Re: [NA-Discuss] At-Large budgeting and related issues (was: Regional Fellowships)
See below... On 05/05/07, Evan Leibovitch <evan@telly.org> wrote:
Hello Nick,
Thanks for your working to help me through this. :-)
My pleasure - I hope it is actually helpful!
The RALOS and the ALAC are, combined, the At-Large community. ICANN has staff, and a budget line, to provide services and support as a secretariat basically to the community as a whole. OK, then. Do ALAC and the RALOs have any specific say over the allocation of these budgets?
To a large extent, the budget is driven off of their input and spent directly on them. For example: the majority of the At-Large budget which is discretionary (not salary or overhead) is T&E costs for ALAC members and regional ALS representatives to attend ICANN meetings. Of the rest, much is spent on things like translation of documents, hosted servers, icannalac.org maintenance, and the like. There is some money which is fungible and the process I provided to you allows the community to ask for the funds to be used in specific ways. The process is itself new - only since last November - but in all but one case the requests have been granted so far, and that case is still under review. It would be the exception if a properly-supported request were denied.
Do ALAC and the RALOs -- jointly or separately -- have any specific authority to determine - how much funds exist to serve the at-large community - the budgets that determine how these funds are spent
By participating in the budgeting cycle, sure. For example, I proposed, and it was widely seen as useful, that this coming year a full-time member of staff should be hired who would do nothing but provide support to the RALOs. If the RALOs have projects in mind, they should work with us to ensure that these get put into the budget - it is MUCH easier to get those higher-up to allocate money to us if the community is asking for something than if I am asking for something nobody has asked for but which I think will be useful.
Each RALO may define most aspects of its structure and operation as it pleases. I understand this -- but it makes life much easier if I have an idea of what resources are available to our RALO, and our ability to direct staff to utilize such resources.
A RALO cannot directly supervise staff people, because the staff are employed by ICANN, so ICANN has a fiduciary responsibility to manage them. That said, we take serving the community seriously and responding to their needs is expressly part of our job description.
(I suppose it actually helps to _have_ a formal RALO first...) :-)
It does, yes.
The thing to remember is that the funds of ICANN are ICANN's funds, and good organisational governance requires that staff exercise ultimate control over the expenditures of the organisation. ICANN's directors have actual legal liability in certain circumstances if funds of the organisation were not administered properly, so this will always mean that staff exercise ultimate control over spending money.
I've been in enough non-profit and for-profit organizations to understand fiscal prudence, and I would surmise that most of my colleagues here do as well. If, as John has suggested, staff's "ultimate control" extends to the rejection of a RALO's request for a specific person or travel allocation (for which budget funds are available), then this is unacceptable interference.
I am not actually familiar with the example John is mentioning (at least I cannot recall anything that fits this scenario). For example, every meeting I've supervised travel support for has provided the opportunity for all ALSes in a region, plus all candidate ALSes, to send a delegate on ICANN's dime. The ALSes can choose whomever they wish to be the designated person; we have no role in that.
Outside of "we've already spent the allocated funds" or "doing this would get us sued" or "this is outside the ICANN mandate", there is _no_ reason for ICANN staff to reject a procedurally-correct request from _any_ of its contituent advisory bodies. And even issues of "what is within the mandate" can be contentious -- some leeway should be allowed.
On the surface that sounds great. But when you get to specific examples it could sound not-so-great. For example, we have an obligation to be even-handed in providing services and funding to all the regions equally. If we were in a position to have to agree to every proposal that was good which was put forward, that would mean we would likely give very uneven support, financial and otherwise.
In your response to Jean you said:
ICANN's At-Large staff and infrastructure is not inclusive of ALAC or RALOS or anyone else: ICANN's At-Large staff is the staff, and that is all. OK -- but who directs them? In whose interests do they serve? Do At-Large staff serve the At-Large community, or just some bureacratic assumption, on the behalf of the at-large community but without its direct participation?
ICANN's staff are directed by their supervisors, up to the CEO, who is answerable to the board - hence we are all indirectly answerable to the board. That said, my entire job is to serve the community. If I were perceived to be very bad at doing that, I'd get replaced.
Of course, the decision to make the RALO process had to come from somewhere external to the At-Large structures it was designed to attract. But at a certain point, the RALOs and ALAC should be trusted to be able to direct the resources allocated to the service of their constituencies. The only limits on that direction should be legal exposure, fiscal prudence, and alignment with ICANN's mandate and bylaws.
