Hi Paul, Anne, all,

Lars is hopefully in the midst of his Friday evening and weekend mindset, so I will try and respond, though I am not the staff SME on this topic.

I am going to try and isolate the question being presented to the Council because I believe talking about the options without answering the question is potentially distracting; the proper option should flow out of the Council’s assessment of the underlying question. I believe that the underlying question is:

• What does it mean for the full name identifiers to be “protected,” but available for the relevant organization via an exception procedure?  

There are two interpretations:

• Protected only means that no organization other than the relevant organization can apply for the exact match of the full name identifier, full stop. This implies that an unrelated third party could apply for a confusingly similar string, thereby preventing the relevant organization from securing their protected string in the future - (option 1).
• Or, protected means that no organization other than the relevant organization can apply for the exact match of the full name identifier AND the ability for the relevant organization to secure their protected string should persist. This implies that unrelated third parties would need to be prevented from securing confusingly similar strings (i.e., include the protected strings in string similarity) - (option 2).

These are the competing interpretations of Board-adopted recommendations, which are reproduced below (note, I’ve only included the recs for the Red Cross Red Crescent Movement, but there are similar recs for the International Olympic Committee and IGOs). To try and answer Paul’s specific question, option 2 is what implementing staff believes aligns with the intent of the PDP’s recommendations and is therefore not a policy change or new policy (setting aside the fact that a majority of the IRT disagrees with the staff’s interpretation).

Recommendation 3.1.1:

Top-Level protections of Exact Match, Full Name Scope 1 identifiers of the Red Cross Red Crescent Movement are placed in the Applicant Guidebook section 2.2.1.2.3, Strings “Ineligible for Delegation”.

Recommendation 3.1.2:

For Red Cross Red Crescent Movement identifiers, if placed in the Applicant Guidebook as ineligible for delegation at the Top-Level, an exception procedure should be created for cases where a protected organization wishes to apply for their protected string at the Top-Level.

Again, I am not the SME, but hopefully this helps to narrow in on the issue and better allows you all to navigate it with your respective groups.

FYI, I’ve trimmed the distribution list to just Council and Next Round program leadership.

Best,

Steve

Thanks Anne.

A quick clarification from Staff would be appreciated. I asked Lars why adopting Option 2 would not be a policy change. Lars indicated that Option 1 is the Policy; thus Option 2 must not be. Anne believes that Staff has a different view and believes that Option 2 is just implementation not a policy change. I must have misunderstood what Lars was saying so I’ll ask it pretty directly this time and ask for a written answer, please.

Would adopting Option 2 be a policy change, and if not, why not?

May we please have this as soon as practical?

Thanks!

Best,

Paul