[gnso-rpm-wg] Inferences (was Re: Mp3, Attendance, AC recording & AC Chat Review of all Rights Protection Mechanisms (RPMs) PDP Working Group)

Mon Jul 17 16:06:40 UTC 2017

George K:

We can obviously go round and round on this, but to what end. The issue, to put it quite succinctly for you, is as follows. You and others want to get rid of sunrise and claims protections. In that endeavor you have argued that there is some sort of widespread abuse by brand owners of the TMCH for sunrise and claims purposes. That claim is simply not supported by the evidence and does justify wasting tons of people's time trying to pursue data etc. The only real evidence has been of limited abuse conducted by domain name speculators -- not brand owners. So instead of rehashing the same old arguments, you should spend time thinking of ways of fixing the bumps in the existing system to address gaming by speculators. Put another way, I do not agree with you about removing the sunrise and claims protections. I am, however, interested in working with you and others in finding reasonable solutions to improve the system and address the limited gaming by a handful of parties. Let's move on.

-----Original Message-----
From: gnso-rpm-wg-bounces at icann.org [mailto:gnso-rpm-wg-bounces at icann.org] On Behalf Of Jon Nevett
Sent: Monday, July 17, 2017 11:46 AM
To: George Kirikos
Cc: gnso-rpm-wg at icann.org
Subject: Re: [gnso-rpm-wg] Inferences (was Re: Mp3, Attendance, AC recording & AC Chat Review of all Rights Protection Mechanisms (RPMs) PDP Working Group)

Thanks George for taking the time to find some of the quotes. Let's move on. Jon

> On Jul 17, 2017, at 11:44 AM, George Kirikos <icann at leap.com> wrote:
>
> Hello,
>
> On Mon, Jul 17, 2017 at 10:41 AM, Greg Shatan <gregshatanipc at gmail.com> wrote:
>> 1. I don't believe there was anyone who denied there was any abuse
>> of the TMCH. Viewpoints are polarized enough in the WG; it makes
>> matters worse to portray them as even more polarized than they
>> actually are. This has the secondary problem of "enabling" others to build on these specious claims.
>> Not 3 minutes went by after your email, when George Kirikos leveled
>> the "fake news" allegation at Georges Nehitchevansky that he
>> "repeatedly denied that there was any abuse of the TMCH to begin
>> with." Georges has already stated in this thread that that was not
>> the case, but I guess that was not sufficient for some people.
>
> Folks seem to be interpreting "widespread" and "evidence" differently.
> When Georges says something like:
>
> http://mm.icann.org/pipermail/gnso-rpm-wg/2017-April/001506.html
>
> "Paul. I don't think you understand the point we are all making.
> There is no need for the type of review you are asking for. The
> alleged abuse simply is not there. So apart from being a waste of
> time, and apart from the confidentiality reasons previously raised,
> there is no need for this unless one is hell bent on conducting a
> witch hunt in the name of so-called transparency in order to try and
> prove what is essentially a negative."
>
> I read that as him being in denial of abuse at all existing,
> widespread or not. i.e. "the alleged abuse simply is not there".
>
> But, then there are variations, when he's used the terms "widespread
> abuse" or "widespread evidence of abuse", e.g. from:
>
> http://mm.icann.org/pipermail/gnso-rpm-wg/2017-April/001458.html
>
> "Actually it touches on the point here. If you are going to make
> various arguments of alleged abuse in support of claimed transparency,
> then it would it is relevant to know whether you are supporting a lack
> of transparency in the whois side of things where abuse has been
> rampant. While the TMCH and Whois are different animals a number of
> the arguments being made here to support transparency have actually
> been mirrored in the other context and rejected by those seeking
> opacity. And one major difference between ‎the two situations is that
> there is widespread evidence of abuse of the whois system whereas here
> in the TMCH context you do not have evidence of a widespread abuse of
> the TMCH by brand owners. Nevertheless, you and others persist on
> wanting to conduct a fishing expedition under the guise of so called
> "transparency" to try and find some alleged widespread harm that
> simply does not exist. To many folks on the other side of the aisle,
> it appears that this is not about transparency but more about some
> effort to gut existing protections and to obtain the release of
> confidential information of brand owners as to what they did or did
> not register. Perhaps this may not be the intent, but we all know
> that once that information is out the gaming will really begin.
> ‎Again, perhaps there are tweeks that could be made to improve the
> current system, but there is no real basis for undertaking the broad
> review that is being sought and certainly not for undoing the entire
> existing system."
>
> or more recently:
>
> http://mm.icann.org/pipermail/gnso-rpm-wg/2017-July/002187.html
>
> "I think the basis problem has been and remains that the basis for all
> this hunting around and data requests is an unfounded claim that there
> is an abundance of “abusive and overreaching tmch registrations.” The
> evidence of such alleged widespread abuse has not been presented,
> because it doesn’t exist. What all this sound and fury about data
> etc. reminds me of is Donald Trump claiming with basically no evidence
> that there was widespread voter fraud to explain why he do not get the
> majority of the popular vote in the US and then setting up a special
> commission to investigate the matter in the hope of cobbling together
> some sort of proof. In the end it’s a waste of everybody’s time and
> money."
>
> (quoted in full, to not be accused of misquoting). Here's the thing,
> though. When you say something like "the evidence of such alleged
> widespread abuse has not been presented, because it doesn't exist",
> that doesn't make any distinction between EVIDENCE and PROOF. Perhaps
> Georges N. intended to write "proof" instead of "evidence". How do you
> prove "widespread abuse"? You start by presenting any "evidence of
> abuse". It's only once you have a LOT of evidence of abuse that you
> can then say that you have proof that there was "widespread abuse."
> Georges N. might disagree that the total amount of evidence has yet
> proven "widespread abuse", but when you start saying "evidence hasn't
> been presented", that denies the evidence itself of any abuse.
>
> We already know that the percentage of gamed/abused sunrise
> registrations exceeds the proportion of domains that lead to a UDRP.
> i.e. is the term "widespread" (in percentage terms) somehow applied
> numerically differently when saying "the cybersquatting problem is
> widespread", than when saying "there are widespread abuses of the
> sunrise periods"?
>
> Sincerely,
>
> George Kirikos
> 416-588-0269
> http://www.leap.com/
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> gnso-rpm-wg at icann.org
> https://mm.icann.org/mailman/listinfo/gnso-rpm-wg

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