BC members — on last week's member call I discussed our role in a working group to define Consumer Trust, Choice, and Competition for the required review of the new gTLD program 1 year later. Below is a note I sent to the working group today, regarding whether a review of "Consumer Trust" should examine whether new gTLD registries have followed relevant national laws -- as proposed by the BC in Philip Sheppard's draft document and at the workshop in Singapore. From: Steve DelBianco <sdelbianco@netchoice.org<mailto:sdelbianco@netchoice.org>> Date: Tue, 6 Sep 2011 17:54:40 +0000 To: "gnso-consumercci-dt@icann.org<mailto:gnso-consumercci-dt@icann.org>" <gnso-consumercci-dt@icann.org<mailto:gnso-consumercci-dt@icann.org>> Subject: Re: [gnso-consumercci-dt] Draft Definitions Just a follow-up on discussions from last week's call, regarding reference to "national laws" in the definition of Consumer Trust. I had proposed this definition, based on the BC's original draft: Consumer Trust is the degree of confidence among registrants and users that a TLD registry operator is fulfilling its proposed purpose and is complying with ICANN policies and all relevant national laws. Michael and others suggested removing "all" before "relevant". That makes sense, and perhaps we should say "applicable" instead of "relevant", given some of the citations I found in ICANN documents for "national laws": 1. Articles of Incorporation: “The Corporation shall operate for the benefit of the Internet community as a whole, carrying out its activities in conformity with relevant principles of international law and applicable international conventions and local law" 2. Applicant Guidebook: “National Law” is cited as potential basis for Government objections, GAC Early Warning, and/or GAC advice 3. Affirmation of Commitments: “9.3.1 ICANN additionally commits to enforcing its existing policy relating to WHOIS, subject to applicable laws” 4. Bylaws: regarding ccTLDs: “provided that such policies do not conflict with the law applicable to the ccTLD manager” I realize that some in our WG do not want to cite national laws at all. I did the above research to support my belief that we should cite national laws as a nod to governments and the GAC. This was before we saw the European Commission working papers, which also cite the importance of national laws (attached). However flawed the EC papers may be, they indicate the political lens through which the new gTLD program will be judged by governments. -- Steve DelBianco Executive Director NetChoice http://www.NetChoice.org and http://blog.netchoice.org +1.202.420.7482