Greetings from ALAC-land.
I am interested to know if anyone in NCSG is following -- and may have an interest in -- the proposed ICANN mechanisms for evaluating and enforcing Public Interest Commitments in new gTLD applications.
I attach a draft of the latest "Public Interest Commitment Dispute Resolution Procedure", that was recently brought to our attention by ALAC member Rinalia Abdul Rahim. In her message to ALAC, regarding this draft (which has been presented to registries), she notes that in the procedures:
- Third parties cannot report/file PIC violation (the entity that files/reports has to demonstrate that it has been harmed).
- No mention of fees for filing violation. Also, unclear who will bear the cost burden when panel is constituted to render judgement. ICANN tends to pass on this type of cost burden to the parties.
- Burden is on the violation filer/"reporter" to make a thorough and complete filing of objection and to make itself available for a "conference" or consultation. If filings are incomplete or the reporter doesn't show for the conference, case is dropped.
- Reporter can be designated as "Repeat Offender" based on track record, which can be counted against it in future case filings and consideration.
These issues suggest a process that is (IMO) biased against those who report violations.
If there are to be such obstacles to challenging breaches of the PICs, why have them in the first place?
What are the points of view on this in NCSG? Is this issue on the radar here? Might there be interest in joint NCSG/ALAC pushback on this anti-whistleblower bias?
Cheers,
--
Evan Leibovitch
Toronto Canada
Em: evan at telly dot org