[Gnso-newgtld-wg-wt3] Actions/Discussion Notes: Work Track 3 Sub Team Meeting 18 July

Tue Jul 18 21:13:49 UTC 2017

Dear Work Track members,

Please find below the action items and discussion notes from the call on 18 July.  These high-level notes are designed to help Work Track members navigate through the content of the call and are not a substitute for the chat transcript or the recording. The meeting recording and chat transcript are available at: https://community.icann.org/x/DBLfAw[community.icann.org].

The document referenced on the call is attached and excerpts from the chat room are included below.

Kind regards,

Emily

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Action Items and Discussion Notes: 18 July 2017

1. Full WG Update -- Update from ICANN59, Geonames, and Next Steps for the Plenary:

-- The WG will meet on 24 July at 1500 UTC.  WT1 and WT2 also meeting next week.

-- Each WT is going through the CC2 comments to see if they change or support the current line of thinking.   Going through a second reading of all of the topics.  

-- Goal will be for the WT Chairs and leadership to see if we can draw up preliminary recommendations for the full WG to come to a preliminary report towards the end of this year or early next.

-- Geonames: Will start a WT 5 on geographic names at the top level.  Invites will go out to the SOs and ACs to appoint one person to serve as a co-leaders of the WT.  The PDP rules allow great flexibility in how sub teams are set up for each PDP WG.  We hope by ensuring leadership can come from these SOs and ACs there will be more incentive for them to participate.  Goal is to start up WT5 by the beginning of September.

2. CC2 Response Reviews:

Note that the full versions of comments are at: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1A5uaxBAgmg7QsFuqMdVvt1HxNZ4jKXnm3Hp0gZra7U0/edit#gid=845153891 

3.1.1 Do you think the policy recommendations (recs 2, 3, 6, and 20) require any modifications?  if so, what would you suggest?

-- Received 6 separate responses: INTA, Nominet, RySG, BRG, Afilias, and ALAC

-- INTA, Nominet, RySG, BRG and Afilias believe that the existing recommendations do not need to be revised.

[Reading excerpts.]

-- RySG, BRG, and Afilias suggest a minor change to Recommendation 20 -- to clarify what constitutes "a significant portion of the community."

-- ALAC suggests a change to Recommendation 2.

Discussion:

-- Some of them are saying that the recommendation remains the same but the implementation could change.

-- Re: question about Recommendation 2 including singular and plurals -- asked the question because it is not clear.  It has to be explained explicitly some place so people are aware of what they can and cannot apply for.

-- Question for the group: Should the policy for Recommendation 2 be changed, or only the implementation?  Or keep the policy the same but in the guidance notes section we say that the WG believes, for example, plurals and singulars should be included (or whatever we want to say).  Or, do we write the rules on plurals and singulars into the policy?

-- When it comes to policy we are telling staff/Board that you must implement this in this way.  When we give implementation guidance we are recommending it -- how it should be implemented -- but it is not as strong as being part of the policy.  It seems that this is of such importance it may need to be in the policy.

-- What we don't want to do is put in singular and plural so strongly that it suggests that this is the only way to be confusing.

-- We need to make a strong recommendation as policy.  It was such a huge gaping hole in the policy.

-- Think about the mechanisms in which we use confusion: 1) confusingly similar done on the front end; 2) the recommendation is also implemented in the objection process -- legal rights objection on the basis that the string is confusingly similar.  There are two different times, at least, that we look at confusion.

-- For the string similarity review up front -- if singular or plural of an existing TLD it won't go forward (small group of registries proposal).  Need to decide if the analysis up front governs the objection process.

-- Optimally we would deal with this up front and one time only.

Action: Paul McGrady volunteered to work on some language.  Need to tap into the definition of confusion to make it clear when confusion analysis is undertaken what it is that we are looking at.

>From the Chat:

Jim Prendergast: Does Recommendation 2 include singular and plurals?  

Jeff Neuman: @JIm - agree and that was discussed previously by this group when we looked at the small RySG group recommendations 

Jon Nevett: If we have a clear recommendation, let's make it clear in the policy

Jon Nevett: ok to add it to guidance if we don't want to change the policy

Jim Prendergast: thats a very important distinction Jeff

Susan Payne: need to be clear. if we are talking about singular/plural it needs to be policy 

Jamie Baxter | dotgay: agree it needs to be clear

Jeff Neuman: @Alan - Just to clarify, the GNSO policy did not just think about visual similarity.  That was much more of an ICANN-staff interpretation later on

Jeff Neuman: but agree that being clear here is important and agree with Paul that singular/plural is not the only kind of confusion

 Cheryl Langdon-Orr (CLO): Policy needs to be clear and unambiguous 

Jim Prendergast: yes

Gg Levine (NABP): I agree that the policy should be clear.

