November 2016 - ALAC - lists.icann.org

Re: [ALAC] [At-Large] R: IGO names: is this worth war?
by Evan Leibovitch Nov. 4, 2016

Nov. 4, 2016

So... to industry, the domains of the Red Cross and its affiliates are merely a special form of trademark, just like Coca-Cola. >From a public interest PoV, I posit that they are vastly different. Coca-Cola does not have a business model of soliciting charitable donations, in every country, for distribution in other countries. It is not depended upon for relief activity or critical medical-related public information. It is not recognized by the Geneva Conventions as a foundation of global humanitarian activity. Similar things can be said about a number of other international agencies (ie, UNICEF, WFP etc), though maybe not quite at that level. If ICANN's "community" wishes to maintain oblivion to the distinction between the ICRC and Coca-Cola, that is its right. But that should not stop those representing the public interest at ICANN -- governments and At-Large -- from asserting the distinction, and using whatever bylaw-allowed tools are at their disposal to encourage ICANN to balance industry needs with those of the non-domain-buying public. If the processes created by ICANN's compact of domain buyers and domain sellers -- the GNSO -- cannot accommodate that distinction, then the problem is in the process and not in the fact that a distinction exists. If the response is that there are indeed specific IGOs -- that face the public directly and who trade in international public trust -- that deserve protection but that not all IGOs do, that is a reasonable response and IMO a foundation for compromise. I would be happy to participate in a group that created objective distinction criteria and/or identified the IGOs worthy of global protection. I don't think that more than a dozen or so IGOs meet this public trust criteria, but those that do are indeed worthy of special treatment. But a blanket blow-off of the request to protect at least some IGOs is a recipe for a needless showdown. The result of such open hostility will simply validate, and indeed expand, negative public perception of ICANN and plant the seeds for more Ted Cruz-like attack (which will play right into the hands of the multllaterals). - Evan PS: I am surprised why nobody here has mentioned the "int" TLD, and suggested as a partial solution the use and widespread promotion of it as a natural and trusted home for IGOs. ICANN's support of such a promotional campaign would actually increase its own public trust for it would be seen to recognize and address a real problem of abuse.

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2016-2018 ALAC Leadership Team
by Alan Greenberg Nov. 3, 2016

Nov. 3, 2016

Nominations for the 2016-17 ALT closed on 21 October 2016. Four nominations had been received, one per region: AFRALO: Tijani Ben Jemaa APRALO: Holly Raiche EURALO: Veronica Cretu LACRALO: León Sanchez All four have accepted the nomination. Our RoP call for the ALT to be determined by a consensus of the ALAC, and barring that by secret ballot. Given that only one person was nominated for each of the regions involved, I have to conclude that there was no support for any other candidate and I judge there is a consensus that Tijani, Holly, Veronica and León serve as the ALT for the forthcoming year. I congratulate all four. I could not be more pleased with the team. All four candidates were also nominated to be Vice-Chair. Veronica declined the nomination and all three others accepted. In my mind, all three are excellent Vice-Chair candidates who I would happy to have on my team. Holly has indicated that although she is willing to serve, her preference is to focus on the At-Large Review as she would not have the time to do justice to both simultaneously. I will honor that and hereby name León Sanchez and Tijani Ben Jemaa as ALAC Vice-Chairs for the coming year. Alan

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New CoE publication: "Applications to ICANN for Community-based New Generic Top Level Domains
by Yrjö Länsipuro Nov. 3, 2016

Nov. 3, 2016

Hi, At the meeting of the GAC WG on Human Rights I learned that the Council of Europe (an active observer to the GAC) has just published a report on community-based Ne gTLD applications, which is one of the core concerns for ALAC. Please find the link to the publication below. The GAC will send the report (without formal endorsement, obviously) to the Subsequent Procedures PDP WG. Best, Yrjö https://rm.coe.int/CoERMPublicCommonSearchServices/DisplayDCTMContent?docum…

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Re: [ALAC] [At-Large] R: IGO names: is this worth war?
by Alan Greenberg Nov. 3, 2016

