(*) Comments submitted after the posted Close Date/Time are not guaranteed to be considered in any final summary, analysis, reporting, or decision-making that takes place once this period lapses.

FINAL VERSION TO BE SUBMITTED IF RATIFIED

The final version to be submitted, if the draft is ratified, will be placed here by upon completion of the vote. 

FINAL DRAFT VERSION TO BE VOTED UPON BY THE ALAC

ALAC Statement on the Draft Final Report on Protection of IGO and INGO Identifiers

This ALAC Statement is intended to serve the triple purpose of being a reply to the Public Comment on the Draft Final Report on Protection of IGO and INGO Identifiers in All gTLDs, an ALAC Minority Statement to be attached to the Final Report (modified as necessary based on the content of the Final Report compared to the draft version), and a Statement of Advice to the ICANN Board.

The ALAC has made a number of statements on the protection of IGO and INGO names, and has participated actively in all GNSO activities related to this topic. Our views specific outcomes of this PDP are at the end of this statement.

Given the wide range of views expressed in this paper, and noting that nothing presented here has received the unanimous support of the PDP Working Group, the ALAC would like to take this opportunity to comment on the nature of the Recommendations as well as identify the principles that have guided its positions.

The Draft Final Report includes a wide variety of “Recommendations” reflecting widely disparate levels of consensus. Not a single one was agreed to by all WG members (Full Consensus), a level of support that is more typical of most GNSO PDPs. For many, the WG views are Divergent [Footnote: In one case, the views were represented as being “divergent” where in fact there was a strong consensus that the Recommendation NOT be implemented.]. It is unclear to the ALAC exactly how the GNSO and then the Board is supposed to treat such a mixed and confusing set of outcomes. Moreover, even if only the Recommendations with some level of consensus were implemented, there is no assurance that they form a cohesive and consistent set of policies.

The ALAC is particularly concerned that granting blocking-level protections may prohibit other reasonable uses of the same strings, and is not satisfied that the exception procedures outlined in the report would be effective.

This being the case, it may be important to consider the principles that guided the ALAC, in our participation in the activities that led to this report, and that the ALAC believes should guide ICANN in considering any special protections.

1. ICANN should grant special protection to organizations that further the public interest and in particular, those with a strong track record of humanitarian activities. However, such protections should only be granted where there is a history or reasonable expectation that the lack of protections would lead to the misrepresentation of the organizations, fraud, deliberate confusion, or other malfeasance.
2. Such protections, when granted, should not unreasonably impinge on the ability of others with a valid right to use the protected string, from registering such names for uses which do not negatively impact the protected organization nor use to the protected name with the intent to deceive users. Formal trademarks should not be necessary to demonstrate such a right. [Footnote: Although not a gTLD, cern.ca is a good example. The Centre d'exposition de Rouyn-Noranda in northern Quebec has no connection or even a vague relationship with the Conseil Européen pour la Recherche Nucléaire, but they do happen to share an acronym. In the gTLD space, Olympic.diy is a prime example of a new registration that might not be allowed under the proposed rules even though the TLD (diy = Do-it-yourself) is a logical registration for Olympic Paints.]
3. The procedures used to grant the protection exceptions identified in 2. must be both inexpensive and fast.
4. No top level protections are necessary. Existing or new objection processes are sufficient.

Formatted statement including ALAC positions

FIRST DRAFT SUBMITTED

This ALAC Statement is intended to serve the triple purpose of being a reply to the Public Comment on the Draft Final Report on Protection of IGO and INGO Identifiers in All gTLDs, an ALAC Minority Statement to be attached to the Final Report, and a Statement of Advice to the ICANN Board.

The ALAC has made a number of statements on the protection of IGO and INGO names, and has participated actively in all GNSO activities related to this topic. Our views specific outcomes of this PDP are detailed at http://forum.icann.org/lists/gnso-igo-ingo/msg00909.html and will not be restated here.

Given the wide range of views expressed in this paper, and noting that nothing presented here has received the unanimous support of the PDP Working Group, the ALAC would like to take this opportunity to comment on the nature of the Recommendations as well as identify the principles that have guided its positions.

The Draft Final Report includes a wide variety of “Recommendations” reflecting widely disparate levels of consensus. Not a single one was agreed to by all WG members (Full Consensus), a level of support that is more typical of most GNSO PDPs. For many, the WG views are Divergent [Footnote: In one case, the views were represented as being “divergent” where in fact there was a strong consensus that the Recommendation NOT be implemented.]. It is unclear to the ALAC exactly how the GNSO and then the Board is supposed to treat such a mixed and confusing set of outcomes. Moreover, even if only the Recommendations with some level of consensus were implemented, there is no assurance that they form a cohesive and consistent set of policies.

The ALAC is particularly concerned that granting blocking-level protections may prohibit other reasonable uses of the same strings, and is not satisfied that the exception procedures outlined in the report would be effective.

This being the case, it may be important to consider the principles that guided the ALAC, in our participation in the activities that led to this report, and that the ALAC believes should guide ICANN in considering any special protections.

1. ICANN should grant special protection to organizations that further the public interest and in particular, those with a strong track record of humanitarian activities. However, such protections should only be grated where there is a history or reasonable expectation that the lack of protections would lead to the misrepresentation of the organizations, fraud, deliberate confusion, or other malfeasance.
2. Such protections, when granted, should not unreasonably impinge on the ability of others with a valid right to use the protected string, from registering such names for uses which do not negatively impact the protected organization nor use to the protected name with the intent to deceive users. Formal trademarks should not be necessary to demonstrate such a right. [Footnote: although not a gTLD, cern.ca is a good example. The Centre d'exposition de Rouyn-Noranda in northern Quebec has no connection or even a vague relationship with the Conseil Européen pour la Recherche Nucléaire, but they do happen to share an acronym. In the gTLD space, Olympic.diy is a prime example of a new registration that might not be allowed under the proposed rules even though the TLD (diy = Do-it-yourself) is a logical registration for Olympic Paints.]
3. The procedures used to grant the protection exceptions identified in 2. must be both inexpensive and fast.

Note: Footnotes shown in [square brackets] will me moved to actual footnotes in the final document.