[Gnso-newgtld-wg-wt5] Preparation for WT5 Meeting 14 August and Final Topic Discussion - non-AGB terms

Jorge.Cancio at bakom.admin.ch Jorge.Cancio at bakom.admin.ch
Mon Aug 19 17:34:16 UTC 2019


Dear Nick

What are normally the sanctions for not complying with a requirement under the AGB? I think that normally you are given some extra-time to comply...

As to the scottish example: better having the authorities early on notice, when you as applicant have not spent too much, than have them later on if they learn about it on the last minute or even after the delegation... if they are furious for whatever reason it is easier to calm them down if they are involved from the start... but obviously a contact provision won‘t solve all problems, but hopefully a good part of them...

hope this helps...

Jorge


________________________________

Von: Nick Wenban-Smith <Nick.Wenban-Smith at nominet.uk>
Datum: 19. August 2019 um 18:29:37 MESZ
An: Cancio Jorge BAKOM <Jorge.Cancio at bakom.admin.ch>, susan.payne at valideus.com <susan.payne at valideus.com>, gnso-newgtld-wg-wt5 at icann.org <gnso-newgtld-wg-wt5 at icann.org>
Betreff: RE: [Gnso-newgtld-wg-wt5] Preparation for WT5 Meeting 14 August and Final Topic Discussion - non-AGB terms

Thanks Jorge,

I am quite sympathetic to some of the applicants who experienced problems post application even where they had (apparently) notified the relevant countries or authorities of their intentions in advance, and in principle can see that a dialogue to explore concerns could be beneficial.

Just exploring this idea further, what should the sanction be if the notification/ contact obligation is not followed by the applicant?

For confidentiality reasons and basic common sense I can see that applicants won’t want to advertise their applications before the close date (to avoid possible additional applications and contention). So this ties into the question about PICs and whether applications could by consent be varied (to include even possibly the string applied for).

But ultimately what would happen where you’ve got someone applying for a term (let’s say .bennevis the highest mountain in the UK but which also used as the name of multiple guest houses, whiskey distilleries etc and is subject to multiple trade mark registrations), they go through the notification process, the national authorities in Scotland are furious but have no remedy and cannot do anything about the application?

Best wishes
Nick

From: Gnso-newgtld-wg-wt5 <gnso-newgtld-wg-wt5-bounces at icann.org> On Behalf Of Jorge.Cancio at bakom.admin.ch
Sent: 19 August 2019 07:43
To: susan.payne at valideus.com; gnso-newgtld-wg-wt5 at icann.org
Subject: Re: [Gnso-newgtld-wg-wt5] Preparation for WT5 Meeting 14 August and Final Topic Discussion - non-AGB terms

Dear all

Pursuant to last week’s call and especially the questions posed by Jeff and others during our discussions, let me make the following additional amendments in red to my proposal on on-AGB terms:
==

  *   Terms beyond the 2012 AGB rules with geographic meaning shall be subject to a contact obligation with the relevant public authorities, in order to put them on notice.



  *   For the application of the abovementioned rule only the following terms will be considered as being “terms with geographic meaning”:
     *   Adjectival forms of country names (country names to be identified from the ISO 3166-1 list);
     *   and/or other terms with geographic meaning, as notified by GAC Members states or other UN Member states to the ICANN Organization within a deadline of 12 months following the adoption of this proposal. In such notifications the interested countries must provide the source in national law or public policy for considering the relevant term as especially protected. Interested countries would provide relevant contact details with said notification;


  *   Applicants for such a term will then be under an obligation to contact the relevant country. That contact notification must happen, at the latest, in the period between applications closing and reveal day, but an applicant may choose to notify earlier than this. There is no further obligation whatsoever arising from this provision and it may not be construed as requiring a letter of non-objection from the relevant public authority.
==

As explained during the call, the gist of this provision is focused on allowing for an early contact between applicants and interested countries. This, by itself, would probably avoid many conflictual situations, as applicants will be early aware of the interests of the relevant country, while countries will be notified well in advance of the plans of the applicant…

Hope that the changes above will help us to safely land this improvement to the 2012 AGB…

Best

Jorge

Von: Cancio Jorge BAKOM
Gesendet: Mittwoch, 14. August 2019 14:03
An: 'Susan Payne' <susan.payne at valideus.com<mailto:susan.payne at valideus.com>>; Icann Gnso Newgtld Wg Wt5 <gnso-newgtld-wg-wt5 at icann.org<mailto:gnso-newgtld-wg-wt5 at icann.org>>
Betreff: AW: [Gnso-newgtld-wg-wt5] Preparation for WT5 Meeting 14 August and Final Topic Discussion

Dear Susan, dear all

Thanks for the constructive spirit in making your proposal, which certainly would mean a step ahead in providing for a more stable and predictable framework for all interested parties.