Jim Prendergast: clear and unambiguous as CLO says

Anne Aikman-Scalese (IPC): I agree with Alan as to developing policy on singular and plural.  However it also has to be qualified in relation to closed generics, if awarded.

Jeff Neuman: WE would also incorporate the previous discussions on this

Alan Greenberg 2: Jeff, My recollection is that we discussed all sorts of confusions during the PDP, but that it was only visual that we included as something to review during the application process. Other types of confusion could be raised in objections.

Trang Nguyen: String similarity review vs. string confusion objection.

Paul McGrady: @Jeff, correct.

Anne Aikman-Scalese (IPC): For example, if a closed generic is awarded for .poppy, I would feel more favorably disposed of .poppies - but we also have to be aware that the meaning and purpose of the particular word may not be the generic.  So, for example, if there is a registered trademark for .poppy that is for children's clothing as a brand, that probably should not prevent .poppies for  sale of the flowers.

Paul McGrady: @Jeff, two different times to look at confusion, but only one policy governing both.

Jon Nevett: early on for sure

Jim Prendergast: yeah - why create a situation where applicants spend time and resoruces applying, only to be denied once ICANN has the application fee?

Trang Nguyen: @Alan, are you talking about an appeals mechanism for the string similarity review and not using string confusion objection if the applicant disagrees with the string similarity panel's determination?

Jon Nevett: But we should not foreclose the opportunity for an objection

Alan Greenberg: @Trang, yes. Correct.

Jeff Neuman: @Paul - if there are other types of "String similarity" other than singular/plurals that should be handled up front, you should propose that

3.1.2: Do you believe that those recommendations (which led to the establishment of the String Confusion, Legal Rights, Limited Public Interest, and Community Objections grounds) were implemented effectively and in the the spirit of the original policy recommendations?

-- Jannik Skou, BC, RySG, BRG, and Afilias suggested that String Confusion needs to be improved.

[Reading sample excerpts.]

-- Jannik Skou and the ALAC suggested that Legal Rights Objections need to be improved.

-- The RySG, BRG, and Afilias suggested that Community Objections need to be improved.

-- The BC suggested developing a process to appeal decisions.

-- The RySG, BRG, and Afilias suggested specific procedural improvements to the objections processes.

Discussion:

-- From the ALAC, string confusion is probably the single largest issue of gTLDs.  Specific cases (hotel/hotels) if a user doesn't remember what he used last time then it is confusing.

-- Legal rights objection takes place at the application stage not use stage -- note strawman from Paul McGrady.

-- Seems that we are talking about two different things.  Seems like someone is talking about adding a remediation step -- don't know how that could work practically with the panel.

-- Should remediation be part of the objection process or separate?

-- The opportunity for mediation leading to possible remediation should be an option for a precursor to arbitration.

>From the chat:

Paul McGrady: Is this a policy issue or an implementation issue?

Paul McGrady: It feels like it should be in the implementation Guidance instead of policy.  Flat fee is a good idea but it seems granular.

Jamie Baxter | dotgay: as long as implementation guidance provides assurance to applicants

Paul McGrady: @Jamie, it will if it makes it into the Guidebook

Jamie Baxter | dotgay: my concern is that the guidebook in the last round provided markers that were not adhered to, so that is not really assurance

Jon Nevett: ICANN could do the remediation

Paul McGrady: +1 CLO

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://mm.icann.org/pipermail/gnso-newgtld-wg-wt3/attachments/20170718/1066bf54/attachment-0001.html>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: 3.1 Objections_Themes v2.pdf
Type: application/pdf
Size: 179139 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://mm.icann.org/pipermail/gnso-newgtld-wg-wt3/attachments/20170718/1066bf54/3.1Objections_Themesv2-0001.pdf>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: smime.p7s
Type: application/pkcs7-signature
Size: 4630 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://mm.icann.org/pipermail/gnso-newgtld-wg-wt3/attachments/20170718/1066bf54/smime-0001.p7s>