+1 to Evan's reminder about charity fraud. Alain On Mon, Jul 23, 2012 at 1:21 AM, Evan Leibovitch <[log in to unmask]> wrote: > I don't know how welcome it is, but there has been some discussion of the > issue at ALAC. > > (What follows is my own interpretation of the at-large PoV; others' > mileage may vary.) > > Until recently there was widespread agreement with keeping the status quo. > But the stance has of late become a little more nuanced. > > We have absolutely no sympathy for the IOC or its franchisees, or IGOs in > general (that already have the elite ability to register in dot-int). But > while we don't want to make any specific exemptions for the Red Cross, we > feel there is a legitimate discussion to be had about attempts to spoof > charities. > > There, are, unfortunately, real instances of domains created to > deliberately confuse potential donors (especially domains quickly created > in the aftermath of disasters), often by in part appropriating the names of > known charities such as the Red Cross. There are many in At-Large who > believe that the domain system has some responsibility to prevent such > clear instances of abuse, which has the potential to expand significantly > upon expansion of the TLD namespace. What is less clear is how to do this, > but simply doing nothing does not appear to be a reasonable option. What is > hoped for is a reasonably easy process to stop sites designed to commandeer > charitable donations, in such a way that does not draw substantial funds or > focus from the real charities' core objectives. > > This is more of a 2LD issue than a TLD one, but very real nonetheless. We > would prefer to generalize it, since charities besides the Red Cross suffer > from this kind of fraud. And we prefer to approach this from the PoV of > safeguarding the trust and needs of donors and supporters as opposed to > trademark and trademark-like "rights". However, a complete response of "do > nothing, everything's OK" may indicate an ICANN that is insensitive to the > public consequences of its policies, and indeed a mis-functioning (or at > least imbalanced) MSM. > > - Evan > -- 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 Treasurer, Global Knowledge Partnership Foundation, www.gkpfoundation.org NA representative, Chasquinet Foundation, www.chasquinet.org Chair, NPOC, NCSG, ICANN, http://npoc.org/ O:+1 514 484 7824; M:+1 514 704 7824 Skype: alain.berranger