However, adjective forms of country names are but a very small subset of terms with a geographic meaning beyond the AGB terms…

At the same time, I understand the wish to have a closed list of terms, on which applicants could rely on before each round is opened.

In this sense, please consider the following compromise proposal, based on my initial and your wording:

  *   Terms beyond the 2012 AGB rules with geographic meaning shall be subject to a contact obligation with the relevant public authorities, in order to put them on notice.
  *   For the application of the abovementioned rule only the following terms will be considered as being “terms with geographic meaning”:
     *   Adjectival forms of country names (country names to be identified from the ISO 3166-1 list) and/or other terms with geographic meaning, as notified by GAC Members states or other UN Member states to the ICANN Organization within a deadline of 12 months following the adoption of this proposal;
     *   Interested countries would provide relevant contact details with said notification;
  *   Applicants for such a term will then be under an obligation to contact the relevant country. That contact notification must happen, at the latest, in the period between applications closing and reveal day, but an applicant may choose to notify earlier than this.

I hope that we may agree on this contact requirement, which IMHO would help avoiding repeating long-standing conflicts in non-AGB applications with geographic meaning.

Kindly

Jorge


Von: Gnso-newgtld-wg-wt5 <gnso-newgtld-wg-wt5-bounces at icann.org<mailto:gnso-newgtld-wg-wt5-bounces at icann.org>> Im Auftrag von Susan Payne
Gesendet: Mittwoch, 14. August 2019 12:29
An: Icann Gnso Newgtld Wg Wt5 <gnso-newgtld-wg-wt5 at icann.org<mailto:gnso-newgtld-wg-wt5 at icann.org>>
Betreff: Re: [Gnso-newgtld-wg-wt5] Preparation for WT5 Meeting 14 August and Final Topic Discussion

Dear Work Track 5 members

Thank you to Olga for the clarification on next steps and circulating the various proposals.  This email is in response to proposal 2, which was proposed by Jorge Cancio.  I am proposing this variation to your proposal as an adviser to an number of new gTLD operators and potential future round applicants, .Brands and non-brands, and I have also taken the opportunity to discuss this with a few other WT5 participants.

Jorge, I do recognise  your concerns and desire to set up a process which would give relevant governments/public authorities advance notice that an application is being filed which may match a term that has a geographic meaning in the particular country.  However, I cannot support your proposal in full.  The AGB2012 tried to give certainty to all by setting out identifiable lists.  Imposing a requirement for research outside of such clear lists is not something that can be objectively measured or complied-with.  Whether an applicant has done the appropriate level of research is too subjective and open for interpretation. An applicant may consider that they have done so, but another person’s interpretation may differ, and what would be the impact on an application in that scenario?  It does not seem to me that this delivers the certainty we all want to achieve.

Your proposal would also create a new Geographic Names Panel which would have a much larger remit than the one currently in the AGB2012. The role of the Geo Names Panel under the AGB2012 was to check whether any of the applications were “geographic” as that term was used in the Guidebook.  In other words, was a term on the relevant lists, if so, was it a term which was prohibited or one which required support/non-objection and, if the latter, was the relevant documentation in order? This was an objective test.   Appointing a panel to determine whether an applicant has done the requisite amount of diligence in determining whether its application has any geographic meaning would require that panel to make subjective determinations on matters where reasonable minds could easily differ.   This increases uncertainty and could also dramatically increase the costs of the program.

Nevertheless, in the interests of exploring a possible compromise which would, I think, address the concerns that you and some other governments have about descriptors for your country and citizenry, but without introducing open-ended and uncertain obligations, I would like to propose the following variation on your proposal:


  *   That this should apply to adjectival forms of country names (country names to be identified from the ISO 3166-1 list); This would capture terms like .swiss, .american, .british, etc.
  *   Since this relates only to these terms, which have a close association with the country name, there is no intended use requirement;
  *   Countries who desire to be notified of applications which match such terms should identify that this is the case before the application window opens so that applicants have certainty.  The practical and fair way to do this would be for countries who have this requirement to confirm this and provide relevant contact details before the AGB is finalised so that these details can be included in, or linked-from, the AGB;
  *   Applicants for such a term will then be under an obligation to notify.  That notification must happen, at the latest, in the period between applications closing and reveal day, but an applicant may choose to notify earlier than this.


I hope that this might serve as a compromise which the work track members as a whole might be able to support.



