October 2015 - spec13-request

Comments on .food spec 13
by Mr. Michele Neylon Oct. 30, 2015

Oct. 30, 2015

Dear Sir / Madam I am submitting these comments in my personal capacity and not on behalf of any group. ICANN should deny this request. The term “food” is a generic string under ICANN’s definition and no one company should be granted exclusive rights to it. I was one of the people who raised this sort of issue with ICANN back in 2013. See, for example: blog.blacknight.com/letter-to-icann-clarifications-on-non-trademarked-gener… And my opinion on this has not changed. The “food” sector is huge and no one company should have control of the namespace that defines it. Ireland, for example, has a thriving food production industry. See for example: Goodfoodireland.ie There are hundreds of businesses listed on that site and each one of them should have the option to use a .food domain name, which granting .food spec 13 status would deny them Regards Michele -- Mr Michele Neylon

1 0

Australian Government comment on .food [SEC=UNCLASSIFIED]
by Williams, Annaliese Oct. 29, 2015

Oct. 29, 2015

UNCLASSIFIED The Australian Government issued an Early Warning to Lifestyle Domain Holdings, Inc on the grounds that 'food' is a common generic term, and that restricting common generic strings, such as .food, for the exclusive use of a single entity could have a negative impact on competition. The GAC subsequently advised in its Beijing Communique of April 2013 that for strings representing generic terms, exclusive registry access should serve a public interest goal. The Australian Government does not consider that Lifestyle Domain Holdings' application to operate .food for its exclusive use serves a public interest goal. According to Specification 13 section 9.1, .Brand TLDs are TLDs where the TLD is not a Generic String TLD (as defined in Specification 11). Specification 11 section 3.d states that ' "Generic String" means a string consisting of a word or term that denominates or describes a general class of goods, services, groups, organizations or things, as opposed to distinguishing a specific brand of goods, services, groups, organizations or things from those of others.' On this basis, and as 'food' would denominate or describe a general class of food goods or services we consider that .food does not meet the criteria for a .brand TLD. Regards, Annaliese Williams Australian Government GAC representative ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- NOTICE: This email message is for the sole use of the intended recipient(s) and may contain confidential and privileged information. Any unauthorized review, use, disclosure or distribution is prohibited. If you are not the intended recipient, please contact the sender by reply email and destroy all copies of the original message. This message has been content scanned by the Axway MailGate. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------

1 0

Comment to .food
by Dirk Krischenowski Oct. 25, 2015

Oct. 25, 2015

I’m commenting on the .Brand TLD Designation Application by Lifestyle Domain Holdings, Inc., a wholly-owned subsidiary of Scripps Networks Interactive, Inc., for the .FOOD gTLD, dated September 24, 2015. For over 100,000 domain names including the word “food” and over 3,000,000,000 websites which notion the term “food” no restrictions now exist or are demanded of most existing gTLDs or ccTLDs, giving a restriction on new gTLDs an inhibiting effect on new gTLDs’ ability to fairly compete. An artificial closure of the .food gTLD further inhibits the end‐user purpose of the new gTLD program. I think that .food should be operated in an open and unrestricted manner for the benefit of all users. Especially the food community stakeholders must recognize the net benefit of .food to the worldwide community and encourage expansion of the benefit, instead of allowing the closing of this great opportunity to the commercial benefit of a single merely unknown company. For this reason I have created a Facebook support group which more than 80 persons have signed up already who support my efforts to keep .food an open gTLD (https://www.facebook.com/fooddomainsforeveryone) Furthermore I believe that this request must not be approved and the application has to be deferred to the next gTLD round. 1. ICANN rules do not allow an exclusive use of .FOOD An applicant who wants to operate a TLD under Specification 13 must show that the gTLD matches his trademark and that the string is not a generic word, as clearly defined by ICANN: “… a string consisting of a word or term that denominates or describes a general class of goods, services, groups, organizations or things, as opposed to distinguishing a specific brand of goods, services, groups, organizations or things from those of others.” Specification 13 also explicitly defines that a TLD applying for .BRAND Designation must not be “a Generic String TLD (as defined in Specification 11)”. Both ICANN and the GAC have very clearly articulated that a generic string will not be allowed to be operated as an exclusive .BRAND gTLD. Any applicant for a generic word has to either withdraw his plans for exclusive use of the TLD or withdraw the application. A substantial number of affected and already approved gTLDs amended their application accordingly. Furthermore, an approval of a Specification 13 application would qualify as a violation of the Public Interest Commitments (PIC) in Specification 11, clauses 3.c and 3.d: “c. Registry Operator will operate the TLD in a transparent manner consistent with general principles of openness and non-discrimination by establishing, publishing and adhering to clear registration policies. d. Registry Operator of a “Generic String” TLD may not impose eligibility criteria for registering names in the TLD that limit registrations exclusively to a single person or entity and/or that person’s or entity’s “Affiliates” (as defined in Section 2.9(c) of the Registry Agreement). “Generic String” means a string consisting of a word or term that denominates or describes a general class of goods, services, groups, organizations or things, as opposed to distinguishing a specific brand of goods, services, groups, organizations or things from those of others.” By granting the request that Scripps Networks Interactive, Inc. and its Affiliates may become sole registrants in the .FOOD gTLD, ICANN would act in violation of its contract and the agreement with the GAC. 2. A potential change from exclusive to a non-exclusive use Even if the applicant choose to file a change request for a non-exclusive use of .FOOD, this would constitute a clear-cut material change. For any material change to an application, such as amending an application from exclusive use to non-exclusive use, ICANN reserves the right to re-evaluate the application, according to the Applicant Guidebook, version 2012-06-04, section 1.2.7. The practical implications of a change of status of .FOOD from exclusive to non-exclusive would be significant in financial terms, since responses to questions 46 to 50 would be completely misleading, as the costs of operations of an exclusive TLD would be substantially less than the costs of operation of an non-exclusive TLD and thus all responses to the financial questions would be flawed and the Continuing Operations Instrument grossly inaccurate which clearly justifies a request for a re-evaluation by ICANN. Regards, Dirk Krischenowski Gustav-Mueller-Strasse 1, 10829 Berlin, Germany www.krischenowski.berlin 25 October 2016

