[ALAC] Minority statement for the IGO-INGO identifier protection PDP Final Report
Alan Greenberg
alan.greenberg at mcgill.ca
Thu Nov 14 00:26:15 UTC 2013
The final report has been drafted and can be
found at
http://gnso.icann.org/en/issues/igo-ingo-final-20sep13-en.pdf.
There were significant changes from the earlier
draft, but mostly in format and clarity. As a
result, several of the comments that we made on
the draft version are no longer applicable. I am
attaching a copy of the revised statement that I
propose to submit for inclusion in the report.
For ease of access for those travelling, I am
also appending the text to this e-mail.
There were NO substantive changes made to this
statement from the version approved by the ALAC
(as a comment on the draft report). Only those
parts no longer applicable were deleted. Those included:
- removal of the list of specific ALAC positions,
since they are now included in the body of the report;
- removal of the reference to some items being
classed as having strong divergence where there
was really a consensus NOT to do them (the report now says that).
To be considered by the GNSO in its meeting next
Wednesday, the minority statement needs to be
submitted by Friday. Unless I hear any concern
with this being done, I will submit it by that deadline.
If there is a problem meeting the deadline, we
can still submit it before it goes to the Board,
but the GNSO will not have the benefit of having
it in the version they consider (presuming a
decision is taken next week and it is not deferred).
Alan
==========================
ALAC Minority Statement on the Final Report on
the Protection of IGO and INGO Identifiers in All gTLDs PDP
The ALAC has made a number of statements on the
protection of IGO and INGO names, and has
participated actively in all GNSO activities
related to this topic. Our views on specific
outcomes of this PDP are reflected in the Final Report.
Given the wide range of views expressed in this
report, and noting that nothing presented has
received the unanimous support of the PDP Working
Group, the ALAC would like to take this
opportunity to comment on the nature of the
Recommendations as well as identify the
principles that have guided its positions.
The Draft Final Report includes a wide variety of
Recommendations some reflecting a WG Consensus
(as defined by the GNSO Working Group Guidelines)
some with an even weaker level of support. Not a
single one was agreed to by all WG members (Full
Consensus), a level of support that is more
typical of most GNSO PDPs. For many of the
recommendations originally considered by the WG
and strongly supported by some, the overall
participant views were Divergent. If the
Recommendations with Consensus level or Strong
support were implemented, there is no assurance
that they form a cohesive and consistent set of policies.
The ALAC is particularly concerned that granting
blocking-level protections may prohibit other
reasonable uses of the same strings, and is not
satisfied that the exception procedure options
outlined in the report could meet the targets
that the ALAC believes are mandatory.
This being the case, it may be important to
consider the principles that guided the ALAC in
our participation in the activities that led to
this report, and that the ALAC believes should
guide ICANN in considering any special protections.
1. ICANN should grant special protection to
organizations that further the public interest
and in particular, those with a strong track
record of humanitarian activities. However, such
protections should only be granted where there is
a history or reasonable expectation that the lack
of protections would lead to the
misrepresentation of the organizations, fraud,
deliberate confusion, or other malfeasance.
2. Such protections, when granted, should not
unreasonably impinge on the ability of others
with a valid right to use the protected string
from registering such names for uses which do not
negatively impact the protected organization nor
use the protected name with the intent to deceive
users. Formal trademarks should not be necessary
to demonstrate such a right. [Footnote 1]
3. The procedures used to grant the protection
exceptions identified in number 2 must be both inexpensive and fast.
4. No top level protections are necessary.
Existing or new objection processes are sufficient.
Footnote 1: Although not a gTLD registration,
cern.ca is a good example. The Centre
d'exposition de Rouyn-Noranda in northern Quebec
has no connection or even a vague relationship
with the Conseil Européen pour la Recherche
Nucléaire, but they do happen to share an
acronym. In the gTLD space, Olympic.diy is a
prime example of a new registration that might
not be allowed under the proposed rules even
though the TLD (diy = Do-it-yourself) is a
logical registration for Olympic Paints.
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