[ispcp] .xxx Briefing Notes

[Mark McFadden]

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Internet Service Provider and Connectivity Provider Constituency
Generic Names Supporting Organization
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NOTES - Conference Call for .xxx Briefing

Mark McFadden and Tony Harris represented the ISPCP on this conference 
call.  These notes are a very rough guide to the conversation during the 
call.  A PowerPoint presentation was made available to the participants 
and it is attached to this message.

The ICM Registry CEO gave an overview of the .xxx application and the 
process that they have been going through.  In March of 2004 ICM 
Registry submitted the sTLD application and in June of 2005 the ICANN 
Board determined that the ICM proposal met the published the sTLD 
criteria.  In May of 2006 the ICANN Board rejected proposed registry 
agreements.  In January 2007 ICANN posted a revised, negotiated registry 
agreement.

The ICM Registry claims significant support for the proposal -- however, 
they are not making the organizations that have supported the proposal 
available to the public.  ICM's Registry has a pre-registration service 
that is already in place.

ICM is reserving expanded geographic identifiers as well as a list of 
names that will not be available for registry.  The ICM CEO stressed 
that there are strict eligibility requirements -- they must be members 
of the online adult community.  The ICM Registry makes a distinction 
between non-resolving strings and resolving strings (the resolving 
string holders have to be members of the online adult community, those 
who are not resolving the strings would not have to be members of the 
adult services community).

Regarding whois: they will be supporting proxy services that are 
approved by ICM.  Holder data will be verified and retained by the ICM 
registry.  Marilyn Cade brought up the problem of performance of the 
proxy service provider.  The ICM CEO said that this would be addressed 
in performance contracts between ICM and the proxy agents.  The proxy 
agents would probably be the lawyers of those adult industry 
participants.  A significant part of the discussion revolved around the 
ability to use proxy services.  For those names that are not resolving, 
there will not be a significant verification of the holder of the name.

Non-resolving names can never become resolving names according to the 
rules of the registry.  Non-resolving names can be registered by anyone 
for any reason.  There is no qualification rule for non-resolving names. 
  IP holders do not want to have to go after all the possible variants 
of a trademark holders registered names.

There was significant discussion about mechanisms that could be used to 
abuse trademark or IP in either non-resolving strings or in the 
potential of moving a non-resolving name to resolving status.  Much of 
the discussion was technical legal discussion surrounding the protection 
of servicemarks and trademarks.

ICM has also been offering (since may of 2006) a free "Pre-Reservation 
service to IP holders.  This gives trademark holders a chance to reserve 
non-resolving strings.

If, during the pre-registration period, there is only one registration 
for a name, that organization will get to register that string.  There 
will be a fee for "stop" requests made by trademark holders.

ICRA will be relaunched on the 13th of February of this year as the 
Family Online Safety Institute (FOSI).  FOSI's mission will be to be a 
body where technology and policy stakeholders meet in the field of 
family online safety.  Founding members include AOL, AT&T, BT, Cisco, 
CompTIA, the GSM Association, Microsoft, RuleSpace, SolarSoft, Telmex 
and Verizon.  ICM is in negotiations at this time regarding how its 
sites will be labeled.

Questions outside Intellectual Property concerns were ruled out of order 
and not allowed on the call.

Becky Burr said that, if the ICANN Board approved the registry 
agreement, they would still have time to address the policy issues that 
came up regarding IP during the call.  The ICANN Board, it was noted, 
approved the application to be added into the root.  The issue on the 
table now is the contract.  The inital contract was rejected on concenrs 
about policy development commitments.  Becky Burr offered to get 
together with anyone in Washington DC.   Becky offered to answer 
questions via email.

The conference call ended after 60 minutes.