Susan Payne
Head of Legal Policy
Valideus
D: +44 (0) 20 7421 8255
E: susan.payne at valideus.com <mailto:susan.payne at valideus.com>


From: Gnso-newgtld-wg-wt5 <gnso-newgtld-wg-wt5-bounces at icann.org<mailto:gnso-newgtld-wg-wt5-bounces at icann.org>> On Behalf Of Olga Cavalli
Sent: 12 August 2019 20:33
To: Icann Gnso Newgtld Wg Wt5 <gnso-newgtld-wg-wt5 at icann.org<mailto:gnso-newgtld-wg-wt5 at icann.org>>
Subject: [Gnso-newgtld-wg-wt5] Preparation for WT5 Meeting 14 August and Final Topic Discussion

Dear Work Track 5 members,

I trust this email finds you well.

Thank you to everyone who participated in this week’s call and contributed on the mailing list to recent discussions. As documented in the meeting notes, there are several items that require your attention between now and our next call on Wednesday 14 August at 14:00 UTC. Please see the slides from Wednesday’s call (attached) for background on these issues.

By including these items in the email we are not implying that these proposals have support from the leadership team, but rather that we are attempting to assess whether any of these proposals are likely to receive consensus support as is or with some level of modification.

Please provide your views on the proposals below by tomorrow Tuesday, 13 August to help the co-leaders assess whether any might be able to receive consensus support. Please include a rationale with your response.
-
1. Translations/Languages: At this stage, there does not seem to be agreement to change the “in any language” standard for protection/restriction of Country and Territory Names and Capital City Names. If there is no agreement on a specific change, the status quo from the 2012 New gTLD Round will remain.  If you think the Work Track co-leaders have missed something and there is, indeed, a path forward that can achieve consensus, this is your final opportunity to raise it.  However, if there is agreement by the WG to change the “in any language” standard then the following two proposals will be considered.

A WT member had previously put forward a proposal on transposition of Capital City Names that was proposed as an addition to the “official and UN languages” proposal (see attached slides).  For Capital City Names, require support/non-objection letter for the transposition of accented and diacritic characters in Latin-based scripts to their equivalent ASCII root.  This would protect for example sao-tome as a DNS-Label of São Tomé alongside the IDN version of the name (xn—so-tom-3ta7c).  Additional example provided in the proposal: denhaag/den-haag would require letter of support/non-objection.

An addition, a WT member has proposed the following: In AGB 2.2.1.4.1 Treatment of Country or Territory Names, replace “in any language” with:
a. The official language of the country or territory; and
b. The de facto official language of the country or territory; and
c.  The UN languages; and
d.  The translations set out in a, b or c with the substitution of diacritical characters for ASCII characters, special characters, or spaces (eg. Austria as Österreich, or Osterreich).
For the purposes of the Applicant Guidebook, a de facto official language of a country or territory is a language that is used for official translations of the country or territory’s national laws.

For 2.2.1.4.2 part 1 on capital city names, rephrase to the following language:
An application for any string that is a representation of the capital city of any country or territory listed in the ISO 3166-1 standard in
a. The official language of the country or territory of the capital city; or
b. The de facto official language of the country or territory of the capital city; or
c.  The UN languages; or
d.  Either a, b or c with the substitution of diacritical characters for ASCII characters, special characters, or spaces (eg Den Haag as denhaag or den-haag, São Tomé as sao-tome, saotome, sãotomé, são-tomé)
 Rationale:
There appears to be general agreement in the work track that the current text referring to “all languages” is unmanageable and does not provide certainty for potential applicants. The concerns flagged around previous proposals to narrowing the scope relate to uncertainty and a lack of predictability. Further, on the 17 July call the position appeared to me to be that UN languages were not necessarily relevant and excluded other relevant languages to communities. However, I appreciate that some people feel strongly about this and have included them in the proposal. To ensure that relevant languages are relied upon and acknowledging not all countries and territories have a clearly defined official language, I suggest we include de facto official languages with a clear and defined scope. Official translations of national laws are a public and verifiable source that is readily available and reflects the language(s) the people of the country or territory speak ie the language(s) are relevant.

2. Additional Categories of Terms Not Included in the 2012 AGB: Last week, there was a final call for proposals that members believe could achieve consensus support on this topic. One proposal was put forward: “Terms beyond the 2012 AGB rules with geographic meaning (e.g. adjective forms of countries, such as “Swiss”) which may be identified as such with a modicum of diligence by the prospective applicant and/or after consulting, under confidentiality terms, the Advisory Geonames Panel, shall be subject to a contact obligation with the relevant public authorities, in order to put them on notice.”