1 0

'the wild west of typosquatters and cybersquatters'
by Marcus Fauré Oct. 20, 2015

Oct. 20, 2015

Scripps argues that if .food were to use a registry-registrar model, it would ultimately ruin the TLD. While there is fraud in many TLDs, it's difficult to accept that .com and others harmed users more than it helped them. Moreover, there are ways to keep a namespace clean. One is to restrict access to qualified registrants like fTLD has done for .bank. Another is to have a charter that regulates the use of the names, e.g. the linguistic and cultural TLD .cat requires registrants to have a website in Catalan Marcus Fauré Global Village ICANN accredited registrar

1 0

Comment on Lifestyle Domain Holdings, Inc., Specification 13 Application
by Johannes Lenz-Hawliczek | Hotel Top-Level-Domain Sarl Oct. 17, 2015

Oct. 17, 2015

We are commenting on the .Brand TLD Designation Application by Lifestyle Domain Holdings, Inc., a wholly-owned subsidiary of Scripps Networks Interactive, Inc., for the .FOOD gTLD, dated September 24, 2015. We believe that this request must not be approved and the application has to be deferred to the next gTLD round. 1. ICANN rules do not allow an exclusive use of .FOOD An applicant who wants to operate a TLD under Specification 13 must show that the gTLD matches his trademark and that the string is not a generic word, as clearly defined by ICANN: “… a string consisting of a word or term that denominates or describes a general class of goods, services, groups, organizations or things, as opposed to distinguishing a specific brand of goods, services, groups, organizations or things from those of others.” Specification 13 also explicitly defines that a TLD applying for .BRAND Designation must not be “a Generic String TLD (as defined in Specification 11)”. Both ICANN and the GAC have very clearly articulated that a generic string will not be allowed to be operated as an exclusive .BRAND gTLD. Any applicant for a generic word has to either withdraw his plans for exclusive use of the TLD or withdraw the application. A substantial number of affected and already approved gTLDs amended their application accordingly. Furthermore, an approval of a Specification 13 application would qualify as a violation of the Public Interest Commitments (PIC) in Specification 11, clauses 3.c and 3.d: “c. Registry Operator will operate the TLD in a transparent manner consistent with general principles of openness and non-discrimination by establishing, publishing and adhering to clear registration policies. d. Registry Operator of a “Generic String” TLD may not impose eligibility criteria for registering names in the TLD that limit registrations exclusively to a single person or entity and/or that person’s or entity’s “Affiliates” (as defined in Section 2.9(c) of the Registry Agreement). “Generic String” means a string consisting of a word or term that denominates or describes a general class of goods, services, groups, organizations or things, as opposed to distinguishing a specific brand of goods, services, groups, organizations or things from those of others.” By granting the request that Scripps Networks Interactive, Inc. and its Affiliates may become sole registrants in the .FOOD gTLD, ICANN would act in violation of its contract and the agreement with the GAC. 2. A potential change from exclusive to a non-exclusive use Even if the applicant choose to file a change request for a non-exclusive use of .FOOD, this would constitute a clear-cut material change. For any material change to an application, such as amending an application from exclusive use to non-exclusive use, ICANN reserves the right to re-evaluate the application, according to the Applicant Guidebook, version 2012-06-04, section 1.2.7. The practical implications of a change of status of .FOOD from exclusive to non-exclusive would be significant in financial terms, since responses to questions 46 to 50 would be completely misleading, as the costs of operations of a exclusive TLD would be substantially less than the costs of operation of an non-exclusive TLD and thus all responses to the financial questions would be flawed and the Continuing Operations Instrument grossly inaccurate which clearly justifies a request for a re-evaluation by ICANN. Regards, Katrin Ohlmer, Johannes Lenz-Hawliczek Managing Directors, Hotel Top-Level-Domain Sárl Luxembourg, 16. October 2015