Nick, I don't know you or ICANN staff, but it's been my experience with most organizations that staff is resistent to change, all that differs is in the level of resistance. There is a delicate balance between the need for continuity and the need to adapt to meet the evolving needs of stakeholders. It's vital that safeguards exist -- if the advisory process is to work properly and effectively -- to ensure that staff oversight does not inhibit creativity or flexibility, while being sufficient to ensure maintenance of the mandate and sane use of resources.
All people are resistant to change to one degree or another so we agree there. As to the delicate balance, there definitely is one; all secretariats of international organisations are in a difficult spot there and ICANN is no different. There is no magic model or framework that will ensure the balance is kept; we all have a part to play in ensuring that. I and my colleagues can only do the best we can, and listen closely to our various constituencies. I know with At-Large that I will hear very quickly if I get the balance wrong. I personally wouldn't have it any other way. FYI, I'm pretty change-friendly myself. I know it is inevitable and a part of every day of life, so why fear it? It is like fearing death, or sunrise. I've been often accused as a change agent.
What policies currently exist to describe the limits of ICANN staff ability to overrule its advisory bodies? If, indeed, staff authority is _absolute_, I find this worrisome since it goes against the most basic principles of good corporate governance. At a macro level the stakeholders must instruct the staff, not vice versa.
The above is a very long subject which I couldn't hope to comprehensively address; I know there are many others with many opinions, and longer experience with ICANN, who can give better answers than I can.
They don't have the ability to reject ALAC's mandate - but see above vis a vis spending money. It's critical, then, that there are known budgets ahead of time so that money is not arbitrarily added or taken away, to fund pet projects or deny funding to contentious ones. We can't spend money we don't have -- so let's know how much we have to work with. That way, we can determine the bounds and allocate appropriately. Without a budget, everything is arbitrary and _any_ request can be met with "we don't have the funds for that".
The budgets of ICANN are very public, and subject to public consultation in their draft form. I will shortly be producing a version of the budget for At-Large in the current draft form for all of you to look at (I just need to take out all the staff costs and the like for privacy reasons). The entire company budget is about to get reviewed for the upcoming FY.
Hopefully things are clearer now :) Yes, to the extent of answering some questions while raising many others :-).
Don't mind Q&A at all. Beats a number of other kinds of email exchanges one could be having for sure.
- Evan
-- -- Regards, Nick Ashton-Hart PO Box 32160 London N4 2XY United Kingdom UK Tel: +44 (20) 8800-1011 USA Tel: +1 (202) 657-5460 Fax: +44 (20) 7681-3135 mobile: +44 (7774) 932798 Win IM: ashtonhart@hotmail.com / AIM/iSight: nashtonhart@mac.com / Skype: nashtonhart Online Bio: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ashtonhart
[excerpt] "The main problem for companies seeking to protect their brands is cybersquatting, the unauthorized use of a trademarked name in a domain pointing to a site that isn't owned by the trademark holder. MarkMonitor found more than 286,000 instances of cybersquatting for the 25 brands it studied -- an average of 11,400 instances each." Complete article here: http://www.sci-tech-today.com/news/New-Study-Looks-at-Web-Brandjacking/story... The UDRP is obviously of limited value given the current reality... it's time that we started looking at either a revision of the UDRP or at an alternative. I am aware that both the Business Constituency and the Intellectual Property Constituency have recently been considering rapid take-down plans (in fact, the .xxx proposal also planned on utilizing rapid take-down (based on the DMCA model)). What approach to this issue does the At-Large community recommend? __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com
Danny, thanks for bringing up this talking point, as it has been a great interest of mine since the beginning. I think we've even quietly and cordially discussed this issue before. I do think that this talking point is something worth visiting. However, I think the UDRP, as devised, clearly states the intent of registering domains vs trademarks. I also think the UDRP is greatly misinterpreted by 'legal types' (ie: attorneys, judges, legislators, et al) because their interest lies in a different realm of reality. You may be able to enlighten me further as I don't have the time to research it and you are the expert, but as I remember there are many requirements of a trademark actually being legitimate property, which include geography and the use of the property (Apple vs Apple being a good example). As a reference, I copied the