At 1:21 AM -0400 7/23/12, Evan Leibovitch 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