1 0

Opposed to .food
by Christopher Wilkinson Oct. 10, 2015

Oct. 10, 2015

The privatisation of generic words in English or any other language must be forbidden. I have absolutely NO trust in any one company operating .food in a responsible manner. .food must be an open generic with the usual precautions but NO monopoly. Otherwise it must not be delegated. CW

1 0

.food generic
by David Johnson Oct. 9, 2015

Oct. 9, 2015

I think .food should be allowed to be a dot brand. We all know the food network. They are famous and have a lot of power. Why not allow them trademark rights on this generic word. This will set a good precedence that ICANN allows generic words to be brands and allow other generic words in the future to be captured. Just because the word is in the dictionary doesn't mean that everyone should have access to register in it. Let people register in dot eat or some other TLD if they want a food domain. Brands should have more power in ICANN. Same goes for .apple, just because apple farmers want access to that TLD doesn't mean they should be allowed. Brands are more important then everyone on earth. This is why Ford motor company got the rights to an entire A block of IP addresses (19.0.0.0) in the early days. Once it is done, it can never be undone. So slip in this decision quickly before people can complain. Please give brands more power!

1 0

Spec 13 Application by .food
by Volker Greimann Oct. 7, 2015

Oct. 7, 2015

Dear ICANN, thank you for providing me with the opportunity of commenting on this application, which I am doing on a personal capacity. The application should be rejected as the TLD string does not qualify under the requirements of the specification as it is: "a string consisting of a word or term that denominates or describes a general class of goods, services, groups, organizations or things, as opposed to distinguishing a specific brand of goods, services, groups, organizations or things from those of others" Food is as generic as it gets, describing a general class of goods every living being on earth needs to survive on a daily basis. Allowing such a string to be monopolized by a single service provider in the food industry would contrary to the claims of the applicant cause more user confusion and allow one provider to dominate the public presentation and outreach regarding such an important ressource. Having negotiated with the Brand Applicant Group with regard to the initial comment rejecting Spec 13 altogether, I feel confident in stating that both the Brand Applicant Group and the participating registrars issuing the comment critical of the initial Spec 13 intended to prevent use cases of the specification like this. We therefore kindly request that ICANN refuse the application on the grounds of the applied-for string not meeting the requirements of the spec. Best regards, Volker Greimann GNSO Counsellor (RrSG)

1 0

.food PIC
by Leroy, Natalie Oct. 7, 2015

Oct. 7, 2015

Hello, I am writing to share my comments on .food, whose applicant Lifestyle Domain Holdings, Inc. has expressed the intention to operate a closed gTLD under Spec.13. Spec. 13 which allows registries to operate a closed TLD, only applies if a certain number of requirements are met, one of which is that a TLD must not be generic string - I fail to see therefore how LifeStyle Domain Holdings can even entertain the notion that they qualify. I also fail to see why ICANN, who has been keen to show that they take trademark rights seriously, even indulges LifeStyle Domain Holdings in their intention not to modify their application. Trademark rights should be protected under the new gTLD programme, but it should certainly not swing the over way to allow common terms to be used exclusively as though they benefitted from trademark protection. Yes in all likelihood there will be some cybersquatting under .food, but no more than currently under .com - allowing .food to be a closed TLD would impede healthy competition with genuine registrants. I see generic string new gTLDs as an extension of international trademark classifications under the Nice Agreement - in that respect they are a fantastic opportunity to allow products and services that share matching or similar names to operate in the domain name space under various TLDs that will differentiate between them in an intelligent and intuitive manner for end users. A TLD such as .food represents this exactly - it cannot be closed, otherwise it makes a farce of the whole programme and ICANN will lose all credibility. Best regards, Natalie Leroy European Brand Advisor [cid:image006.jpg@01D03989.0FF128B0] ________________________________ NOTICE: This e-mail and any attachments is intended only for use by the addressee(s) named herein and may contain legally privileged, proprietary or confidential information. If you are not the intended recipient of this e-mail, you are hereby notified that any dissemination, distribution or copying of this email, and any attachments thereto, is strictly prohibited. If you receive this email in error please immediately notify me via reply email or at (800) 927-9800 and permanently delete the original copy and any copy of any e-mail, and any printout.

1 0