following: USPTO: "A trademark includes any word, name, symbol, or device, or any combination, used, or intended to be used, in commerce to identify and distinguish the goods of one manufacturer or seller from goods manufactured or sold by others, and to indicate the source of the goods. In short, a trademark is a brand name." UDRP (as interpreted by internic): "...the trademark holder must establish (1) that he has a legally recognized trademark in a name that is identical or confusingly similar to the domain name; (2) that the current registrant of the domain name has no legitimate rights in the name; and (3) that there has been some evidence of bad faith or abuse." (As I remember, there used to be a 4th requirement, and all 4 had to be met for a valid complaint). Personally, I cannot think of a single example of actual trademark infringement based on registering a domain, though I concede that the courts have ruled differently, and 'bad faith' has occurred. This is what I mean; a domain name is not inherently similar to any other product or service being offered elsewhere. Take Coke for example, they own the patents to and license the manufacture of cola sold under the brand of Coca-Cola worldwide, which is in no way similar to coke.com or cocacola.com or coca-cola.com. They are different in every way, first of all I can't drink the domain name nor can I purchase it at a vending machine nor can I put Mentos in it to create fission. The domain is simply a method of communication, not a cola (different use of the mark). What then, gives them the right to think they own the aforementioned domains? It is very simple, a domain is not similar to a cola in any respect. The laws were originally established in this way in order to inhibit monopolistic practices. It is my opinion that domain names are more similar to an "original work", or "any type of expression independently conceived by its creator. As long as a particular expression has been independently created, it need not be original in the sense of 'new." (NOLO.com). Let's say I draw a picture of a bottle of Coca-Cola, should it be in Coke's right to sue me for infringing on their trademark? What if I just type their name in this email, should they be able to sue me for infringing on their trademark? I'm sure if the RIAA had any say, they would. On the other hand, who is to say that cocaco1a.com would be used in bad faith, or who is the rightful owner, or to whom it is to be registered? The sunrise policies for new TLDs allow for valid trademark holders to have the opportunity to register 'their' domain before others have a chance. I feel this is a valid and reasonable allowance for those who, in my opinion, hold trademarks in more than one state (meaning nation, rather than province). I one time had a discussion with one of the authors of the UDRP who had assured me that my viewpoint on this subject was valid. I think what we all ask, is where does one draw the line? In my opinion, the 'bad faith' issue is the line in the sand, but how one determines bad faith is being increasingly ambiguous in case law. It is all too common for the line to be drawn on the side of money and power, as case law has clearly shown. One thing in my mind stands clear, is that the intent of legislation changes with every generation. Our current generation (in America) is becoming more imperialistic and socialized, whereas previous generations have been more liberal yet discriminatory. What I mean by this is that the freedom to assemble used to be righteously defended, so long as you did so with the same race of people. Nowadays, there is no right to assemble, but if you did, you could not discriminate upon race or sex, so long as it's not all white males, other than at the capitol building, and certainly not at 3:48am. Likewise, the freedom of expression used to be staunchly defended, and today political correctness is staunchly defended, which are two entirely different approaches. If the Internet is to be here for generations to come, then we must look above the current state of affairs and see the long-term effects of how things are. Aloha, Randy Glass A@L On 5/5/07, Danny Younger <dannyyounger@yahoo.com> wrote:
[excerpt] "The main problem for companies seeking to protect their brands is cybersquatting, the unauthorized use of a trademarked name in a domain pointing to a site that isn't owned by the trademark holder. MarkMonitor found more than 286,000 instances of cybersquatting for the 25 brands it studied -- an average of 11,400 instances each."
Complete article here:
http://www.sci-tech-today.com/news/New-Study-Looks-at-Web-Brandjacking/story...
The UDRP is obviously of limited value given the current reality... it's time that we started looking at either a revision of the UDRP or at an alternative. I am aware that both the Business Constituency and the Intellectual Property Constituency have recently been considering rapid take-down plans (in fact, the .xxx proposal also planned on utilizing rapid take-down (based on the DMCA model)).
What approach to this issue does the At-Large community recommend?
