[Gnso-igo-ingo-crp] FW: [council] Board reply letter on IGO/RC issues and proposal on IGO acronyms protection from the IGO "small group"

Fri Oct 7 12:43:54 UTC 2016

Personally, I don't see much merit to their proposals. They provide
little justification, beyond a "wish list", unlike our own work which
has been in-depth and has gone on for 2 years. Instead of
participating in the actual PDP, it seems they seek to undermine our
hard work by putting forth a parallel report outside of the
established process. They try to use the language of a PDP (i.e. that
they've reached a "consensus") to try to establish some legitimacy,
despite it being a closed opaque process from an unrepresentative
minority of the ICANN community (i.e. just representing the views of
some IGOs, some GAC members and some ICANN Board members). All of our
discussions were held in public, in contrast, and they were invited
numerous times to participate.

Paul Tattersfield mentioned the existing URS in a comment -- court
appeals are possible under the URS (the IGOs don't want that in their
proposed process, though).

Shockingly, the proposal doesn't even restrict the acronyms (2 per
IGO) to those that exist in the Article 6ter database! ie. it
completely ignored our hard work on this topic.

In their "background", on page 2, their justification for special
rules is that "IGOs perform important global missions with public
funds". This type of reasoning is a slippery slope, and could apply
equally to many other "worthy" organizations....so, where does it
stop, if a precedent is created here? Laws exist for these situations,
and we should not be creating new law, but instead be reflecting
existing law. Once we start creating "worthy" institutions by
elevating them above the law, implicitly we are creating  the
"unworthy", or perhaps the "politically unconnected" or "deplorables"
whose rights get trampled upon in order to appease the "worthy." In
contrast, the law treats everyone equally, both "worthy" and
"unworthy", based on legal standards.

The "Eligible IGOs" from the "GAC List of IGOs" (point 3 on page 2)
would not be limited in number --- it could grow in the future, and
indeed there'd be incentives for it to grow, as any IGOs not on the
list would want to be on it.

They seek to recreate the TMCH via a new process, whereas it would be
trivial to simply allow Article 6ter marks to be on it, without a new
process. This goes back to my earlier point, that they appear to want
to add acronyms for "protection" that do not appear in the Article
6ter database currently.

Their DRP would eliminate recourse to national courts.

There are far better mechanisms to go after fraudulent solicitation of
funds following a disaster --- e.g. going after the webhosting
operator, DNS provider, and most importantly, the payment processors
(Visa, Mastercard, American Express, PayPal, etc.). They can act
instantly, compared to any "rapid relief" mechanism. Indeed, any such
schemes are clearly ILLEGAL --- why is it that IGOs don't simply go to
the legal authorities (police, etc.) to solve those criminal acts? We
don't need to create new institutions -- these institutions have
developed since the dawn of civilization. Indeed, they can go to the
courts, too, to get injunctions, etc., working within the legal
system.

If ICE can take down a torrent page due to copyright infringement, e.g.

https://static01.nyt.com/images/2010/11/27/business/Torrent/Torrent-jumbo.jpg
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/27/technology/27torrent.html?_r=0

which went through the court system via appropriate warrants, why are
IGOs not pursuing the same measures?? While they use an example that
is clearly illegal, they don't recognize that legal mechanisms exist
in those situations -- they propose to use solutions outside the legal
system (i.e. ones we create for them). We should instead be pointing
them to the existing legal system.

I find it amusing that the "penalty" for 3 reverse domain name
hijackings is a mere 1 year in the penalty booth. It's actually a big
"tell" that they even included this section on page 4, since up to
that point they portrayed IGOs as "angels", whose needs are "special"
and above those of other entities. That's an acknowledgement that this
proposed process CAN be abused, that IGOs are operated by human beings
who make mistakes, and are just like everyone else. That's why there
are LAWS, to protect the weak and vulnerable against the strong -- the
IGOs seek to put themselves above those laws, and strip away the
protection of due process and the courts for domain name registrants.
It's time to recognize that abuse can come not just from domain name
registrants, but from the complainant/accuser, and that our laws
presume innocence until proven guilty in a court of law. Due process
exists for a reason.

Sincerely,

George Kirikos
416-588-0269
http://www.leap.com/

On Thu, Oct 6, 2016 at 5:10 PM, Mary Wong <mary.wong at icann.org> wrote:
> Dear WG members,
>
>
>
> As mentioned on the WG call earlier today, the Board’s reply to the GNSO
> Council enclosing the final “small group” proposal on IGO acronyms has just
> been sent. A copy is enclosed for your review and further discussion.
>
>
>
> Staff will work with Petter and Phil to confirm the agendas for our next two
> meetings before ICANN57, in light of our receipt of this proposal and the
> status of the WG’s ongoing discussions over preliminary recommendations.
>
>
>
> Cheers
>
> Mary
>
>
>
> From: <owner-council at gnso.icann.org> on behalf of Mary Wong
> <mary.wong at icann.org>
> Date: Thursday, October 6, 2016 at 17:02
> To: GNSO Council List <council at gnso.icann.org>
> Cc: Steve Crocker <steve.crocker at board.icann.org>, Chris Disspain
> <chris at disspain.uk>, "bruce.tonkin at melbourneit.com.au"
> <bruce.tonkin at melbourneit.com.au>, Markus Kummer
> <markus.kummer at board.icann.org>, Becky Burr <Becky.Burr at neustar.biz>,
> "board-ops-team at icann.org" <board-ops-team at icann.org>
> Subject: [council] Board reply letter on IGO/RC issues and proposal on IGO
> acronyms protection from the IGO "small group"
>
>
>
> Dear Councilors,
>
>
>
> Please find attached the ICANN Board’s reply to the GNSO Council’s letter of
> 31 May 2016 on the topic of protections for IGOs and the Red Cross. The
> letter also includes the final proposal on IGO acronyms protection that was
> worked on by the IGO “small group” of IGO, Board and GAC representatives,
> facilitated by ICANN staff as appropriate.
>
>
>
> We will also transmit a copy of this to the co-chairs of the GNSO IGO-INGO
> Curative Rights Protections PDP Working Group and the GAC.
>
>
>
> Best regards,
>
> Mary
>
>
>
>
>
> Mary Wong
>
> Senior Policy Director
>
> Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN)
>
> Email: mary.wong at icann.org
>
> Telephone: +1-603-5744889
>
>
>
>
>
>
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