceforth I recommend we propose
protection of any .org or .org.country domain name in active use by "Any
organization operating globally in the public interest and enjoying
International Legal Personality in the country where its Headquarters are
located, and its members." as of January 1 2012. This means that ICANN would
prohibit the creation of a gTLD that is the same as a domain name of an NGO in
use 1/1/12 and active.
Down this path lies madness. Why a 2012 cutoff
date? Is this just another way of providing the established NGOs with a
monopoly on the public interest? I'd be surprised if the last global
public interest NGO has been created.
This doesn't even protect existing NGOs -
Set aside the question of what happens when an NGO
materializes a domain name for the first time. (e.g. can it cancel existing
TLDs? Sound silly? Not really. We still have parts of the
world with limited/no internet connectivity - are they to be precluded from
developing NGOs? What about the ever popular www.2138-eventof-myfavoriteNGO
or www.disaster-relief-for-city-to-be-named-later-NGO,
say in 2015: olympiaRelief - Are they to be unable to "protect" themselves just
because we don't know what disasters will happen in the next few hundred
years?
Step
back an look at this from a global perspective. This proposal is tailored
to fit a few existing organizations under the guise of a broad policy
initiative. "International legal personality" is hardly
well-defined. Why should NGOs be special? Shouldn't the Gates
Foundation have similar protection? It claims to be a charitable
organization working internationally in the public interest?
What if
NCSG/NCUC/NPOC decides to register a domain? Seems odd that an
organization with our charter doesn't have one - but we aren't
"protected."
In
fact, why .org? Many organizations have picked .com - to my frustration -
because of the perception that .com is expected by the public. And
.net. Are they to be exposed simply because of their choice of
TLD?
And
why shouldn't the same theory of "cheap protection" apply to other interests -
from scouting groups to religious groups to - gasp: corporations.
Corporations have been known to do good :-)
Naturally, I need to validate this note by my usual
point that domain owners who are "individuals" (natural persons) get no
protection under any of these schemes.
I'm
tempted to remark that "protection" has been used as a term of art by organized
criminal groups as a synonym for extortion - but as the parallels are somewhat
loose, maybe we should simply note the word association...
So why
was a universal list of protected names created in the first place, if not to be
hijacked for creating protected classes of organizations? The answer is
simple: For the efficient development and operation of the network.
.example, example.*, .invalid and invalid.* allow documentation to be
written with uniform conventions that protect sites from people who try examples
literally. (RFC 2606) The ISO 3166 (2-letter) domains allow any country -
at any time - to have a domain. Domain-specific rules generally make sense
- e.g. geographic names under country domains (such as .no, .us), though
these suffer from the new/retired name problem.
Call
me idealistic if you like, but I think we need to stop attempts to game the
system to advantage narrow interests, and go back to the notion that
policy should support the efficient development and operation of the
network as a whole. We can still argue about how to apply that
principle in specific cases, but hopefully can dampen the squabbling over how
some group's interests trump others.
---------------------------------------------------------
Timothe Litt
ACM Distinguished
Engineer
---------------------------------------------------------
This
communication may not represent the ACM or my employer's views,
if any, on
the matters discussed.
Dear NPOC members:
Greetings from San José. As Acting
Vice Chair, I would like to consult you on an important issue:
Context:
Given the tension here on the IOC and Red Cross exemption (some of us call it
protection) and the Drafting Committee Chair report to GNSO this morning - we
find it wise, for the benefit of our current and future NPOC members, as well as
the ICANN Community at large, that NPOC promotes and supports a) the proposal
from the WG and b), in a broader manner, the generic extension of this
protection based on avoiding the setting of a precedent, and based on objective
and independantly verifiable criteria to define who or who does not
qualify:
Proposition:
Would receive new gTLD protection: "Any
organization operating globally in the public interest and enjoying
International Legal Personality in the country where its Headquarters are
located, and its members."
Thank you for your attention to this important
matter. Please respond by Tuesday 13 March 17:00 San José time.
Best
regards,
Alain Berranger
--
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<
http://www.schulich.yorku.ca>
Trustee, Global Knowledge
Partnership Foundation,
www.gkpfoundation.org<
http://www.gkpfoundation.org>
NA representative,
Chasquinet Foundation,
www.chasquinet.org<
http://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
--
Alain Berranger, B.Eng, MBA