__________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com
_______________________________________________ NA-Discuss mailing list NA-Discuss@atlarge-lists.icann.org
http://atlarge-lists.icann.org/mailman/listinfo/na-discuss_atlarge-lists.ica... --- Draft MoU with ICANN: http://www.icannwiki.org/NA_RALO_MOU
Draft Operating Principles: http://www.icannwiki.org/NA_RALO_OP
Draft Code of Conduct: http://www.icannwiki.org/NARALO_Code_of_Conduct
-- ------------------------- AmericaAtLarge.org RJPacific.com DDMF.org
Hello Randy, Thanks for using cocaco1a.com as an example. Current WHOIS data: Registrant Organization Name: smart thinkers First Name: dog Last Name: dog Address 1: 123 street st City: washington dc StateProvince: DC PostalCode: 20005 Country: US Phone: +1.3015551212 Fax: +1.3015551213 EmailAddress: none This WHOIS data, together with the registrant's website content, illustrates a classic example of typosquatting (which is illegal under U.S. law). It also points out the registrar community could be doing much, much more to police inaccurate WHOIS data. I'm not sure I understand the point that you are trying to make... are you condoning this type of activity because of a view that current law is in a state of flux? Sorry if I misunderstood where you are heading with this... Best wishes, Danny __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com
Thanks for using cocaco1a.com as an example. Current WHOIS data:
(Note to people like me with bad eyes, that's a digit one between the o and a.) This is an issue that has come up all the time in discussions of IDNs, names that use different characters but look like familiar ones. For some reason, it's rarely been tied back to the similar things you've always been able to do with digit 1 and 0 for L, I, and O in ASCII names. Regards, John Levine, johnl@iecc.com, Primary Perpetrator of "The Internet for Dummies", Information Superhighwayman wanna-be, http://www.johnlevine.com, ex-Mayor "More Wiener schnitzel, please", said Tom, revealingly.
ICANN's 27 April announcement regarding Registerfly stated: The Court decision also requires RegisterFly to immediately post a notice on its web site as follows: NOTICE TO CONSUMERS: THE INTERNET CORPORATION FOR ASSIGNED NAMES AND NUMBERS, THE NOT-FOR-PROFIT ENTITY THAT ADMINISTERS THE INTERNETS DOMAIN NAME SYSTEM, HAS ISSUED A NOTICE OF TERMINATION OF THIS COMPANYS ACCREDITATION TO SERVE AS AN INTERNET DOMAIN REGISTRAR. PLEASE SEE www.icann.org FOR FURTHER INFORMATION. Ten days later and I'm still not seeing this notice on the registerfly.com website. Questions: (1) Is RegisterFly ignoring a judicial order? Or has this ruling been set aside in light of an undisclosed appeals process at work? (2) Has ICANN in fact received all current and accurate data for all of RegisterFlys domain names, or is there a problem? (3) How many statements of interest has ICANN received from registrars to act as a transfer provider? Have registrars responded to this call for action? (4) The terminated registrar procedure states: "tenders can be extended to selected registrars or other potential Providers at ICANN discretion. Tenders need not be open to any who wish to bid, the tender need not be announced publicly." Is this proper in light of ICANN's purported commitment to transparency? (5) How long before RegisterFly's registrants can expect relief? (6) When will Paul Twomey finally provide a report on the status of escrow compliance? When will he finally propose a process for a public discussion of appropriate protections for registrants? (7) When will we finally have a registrant constituency in the GNSO? Feel free to add your own questions... __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com
Lovely find, Danny. See, even as liberal as I am, I would concur with you that this instance would be a violation of the UDRP and is wrong because the WHOIS data is being misrepresented, unless of course 'dog' lives at 123 street in DC, which I highly doubt or his phone has a 555 prefix, also highly doubtful. No, I don't necessarily condone this instance, just as much as I don't condone corporate bullying to gain control of this domain if the WHOIS data had been accurate (Microsoft v MikeRoweSoft.com was a good example of an instance I also don't condone). On the same note, how can the registrars justify keeping registrants private but individuals themselves cannot? I do wonder if Coke has pursued this case with arbitration (another issue we should delve into). I also wonder how proactive ICANN should be involved with these matters. I also wonder if then, we should require that Coke pay registration fees for all misspellings alowable, and require every organization to register all misspellings. I bet registrars would love this. In this case, it could seem reasonable that a company named Coca Co. in Podunk Utah has a server called 1a and uses it for a specific purpose, of which I'm sure is not the case regardless, but could be. I also don't agree that the WHOIS data should be as public as it is. I don't appreciate everyone being able to mine the data as readily as they do. There have been times when I've checked my mail to find it overflowing with advertising that could have only been sent using the WHOIS database. I've also had individuals call me on the phone to demand that I relenquish a domain so that they can more easily find a certain other website named similar to one of mine; no need to go over how those conversations end. Or, a company in Spain who has the same name as a domain in which I've registered in good faith demanding that I 'give them their domain.' Needless to say, those conversations end in the same manner. In short, I don't appreciate my info being made public and understand why one would want to misrepresent themselves in order to maintain privacy, though I go to great lengths not to do so myself. The IDN issue is on the same scale of what we're discussing here. Whether the organic spelling