Nov. 3, 2016

At 02/11/2016 09:58 PM, John R. Levine wrote: >>That is exactly the position of GNSO - there are already protection >>mechanisms in place for intellectual property protection in the >>procedures. Somehow some IGO's just seem to want to be special. > >Unless I've missed something, the TMCH et al are for >trademarks. IGO names typically aren't trademarks. Correct, but there has been a realization that the process that was set up for TMs can be useful in the protection of other non-TM character strings. Alan

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LAC SPACE in Hyderabad
by Vanda Scartezini Nov. 3, 2016

Nov. 3, 2016

Dear friends, you are ainvited to LAC SPACE during ICANN meeting here in Hyderabad, always has translation!– our meeting will be on SATURDAY 5th from 15:15 ( 3:15PM) till 16:45 ( 4:45PM) it will be posted at agenda to see the room - will change . The agenda will be great! Join us Vanda Scartezini Polo Consultores Associados Av. Paulista 1159, cj 1004 01311-200- Sao Paulo, SP, Brazil Land Line: +55 11 3266.6253 Mobile: + 55 11 98181.1464 Sorry for any typos.

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Draft Proposal for a Limited Scope RDS Review
by Alan Greenberg Nov. 2, 2016

Nov. 2, 2016

Attached is the proposal for limiting the scope of the forthcoming RDS Review (what was previously the Affirmation of Commitments (AoC) WHOIS Review). Under the new Bylaws we have no choice but to start this review immediately, even though there are substantive other RDS activities ongoing and there was significant concern expressed related to overloading the people working in this area. AoC-type reviews must review the implementation of previous reviews (if not the first one) and making further recommendations to address the area. In this case, the proposal is to limit the review to evaluating past implementation since there are other activities and in particular a GNSO PDP working on future implementations. Participation on the review team would be limited to those who are very familiar with the previous RT recommendations and their implementation. In the interest of full disclosure, I am the one who proposed the overall concept, and I co-drafted the document, and I am one of the possible RT members as I reviewed the WHOIS RT Recommendations for the ATRT2. I will have to present the ALAC position on Saturday morning and this is (briefly) on our agenda tomorrow. Alan

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Re: [ALAC] [At-Large] IGO names: is this worth war?
by Alan Greenberg Nov. 2, 2016

Nov. 2, 2016

At 01/11/2016 12:26 PM, John R. Levine wrote: >>While it is overkill to give a blanket ban on every IGO, I would rather >>give protection to a handful of organizations that don't need it, in return >>for protecting a number of organizations that would be critically impacted >>if their names were not protected. I am speaking specifically regarding >>organizations that do significant public fundraising in the public good -- >>the Red Cross (+ Red Crescent, etc), UNICEF, UNHCR, and others > >This should not be a difficult call. The ALAC is supposed to >represent the interests of Internet users. It would be bad if users >were confused by a TLD that looked like an international >organization but was in fact run by a domain speculator. Users do >not care, and we on their behalf do not care, if a reserved name >interferes with some speculator's business plan. In view of the >ongoing failure of the new gTLD round to attract meaningful interest >beyond speculators and criminals, any claim that yet more new TLDs >will benefit users is implausible. > >So if they have a list of reserved TLD names, reserve them >all. From the point of view of the users, it is at worst harmless. It is clear (to me anyway) that John is right and if it is a binary decision of supporting all acronyms or not, we support. But ALAC also has a responsibility to monitor how ICANN works and try to make sure that our processes do not impede making good decisions. And in this case, we have a level of dysfuntion that may result in ICANN not being able to make the simple binary decision. And that dysfuntion is partly because the GAC has been over-reaching in what they are asking. My classic case is that according to their request, the acronym ISO has nothing to do with standards but rather the International Sugar Organization. The other problem is that at the moment, it is not a question of the ALAC supporting this decision to reserve IGO acronyms. It is a question how we GET to that point given that the GNSO is unlikely to recommend to the Board to do this. Alan

