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The Electronic Frontier Foundation
and the Domain Name Rights Coalition submit the following comments
on the
renewal of the .org Registry Agreement between ICANN and Public
Interest
Registry (PIR). As organizations that promote freedom of expression,
oppose
censorship, and pursue sound governance of the Internet, we have
serious
concerns about many of the proposed changes to the Agreement,
particularly 1)
the imposition of “Rights Protection Mechanisms” on the .org
top-level domain;
2) permitting Public Interest Registry to develop new and open-ended
“Rights
Protection Mechanisms;” and 3) applying the improperly created
“Public Interest
Commitments” to the .org TLD in a manner that will permit PIR to
regulate and
censor Internet content.
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in"> </p>
<p class="MsoListParagraph"
style="margin-left:.75in;mso-add-space:auto;
text-indent:-.25in;mso-list:l0 level1 lfo1"><b
style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal"><span
style="mso-bidi-font-family:Calibri;
mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-latin"><span style="mso-list:Ignore">1.<span
style="font:7.0pt "Times New Roman""> </span></span></span></b><b
style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal">Trademark Claims and URS Are
Unnecessary
and Harmful in the .org TLD</b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in">The Trademark Claims
Notices and
Uniform Rapid Suspension (URS) were developed by the ICANN
community
specifically for the new generic top-level domains. They were
developed to
address the concerns of some trademark holders that the creation
of many new
gTLDs would lead to a wave of cybersquatting on domain names that
could not be
addressed by the existing Uniform Dispute Resolution Process
(UDRP). That wave
has largely failed to materialize, and the efficacy of Trademark
Claims and URS
is currently under review by the ICANN community. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in">Procedurally, it is
inappropriate
for the ICANN organization to impose these mechanisms on .org, a
legacy TLD
that dates from the earliest days of the domain name system. Such
a move must
come, if at all, from the ICANN community after an evidence-based
discussion.
ICANN staff have presented no evidence of any need for Trademark
Claims and URS
in the .org TLD. In fact, the only rationale stated in the
proposal is “to
better conform with the base registry agreement.” <a
href="https://www.icann.org/public-comments/org-renewal-2019-03-18-en">https://www.icann.org/public-comments/org-renewal-2019-03-18-en</a>.
This is not a sufficient or even rational justification, given the
significant
differences between the .org TLD and the new gTLDs. The .org TLD,
by
long-established norm, is home to millions of nonprofit
organizations of all
kinds. The new gTLDs are less used, and are primarily marketed to
commercial
users. ICANN’s principles of multistakeholder evidence-based
policymaking
require that a change this significant come, if at all, from the
community, not
from bilateral discussion between ICANN staff and Public Interest
Registry.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in">Substantively,
Trademark Claims and
URS are inappropriate for the .org TLD. The Working Group for
Review of all
Rights Protection Mechanisms has uncovered substantial evidence
that Trademark Claims
Notices received by people who seek to register a domain name tend
to deter
registrations that would not infringe a trademark or otherwise
invade the
legitimate rights of a trademark holder. Claims Notices, which
warn of the
possibility of infringement, can be misleading for non-commercial
users,
because non-commercial use of a word or phrase is not trademark
infringement as
a matter of law. Because the .org TLD is used primarily by
nonprofit
organizations engaged in a variety of charitable, educational,
religious,
scientific, and public interest activities, their uses of a domain
name are far
more likely to be noncommercial, and thus outside any exclusive
right of a
trademark holder. Warning noncommercial users to avoid registering
a domain
name because of the possibility of trademark infringement is
similar to warning
residents of tropical climates to wear heavy coats because of the
possibility
of snowstorms. Both warnings, applied in the wrong context, would
cause more
harm than they prevent.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal"> </b></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst"
style="margin-left:.75in;mso-add-space:auto;
text-indent:-.25in;mso-list:l0 level1 lfo1"><b
style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal"><span
style="mso-bidi-font-family:Calibri;
mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-latin"><span style="mso-list:Ignore">2.<span
style="font:7.0pt "Times New Roman""> </span></span></span></b><b
style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal">Any New RPMs for .org Must
Be Developed by
the ICANN Community, Not Imposed Unilaterally By Public Interest
Registry</b></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast"><b
style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal"> </b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in">The proposed new
Registry Agreement
would also allow Public Interest Registry “to develop additional
rights
protection mechanisms” unilaterally. Experience in the new gTLDs
has shown this
to be a dangerous proposition. So-called rights protection
mechanisms are, at
best, compromises between trademark holders’ interest in
enforcement and the
broader public’s right to register and use domain names as a vital
avenue of
free expression. As such, they implicate public and private rights
that may not
line up with a single registry operator’s priorities. Some new
gTLD registry