Other WT5 members suggest that this would only apply if the gTLD or string was being used in connection with the geographic meaning.

3. String Contention Resolution – Geographic Names: Last week one proposal was put forward that required additional time for WT5 members to review:
Update Applicant Guidebook, Chapter 2.2.1.4.4 with: If an application for a string representing a geographic name is in a contention set with applications for identical strings that have not been identified as geographical names, the string contention will be resolved using the string contention procedures described in Module 4.

Update Applicant Guidebook, Module 4. with:
A// In case there is contention for a string where one application intends to use the string as a non-capital city name or designated the TLD to targeting it to a geographic meaning, preference should be given to the applicant who will use the TLD for geographic purposes if the applicant for the geoTLD is based in a country where national law gives precedent to city and/or regional names.
RATIONALE: This would reflect national law e.g. in countries like Switzerland and Germany, where e.g. city names have more rights that holders of the same name.
B// If there is more than one applicant for an identical string representing a geographic name, and the applications have requisite government approvals, the applicant with the larger no of inhabitants will prevail over the smaller one. As the criteria “size” has been used in the CPE criteria, it is apparently a well-accepted criteria.
RATIONALE: This would reflect the current rule of the Applicant Guidebook capital city has priority over smaller city.

4. Member Proposals from the Initial Report on Scope of Protections (Proposals 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, and 37): Over the last couple of months, we have been referencing this document[docs.google.com]<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__docs.google.com_document_d_1rsyxCEBd6ax3Rb-5Fw1kms-5FE9n29XL1-5Flw3Yp9XQ4TeCY_edit-3Fts-3D5ce64d6d-23heading-3Dh.j7jy935ryg4k&d=DwMFaQ&c=FmY1u3PJp6wrcrwll3mSVzgfkbPSS6sJms7xcl4I5cM&r=adDIs0WEx_lLwFfrsdovxTYY8GkRHo5ibc8SR3Npdh8&m=ibk5NLRIVEyM8BmUAuiyFZFoV87dA6GCJADyQmNq0Zk&s=kqYJykVu4sGjVFR2cFjplDm81zbVZ0GnnkdEfx3RMbc&e=>, which summarizes comments on the WT5 supplemental Initial Report (full text of comments here [docs.google.com]<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__docs.google.com_spreadsheets_d_1WKSC-5FpPBviCnbHxW171ZIp4CzuhQXRCV1NR2ruagrxs_edit-3Fusp-3Dsharing&d=DwMFaQ&c=FmY1u3PJp6wrcrwll3mSVzgfkbPSS6sJms7xcl4I5cM&r=adDIs0WEx_lLwFfrsdovxTYY8GkRHo5ibc8SR3Npdh8&m=ibk5NLRIVEyM8BmUAuiyFZFoV87dA6GCJADyQmNq0Zk&s=Bsx0wWBZYVTvb6bMWJTTbgnuVlPV4GRSN_CBc22YpTM&e=>). Beginning at the bottom of page 32 of the summary document, you will find a summary of comments on some of the proposals included in the report. Elements of these proposals have been discussed in the context of revisiting the draft recommendations as well as broader discussions in the Work Track. Public comments reflect that there is a mix of perspectives in the community on the different proposals – some in favor and some opposed to each, similar to what the co-leaders have observed in WT discussions. At this stage, the co-leaders do not anticipate that re-reviewing the proposals will lead to agreement in the Work Track on specific changes to the draft recommendations.

5. Non-Capital City Names: A WT member has proposed amending the text in AGB 2.2.1.4.2 part 2 on non-capital city names by adding the blue text: “It is clear from applicant statements within the application that the applicant will use the TLD primarily for purposes associated with the city name. For the avoidance of doubt, where the applicant states in their application that they intend to use the TLD as a .Brand (intend to have Specification 13 in their Registry Agreement) it will be taken that the TLD will not be used primarily for purposes associated with the city name.”
 Rationale:
The current AGB text states that “city names present challenges because city names may also be generic terms or brand names, and in many cases city names are not unique”. This language does not aim to change the position from the AGB 2012, but merely aims to provide greater clarity and certainty for potential applicants. At the same time, it ensures that the relevant authorities are consulted when an applicant intends to use a TLD for purposes associated with a city. If a government or local authority is concerned with an application, they are not precluded from filing an objection (as they could in 2012) or filing their own application. The current rules on resolving contention sets in AGB 2.2.1.4.4 or module 4 will not be impacted by the text.

Please remember to provide your views on these below by tomorrow Tuesday, 13 August, including a rationale with your response.

Kind regards,
Olga

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