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IGO names: is this worth war?
by Evan Leibovitch Nov. 2, 2016

Nov. 2, 2016

Hello everyone, As the Hyderabad meeting gets underway, we have a potential for a conflict that, according to some, is a source of utter panic and a critical-enough battle that it is worth threatening ICANN's stability... and people still haven't yet fully recovered from the transition and the Ted Cruz scare. I am speaking of the Governmental Advisory Commitee (GAC) wanting to reserve about 230 names and acronyms of inter-governmental organizations (IGOs), and its threat to pull out of ICANN entirely and take its issues to the ITU Standardization Assembly. The whole story can be found in a post at DomainIncite <http://domainincite.com/21215-rant-governments-raise-yet-another-un-threat-…> that contains both profanity and apocalyptic tones. At the threat of being an ICANN heretic (and it wouldn't be the first time), I'm on the side of the governments here. [ Disclosure: I currently work at an agency that would be among the protected IGOs. However I have been involved in this issue, at the ICANN working group level, for many years, and my position is no different now than it was then. ] While it is overkill to give a blanket ban on every IGO, I would rather give protection to a handful of organizations that don't need it, in return for protecting a number of organizations that would be critically impacted if their names were not protected. I am speaking specifically regarding organizations that do significant public fundraising in the public good -- the Red Cross (+ Red Crescent, etc), UNICEF, UNHCR, and others I was involved when the issue first came up in 2011; there was a working group that was proposing to reserve names for the Red Cross and Olympics in all gTLDs. Most in the group were either all-for or all-against; I was split, opposing the Olympic reservations but strongly supporting reservations of any Red Cross related names or translations. I still believe that the ICRC needs protection more than the IOC, but given the choice of protecting both or protecting neither I would absolutely come down on the side of "both". *There most absolutely is a public interest in the reservation of names related to the Red Cross, United Nations and other IGOs, especially those that are engaged in public information or fundraising.* It matters far more to me that a scammer is prevented before-the-fact from registering "redcross-italy-earthquake.xyz" than that the domain industry is free to sell "UNDP.whatever" to a speculator. By the time a URS claim could be filed against the scammer and adjudicated, the damage is done and the scammer moves on. IMO it is not in the interest of the At-Large community to support the unfettered entitlement of the domain industry to sell whatever it wants without consideration of consequences. It is in our interests to keep the public from being harmed through the actions of the DNS. And, *on the balance*, this means that reserving the names of IGOs serves the public interest. The domain industry's main counter-argument is that it should be entitled to sell whatever it wants. It believes that that WHO, the acronym for the World Health Organization but also a dictionary word, should be fair game to be sold as a domain to an ageing rock band or anyone else. But I am concerned that a scammer -- or others with bad intent -- could use the WHO.something domain to present themselves as the World Health Organization and either present misinformation or engage in scamming fundraising. In a public-health context such misuse could have horrible aftermath.The harm to the domain community by blocking WHO.everything is less, IMO, than the harm to the public from letting that go to the highest bidder. (Of course the WHO is always within its ability to permit who.something to point to the rock band, etc) If the counter is that ICANN's MSM process does not allow for this kind of accommodation -- that the GNSO demands for wide open domains do not provide for this kind of exception -- then the process is broken. It must be remembered that -- pre-transition or post- -- ICANN is not itself an IGO. Sovereign states are not treaty-bound to honor GNSO policy decrees, they do so through trust and goodwill. If that goodwill is damaged then, ICANN will pay a heavy and possibly irreversible price. There are many good places to take a principled stand in support of the MSM and against dictatorial control of the DNS. But reserving IGO names is not one of those good places. As much as I abhor the reserving of the string "olympic", that speaks more to my personal belief in the corruption of the IOC than principled opposition to the concept. If the ALAC is consulted on this issue -- or if it considers issuing advice on its own initiative -- I simply ask that it asserts the point of view of the public interest, which is not always in selling the maximum number of domains for the maximum obtainable price. Thank you. Evan Leibovitch Toronto / Geneva

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