On 28 March 2010 23:54, Alan Greenberg <alan.greenberg@mcgill.ca> wrote:
I have seen it most acutely in the production of the DAG but also in many other places. (As best as I can now discern, the "Morality and Public Order" objection class in the DAG is a total fabrication by staff whose cannot be traced to any ICANN constituency.)
For better or worse (worse in my mind), this did come directly from the GNSO
New gTLD PDP - http://gnso.icann.org/issues/new-gtlds/pdp-dec05-fr-parta-08aug07.htm, Recommendation 6.
Upon reading that, it strikes me that this was a backdoor way to slip WIPO and TRIPS into the string evaluation process, which suggests which part of GNSO wanted it... :-P Now that there appears to be consensus on trademark issues, hopefully that rationale can be removed. So what's left? Note that Recommendation 6 also invokes the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, article 19 of which says "*Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression".* So if we indeed invoke the GNSO recommendation as stated, we have an obligation not to have a process which impedes such freedom. In any case how can a string abrogate a human right? I am not aware of any "freedom from insult" clause in the UDHR or any of the other conventions mentioned in Rec 6. In any case, thanks for the clarification. Excuse the tangent, however this issue is now open for re-discussion so it's worthwhile to revisit this. - Evan