[ALAC] Letter from Steve Crocker to GAC Chair regarding GNSO/GAC role in gTLD policy development

[Evan Leibovitch]

On 4 November 2014 11:42, Alan Greenberg <alan.greenberg at mcgill.ca> wrote:


> I put the substance of what the GAC is asking for related to the Red Cross
> in a VERY different category from their advice that the topic should not be
> subject to a policy development process.
>


​The point is, the GNSO has already ​

​had its PDP on the issue, and when given the opportunity did not endorse
the necessary protection for the Red Cross. Its report, finished late last
year, was full of contradictory positions and different levels of
consensus, mixing in the Red Cross protections with those of groups that
were far less in need of protection (ie, the International Olympic
Committee).

And clearly, having done this PDP already, there is an insufficient level
of enforcement of Red Cross (and associated org) names at the current time.

As these names are not usually protected by trademarks but in many cases by
explicit national laws and international conventions, the usual ICANN
remedies such as the Trademark Clearinghouse may not be appropriate.

If a PDP has already been done, what are the options? Another PDP be
initiated for many of the same issues, will take more years to complete,
years during which countless fraudulent and misleading names will be
registered with no ICANN-endorsed limit or remedy.
​

What evidence exists that raising the issue again as a PDP would achieve a
different result from what has already happened?
​ ​
​Is such an approach even rational?​
<https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/a/alberteins133991.html>
And even if a better result DOES come out of
​revisiting ​
the process, two or three years from now
​ and burning hundreds more person-hours of volunteer time​
, how much
​irreversible ​
damage to the public good and public trust will have happened by th
​en​
?​

​- Evan​