or the English form takes precedence is of particular concern to me. How about the word CocaCola spelled in Katakana (Japanese)? Should Coke also have the right to the ASCII form of 'their name' in every character set? OK, so beyond my knowledge level now. The point then, that I'm trying to make is that even a trademark holder should not have an inherent right to register any given domain under any circumstance. But, the sunrise period does make sense. My reasoning for this, is that a domain/website is 1) an original work and 2) materially different and not confusingly similar to a physical product. In this case, the registrant has a valid website (obviously PPC, I think from goldkey but cannot remember their nameservers) and is not trying to misrepresent itself as CocaCola.com. However, I do think that a company should be protected from malice. If it were 1) a duplicate website of Coke's, 2) used for a phishing scam, 3) and meant to do harm; then I would say that I definitely don't condone that behavior. But then again, I'm not truly as liberal as I make myself out to be. aloha, Randy Glass A@L On 5/7/07, Danny Younger <dannyyounger@yahoo.com> wrote:
Hello Randy,
Thanks for using cocaco1a.com as an example. Current WHOIS data:
Registrant Organization Name: smart thinkers First Name: dog Last Name: dog Address 1: 123 street st City: washington dc StateProvince: DC PostalCode: 20005 Country: US Phone: +1.3015551212 Fax: +1.3015551213 EmailAddress: none
This WHOIS data, together with the registrant's website content, illustrates a classic example of typosquatting (which is illegal under U.S. law). It also points out the registrar community could be doing much, much more to police inaccurate WHOIS data.
I'm not sure I understand the point that you are trying to make... are you condoning this type of activity because of a view that current law is in a state of flux? Sorry if I misunderstood where you are heading with this...
Best wishes, Danny
__________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com
-- ------------------------- AmericaAtLarge.org RJPacific.com DDMF.org
A few years ago, Rick Wesson testified before the House Judiciary Committee. He stated: "Beginning in 2000, I spent the next 18 months developing a technology to perform fraud analysis on electronic commerce transactions with the intent of solving registrars Whois data accuracy problems. The technology we developed was specifically targeted to identify invalid and undeliverable postal address, undeliverable e-mail address, and nondialable telephone numbers. We launched the service Fraudit, as in "Fraud-Audit", for registrars to increase their data accuracy at the 2002 ICANN meeting in Shanghai, China. To our surprise registrars were somewhat angered to learn that someone had come up with a solution to the Whois data accuracy problem. Registrars appeared to believe that as long as no solution existed, there was no good reason audit their registrant data. In fact the only time they preformed self-audits is when the registrar was faced with a financial loss. Registrars have been hit hard with credit card fraud. One large registrar had a rather embarrassing incident by nearly losing their merchant account, removing their ability to take credit cards over the Internet, because of fraud. Although all registrars experience some credit card fraud and most have invested in mitigating that risk, they have not attempted, nor invested in, an ability to prevent the introduction of fraudulent registrant data as long as the domain is paid for and the registrar is not hit with a credit card charge back there is no business reason to prevent invalid registrant data in the Whois system. My ultimate realization that ICANN, gTLD registries and accredited registrars had no intention, desire, or incentive to audit their registrant data caused us to withdraw the product from the registrar Whois accuracy space." http://judiciary.house.gov/HearingTestimony.aspx?ID=124 When I look at the WHOIS results for cocaco1a.com I am angered by the attitude of registrars that are in a position to proactively deal with WHOIS data accuracy issues but refuse to do so (even though the technology is out there that allows for inaccurate records to readily be spotted). I, for one, am sick of the games that are being played by the registrar community. It is time to give the registrars a true incentive to audit their WHOIS records. We need language in the RAA that stipulates an audit process with financial penalties for those that fail to comply with their obligations. Who on the ALAC is handling input into the RAA revision process? __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com
As will not surprise you, I disagree with the conclusions you draw from the presence of inaccurate WHOIS data. I do not think ICANN should be in the business of creating audit trails for online interactions, and so I think we should encourage people to find alternate means to verify the identity or reliability (not always the same thing) of those with whom they interact through domain names. Encouraging people to rely upon domain names merely exacerbates the phishing problems of look-alike characters or the potential confusion of a semantically meaningful domain name. If we retreat from this all-inclusive view, to say that a domain name is merely a convenient hook for online communications, then "false" WHOIS data is no more a problem than a parent's arbitrary choice of names for children. --Wendy Danny Younger wrote:
A few years ago, Rick Wesson testified before the House Judiciary Committee. He stated:
"Beginning in 2000, I spent the next 18 months developing a technology to perform fraud analysis on electronic commerce transactions with the intent of solving registrars’ Whois data accuracy problems. The technology we developed was specifically targeted to identify invalid and undeliverable postal address, undeliverable e-mail address, and nondialable telephone numbers.
