ICANN has asked for public comment on a draft final report (link) for protecting the identifiers of certain International Governmental Organizations ("IGOs") and International Non-Governmental Organizations ("INGOs") in all gTLDs.

Initial comments are due 11-Oct (link to comment page)

As discussed on last week's member call, the working group for this project asked the BC for its position before they finalized their report. Your executive committee did not believe we had enough time or prior BC positions to respond. So we need to develop a position on these recommendations now.

The attached document includes draft BC positions on the WG recommendations, based on an assessment by Elisa Cooper and Steve DelBianco. (shows in grey tex at bottom of each table row. e.g. "CBUC: Support" )

Thru page 9, we reflected "Support" based on our previous work on this topic, and our strong support for TM Clearinghouse improvements to help "brands" like these at the second level.

The tricky part is how to protect acronyms for groups other than Red Cross and Olympics, starting on page 10.

There are several hundred acronyms to consider (link). e.g., CAN, ISO, MRC, NIB, ECO

The WG proposal is to place all these in the Guidebook as "ineligible for delegation".

Elisa and Steve believe that is too hard a line and would prefer these protected organizations use the Rights Objection mechanism to stop a TLD application they oppose. If their objection failed, we have seen how the GAC could exercise its power of Advice to stop a TLD, too.

Please review and indicate your agreement or objection to the attached draft positions by 6-October. Then we need a volunteer to draft the text of our comments — based on whatever recommendations are approved.

Thank you,

Steve DelBianco

Vice chair for policy coordination

Business Constituency