[At-Large] [ALAC] 7 Aug letter from Senate Judiciary Committee

[Evan Leibovitch]

Good letter ... almost. It has good intentions but broadly misses the mark,
and as such as not as helpful as we would hope.


   - The call for more resources for compliance is helpful in that it
   indicates attention to the issue, but it also reveals a simplistic view
   that suggests merely throwing money at a solution will solve the corporate
   culture impediments.

   - The demand that some of the excess revenue from the application
   process will be vigorously fought by the domain industry which, in seeing
   the gTLD program as "cost recovery" based, will surely want the excess
   going back to them.

   - I'm still wary of dependence on a trademark clearinghouse, and its
   potential to overzealously lock away common words that also happen to be
   trade names (ie, "apple", "shell", "bell") or even that are trade names in
   some countries but generic words in others (ie, "aspirin"). I still
   maintain that if a TCH is too onerous for WIPO to do, that should be a sign
   to ICANN.

   - On the topic of public comment on the gTLD program, the congressmen
   are horribly misinformed. They seem to think that allowing the public more
   time -- and more publicity -- to comment on the program will accomplish
   anything, and that the Independent Objector has far more authority than he
   does. Almost all of the comments so far have focused not on the strings
   being applied for, but on the potential use of the TLDs ... which is
   completely outside ICANN's ability to control (let alone judge).

On the balance, I appreciate the supportive warnings that not all is rosy
in gTLD-land, but I really hoped that a letter signed by members of both
houses of Congress would indicate a better grasp of the issues. Logic 101
suggests that if your premises are flawed, your conclusions can't be
trusted. And that's exactly the case here.

- EVan




On 22 August 2012 15:30, Olivier MJ Crepin-Leblond <ocl at gih.com> wrote:

> Dear all,
>
> please be so kind to find a link to a recent letter from Senator Patrick
> Leahy, Chairman of the US Senate Judiciary Committee, to ICANN's interim
> CEO & President, Akram Atallah.
>
>
> http://www.leahy.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/8-7-12%20Letter%20from%20Senate%20and%20House%20Judiciary%20Committees.pdf
>
> Kind regards,
>
> Olivier
>
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>



-- 
Evan Leibovitch
Toronto Canada

Em: evan at telly dot org
Sk: evanleibovitch
Tw: el56