We launched the service Fraudit, as in "Fraud-Audit", for registrars to increase their data accuracy at the 2002 ICANN meeting in Shanghai, China. To our surprise registrars were somewhat angered to learn that someone had come up with a solution to the Whois data accuracy problem.
Registrars appeared to believe that as long as no solution existed, there was no good reason audit their registrant data. In fact the only time they preformed self-audits is when the registrar was faced with a financial loss. Registrars have been hit hard with credit card fraud. One large registrar had a rather embarrassing incident by nearly losing their merchant account, removing their ability to take credit cards over the Internet, because of fraud. Although all registrars experience some credit card fraud and most have invested in mitigating that risk, they have not attempted, nor invested in, an ability to prevent the introduction of fraudulent registrant data – as long as the domain is paid for and the registrar is not hit with a credit card charge back there is no business reason to prevent invalid registrant data in the Whois system.
My ultimate realization that ICANN, gTLD registries and accredited registrars had no intention, desire, or incentive to audit their registrant data caused us to withdraw the product from the registrar Whois accuracy space." http://judiciary.house.gov/HearingTestimony.aspx?ID=124
When I look at the WHOIS results for cocaco1a.com I am angered by the attitude of registrars that are in a position to proactively deal with WHOIS data accuracy issues but refuse to do so (even though the technology is out there that allows for inaccurate records to readily be spotted).
I, for one, am sick of the games that are being played by the registrar community. It is time to give the registrars a true incentive to audit their WHOIS records.
We need language in the RAA that stipulates an audit process with financial penalties for those that fail to comply with their obligations.
Who on the ALAC is handling input into the RAA revision process?
__________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com
_______________________________________________ NA-Discuss mailing list NA-Discuss@atlarge-lists.icann.org http://atlarge-lists.icann.org/mailman/listinfo/na-discuss_atlarge-lists.ica... --- Draft MoU with ICANN: http://www.icannwiki.org/NA_RALO_MOU
Draft Operating Principles: http://www.icannwiki.org/NA_RALO_OP
Draft Code of Conduct: http://www.icannwiki.org/NARALO_Code_of_Conduct
-- Wendy Seltzer -- wendy@seltzer.org phone: +1.617.418.3456 / +44 (0)1865 287203 // cell: 07785 550361 Visiting Fellow, Oxford Internet Institute Fellow, Berkman Center for Internet & Society http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/seltzer.html http://www.chillingeffects.org/
Wendy Seltzer wrote:
If we retreat from this all-inclusive view, to say that a domain name is merely a convenient hook for online communications, then "false" WHOIS data is no more a problem than a parent's arbitrary choice of names for children.