operators have used the unilateral ability to create new rights
protection mechanisms
to institute mechanisms that were considered and rejected by the
ICANN
community as insufficiently protective of free speech rights. For
example,
registry operator Donuts enforces “Domain Protected Marks List”
and “DPML Plus”
policies that allow trademark holders to withdraw a name from use
by others
across hundreds of gTLDs, thus interfering with millions of
potential
non-infringing uses of those names by others. ICANN should not
permit Public
Interest Registry to impose its judgment about the proper balance
of public and
private rights in domain names upon millions of non-profit
organizations by
fiat, bypassing community input.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in"> </p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst"
style="margin-left:.75in;mso-add-space:auto;
text-indent:-.25in;mso-list:l0 level1 lfo1"><b
style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal"><span
style="mso-bidi-font-family:Calibri;
mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-latin"><span style="mso-list:Ignore">3.<span
style="font:7.0pt "Times New Roman""> </span></span></span></b><b
style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal">The Public Interest
Commitments Impermissibly
Invite Regulation of Internet Speech and Content</b></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle"
style="margin-left:.75in;mso-add-space:
auto"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal"> </b></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast"
style="margin-left:0in;mso-add-space:auto;
text-indent:.5in">The so-called “Public Interest Commitments” are
a set of
requirements that were added to Registry Agreements for the new
top-level
domains. They were created and imposed by ICANN staff without
community input.
They purport to impose a general obligation on registries and
registrars to
regulate the contents of websites and Internet applications to
prevent
“copyright infringement,” “deceptive practices,”<span
style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>or other “activity contrary
to applicable
law,” and to “provid[e] consequences for such activities including
suspension
of the domain name.” These provisions, in effect, repurpose the
domain name
system from a global system of unique identifiers for information
resources to
a global regulator of speech in which Internet users around the
world must
conform to a vague, inconsistent set of national laws, interpreted
and enforced
by numerous private corporations, or risk losing their domain
names. And they
run directly counter to ICANN’s mission statement, which states
that “ICANN
shall not regulate (i.e., impose rules and restrictions on)
services that use
the Internet's unique identifiers or the content that such
services carry or
provide.” <a
href="https://www.icann.org/resources/pages/governance/bylaws-en/#article1">https://www.icann.org/resources/pages/governance/bylaws-en/#article1</a>.
<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>The mandatory and voluntary
“Public
Interest Commitments” are already being used to justify
registry-imposed
censorship of Internet content in the new gTLDs. They are utterly
inappropriate
for the legacy TLDs, especially .org, and the special
circumstances of millions
of domain names registered to organizations dedicated to free
expression and
engaged in lawful critique, including critique of companies and
their products,
services and practices.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal"> </b></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraph"
style="margin-left:.75in;mso-add-space:auto;
text-indent:-.25in;mso-list:l0 level1 lfo1"><b
style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal"><span
style="mso-bidi-font-family:Calibri;
mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-latin"><span style="mso-list:Ignore">4.<span
style="font:7.0pt "Times New Roman""> </span></span></span></b><b
style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal">Deletions to .Org Renewal
Agreements</b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in">Accordingly, and in
direct support of
the issues and concerns expressed above, EFF and DNRC call for the
deletion of
the following provisions of the .org renewal agreement.<span
style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>We note that none of the
contractual terms
listed below were ever discussed or intended to be applied to
legacy TLDs when
reviewed and negotiated in 2009 and 2010.<span
style="mso-spacerun:yes">
</span>Inclusion of these contractual terms, without GNSO
discussion, review
and agreement of their application to legacy TLDs in general and
.org in particular
would be disastrous to noncommercial speech online and to the
multistakeholder
process.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal"
style="margin-left:.5in;mso-prop-change:"Kathryn
Kleiman" 20190429T1745"><b
style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal"><u>Deletions necessary to
address the concerns
raised above: </u></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal">Section
2.8</b>: Protection
of Legal Rights of Third Parties </p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal">Section
2.17</b>: Additional
Public Interest Commitments</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal">Specification
7: </b>Minimum
Requirements for Rights Protection Mechanisms</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal">Specification
11</b>:
Public Interest Commitments </p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal">Any
other </b>oral or
written agreements between ICANN and Public Interest Registry that
allow rights
protection mechanisms outside of those explicitly approved by the
GNSO Council and
ICANN Board for legacy TLDs, such as UDRP</p>
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