[cc-humanrights] Rights Protection Mechanisms - impact? concerns?

[Kathy Kleiman]

Hi All,

Sorry to be raising issues so late in the game. As some of you know, I 
am on the Registration Directory Services WG, co-chairing the Rights 
Protection Mechanism WG and attending as many meetings of the IGO/INGO 
Working Group meetings as possible. These groups are moving quickly... 
so life is busy! But I do need to ask about the "rights protection 
mechanisms" in the table and share that they are concerning from a human 
rights and public interest perspective.

Under *Rights protection mechanisms*

- *Protection of International Organization Names in all gTLDs *- there 
has been a lot of concern raised about this in the history of ICANN. In 
particular, Rafik Dammak, now chair of Noncommercial Users Constituency, 
then on the GNSO Council, voted Against the protection of RedCross in 
all gTLDs because a) there might be places where the RedCross 
organization was not entitled to the second level domain name, such as a 
future gTLD that evaluated philanthropies for their effectiveness, 
efficiency and amount of funds dedicated to overhead, administration and 
salaries of its heads and b) the idea of blocking one word at all levels 
has free expression ramifications that are enormous and potentially 
devastating...

For example, ICANN's free expression advocates fought (successfully) 
against blanket protection for the Olympics Committee to control the use 
of the word "olympics" at the second level of all gTLDs -- because what 
would that do to the free expression rights, the free competition 
rights, and the rights to geographic terms if those in Greece and 
elsewhere could not regularly, broadly and openly use the word 
"olympics" in domain names to write about the history of ancient olympic 
games, research and visit historic Olympic sites in Greece, hike and 
bike in the Olympic Mountains and Olympic National Park in the US, eat 
at Olympic Restaurants, etc.?  As in other areas, allowing different 
people to use the same word in different and legitimate ways in 
different and legitimate gTLDs makes sense...

- *Curative Rights protection for IGOs/INGOs *- currently, the IGO/INGO 
working group of the GNSO with some very senior attorneys is working 
this issue through. IGOs and INGOs would like to protect not only their 
names, but their acronyms, and those acronyms are used many different 
ways by name different groups, organizations, small businesses, etc. For 
example, the World Health Organization would like the rights to remove 
domain names using WHO.COM outside of the traditional UDRP and URS 
processes. But Who Entertainment (WHO.COM) and the classic Who rock 
group might prefer to have full due process in a UDRP or URS action -- 
and the opportunity to prove they are using their valid marks and domain 
names in good faith.

Please follow the work, now in its ending stages of the GNSO's IGO/INGO 
Working Group -- 
http://gnso.icann.org/en/group-activities/active/igo-ingo-crp-access


- New gTLDs subsequent round - this the Working Group that I am 
co-chairing with Phil Corwin and J.Scott Evans, and we are trying to 
figure out to what extent the special rights protection mechanisms 
created for New gTLDs (Trademark Clearinghouse, Uniform Rapid Suspension 
procedure, Trademark Notice and Sunrise Periods) are fair, balanced and 
should be extended to New gTLDs?  It's a real open question.  We have 
some evidence that millions of new registrants, smaller registrants, and 
registrants in developing countries are being turned back or "chilled" 
from legitimate and legal registrations in New gTLDs. Shouldn't we 
review what has happened with New Rights Protection Mechanisms in New 
gTLDs -- and how fair and balanced the rules have been -- before we 
advise extending them to "subsequent rounds"?

Please join us in the Rights Protection Mechanism Working Group for this 
discussion!

- Rights protection mechanism in all gTLDs -- ditto for the above. There 
is real question and concern that Rights Protection Mechanisms created 
for New gTLDs don't belong in the "legacy gTLDs" such as .COM, .ORG and 
.NET because they were created specifically for the special problem of 
the roll-out of hundreds of new gTLDs at the same time. What impact on 
free expression would there be to superimpose a system of rights 
protection mechanisms never intended for the older gTLDs to them so that 
the same protection exists in "all gTLDs"?  Dangers huge -- questions 
being explored also by the Rights Protection Mechanism WG - and we 
invite you to join us!

In light of the dangers, could these provisions be rephrased or removed?
Tx much for reading!
Kathy

On 6/7/2016 9:49 AM, Niels ten Oever wrote:
> Dear all,
>
> I have integrated your comments and suggestions as well as I could and I
> think we have a very nice info-graphic right now that we can present in
> Helsinki.
>
> So I would like to do a last call to see whether you all can live with this.
>
> Of course this will remain a working document, but it would be great if
> we can show this in Helsinki as work of the CCWP HR.
>
> Looking forward to hear your comments, questions and/or suggestions.
>
> Best,
>
> Niels
>
>
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