My view is probably closer to this than that of the trademark industry (which is already well represented within ICANN, as far as I can tell). I happen to like approaches such as "No Logo" but I also agree that many of the anti-branding rants I see at, for instance, AdBusters, go a little too far. One of the more contentious issues I see here is the attempt by the trademark industry to turn the domain naming system into its exclusive enforcement tool, and I see that as dangerous. OTOH, I'm also one of those who believes that freedom requires responsibility, and anyone who registers an identity MUST be honest about the owner of that identity. There are ways to allow for some level of privacy (think of the old ways newspapars would print letters with the author's name "witheld by request -- but the original letter still needed to be signed). I would prefer to see ICANN stay out of trademark-enforcement issues as much as possible, but I do think it has a role to play in ensuring that identities can ultimately be verifiable. In this field, I would daresay that the public interest and the interest of registrars and trademark holders diverge significantly. - Evan
Evan: It is worth mentioning that for the Canadian cctld (ie. .ca), a verification is made to make sure that WHOIS contact information is accurate. All domain holders of .CA domains have the (free) option to be full members CIRA, as such it is under legal obligation under Canadian law to contact its members for notices and , yes, annual elections. Details can be found on CIRA's policy development process page at the URL below: http://cira.ca/en/cat_Registrar.html http://cira.ca/en/documents/2007/PRP-registration-rulesv3.8.pdf CIRA is one of the few (if not only) cctld that allows for all of its domain name holders to be full and active members of the organization. If there's interest, I would be happy to contact CIRA so that it can speak to at-large to present its mechanisms of governance and policy development process at the upcoming San Juan meeting. regards, Robert --- Robert Guerra <rguerra@privaterra.org> Managing Director, Privaterra Tel +1 416 893 0377 On 8-May-07, at 10:33 AM, Evan Leibovitch wrote:
Wendy Seltzer wrote:
If we retreat from this all-inclusive view, to say that a domain name is merely a convenient hook for online communications, then "false" WHOIS data is no more a problem than a parent's arbitrary choice of names for children.
My view is probably closer to this than that of the trademark industry (which is already well represented within ICANN, as far as I can tell). I happen to like approaches such as "No Logo" but I also agree that many of the anti-branding rants I see at, for instance, AdBusters, go a little too far.
One of the more contentious issues I see here is the attempt by the trademark industry to turn the domain naming system into its exclusive enforcement tool, and I see that as dangerous. OTOH, I'm also one of those who believes that freedom requires responsibility, and anyone who registers an identity MUST be honest about the owner of that identity. There are ways to allow for some level of privacy (think of the old ways newspapars would print letters with the author's name "witheld by request -- but the original letter still needed to be signed).
I would prefer to see ICANN stay out of trademark-enforcement issues as much as possible, but I do think it has a role to play in ensuring that identities can ultimately be verifiable. In this field, I would daresay that the public interest and the interest of registrars and trademark holders diverge significantly.
- Evan
_______________________________________________ NA-Discuss mailing list NA-Discuss@atlarge-lists.icann.org http://atlarge-lists.icann.org/mailman/listinfo/na-discuss_atlarge- lists.icann.org --- Draft MoU with ICANN: http://www.icannwiki.org/NA_RALO_MOU
Draft Operating Principles: http://www.icannwiki.org/NA_RALO_OP
Draft Code of Conduct: http://www.icannwiki.org/NARALO_Code_of_Conduct
Robert wrote:
CIRA is one of the few (if not only) cctld that allows for all of its domain name holders to be full and active members of the organization.
Two weeks ago at the IT360 tradeshow in Toronto, CIRA had a booth, primarily for the purpose of explaining what it is. Interestingly, they were actively seeking to convert domain owners to voting members, offering a USB pen drive to any domain owner willing to sign up and verify identification. http://www.cira.ca/en/IT360-trade-show/info.html http://www.cira.ca/en/IT360-trade-show/forms.html Of course, they also have a selling job to do. Many Canadian companies still prefer dot-com over dot-ca and traditionally dot-ca registrations have been more expensive.
If there's interest, I would be happy to contact CIRA so that it can speak to at-large to present its mechanisms of governance and policy development process at the upcoming San Juan meeting.
Maybe, however: who would they talk to and would there be any point? The CIRA model speaks to public participation at the highest level, and goes to the heart of how and for whom the organization exists. Would such point of view have any value at all at ICANN, which has a mostly-unaccountable Board with little incentive to change this particular status quo? Knowing what else is possible might just be an invitation for frustration, especially at the ALS/RALO level which is fairly low on ICANN's stakeholder food chain. :-) - Evan
Nick, Yesterday morning at 10AM a hearing was scheduled on the Ex Parte application for civil contempt sanctions -- see http://www.icann.org/legal/icann-v-registerfly/icann-v-registerfly-notice-he... Can you tell us what was the outcome of that session? __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com
participants (7)
-
Danny Younger -
Evan Leibovitch -
John L -
Mr. Robert Guerra -
Nick Ashton-Hart -
RJGlass | America＠Large -
Wendy Seltzer