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

Alan Greenberg alan.greenberg at mcgill.ca
Tue Nov 4 20:32:52 UTC 2014


See embedded.  Alan

At 04/11/2014 02:11 PM, Evan Leibovitch wrote:
>On 4 November 2014 11:42, Alan Greenberg 
><<mailto:alan.greenberg at mcgill.ca>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.

AG: The recommendation related to the RCRC have 
not yet been addressed by the Board. There is a 
provision in the PDP to re-convene a PDP WG to 
consider explicit changes should the GNSO Council 
choose. Essentially, the Council needs to provide 
potential recommendations and the PDP WG will agree or disagree.

*IF* the GNSO decides to go that route (and there 
is great opposition, particularly from the NCSG 
who opposed most all of the added protections 
with the exception of NGOs), and IF the WG agrees 
with the new Recs, it is a done deal and will not 
take very long. If either of those fails, we are back where we started.

In my opinion, the reason that the 189 country 
names were not protected was not a philosophical 
reason, but that the RC dropped the ball. These 
names had been mentioned very early on, but then 
were omitted from the documents when the PDP was 
convened and most of the way through it. They 
were resuscitated very near the end of the 
process, and were viewed by many as the RC 
getting largely what they had been asking for so 
far, so they decided to up the ante. For this, 
and one other reason (the registries had hammered 
out an agreement about what they were going to 
support, and they were just to tired of the whole 
thing to re-open to consider these names (my 
wording, not theirs)), this protection was not granted.



>​
>
>What evidence exists that raising the issue 
>again as a PDP would achieve a different result from what has already happened?
>​ ​
>​<https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/a/alberteins133991.html>Is 
>such an approach even rational?​
>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​



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