[bc-gnso] ICANN CEO remarks on Strawman

[Steve DelBianco <sdelbianco@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

This was reported in DomainIncite on 25-Jan-2013
http://domainincite.com/11732-industry-man-chehade-admits-strawman-mistake


Industry man Chehade admits strawman 
“mistake”<http://domainincite.com/11732-industry-man-chehade-admits-strawman-mistake>
Kevin Murphy<http://domainincite.com/about>, January 25, 2013, Domain 
Policy<http://domainincite.com/category/domain-policy>

ICANN CEO Fadi Chehade today admitted that he badly handled recent discussions 
about improving trademark protections in the new gTLD program, saying he made a 
“mistake”.

The remarks came during his speech at a meeting of registries and registrars in 
Amsterdam this afternoon.

The address, which along with a Q&A lasted an hour, was remarkable for 
Chehade’s passion and candor, and his apparently conscious decision to portray 
himself as an industry 
man<http://domainincite.com/11717-its-official-people-hate-the-domain-name-industry>.

But he arguably risked alienating the parts of the ICANN community that would 
certainly not define themselves as part of the “industry”, such as the 
intellectual property community.

This was no more evident as when he discussed the controversial trademark 
protection “strawman” proposals.

“We’re moving very fast at ICANN now,” he said. “You almost have no idea how 
fast we’re moving. We are opening so many new things and fixing so many things, 
that frankly should have been done for a long time at ICANN, that the speed at 
which we’re moving is making me, and sometimes my team, make mistakes.”

“I made one big mistake in the last few months,” he said. “I didn’t quite fully 
understand… this concept of ‘trying to take a second bite at the apple’, when I 
engaged with the Trademark Clearinghouse discussions.”

That’s a reference to meetings in Brussels and Los Angeles late last year, 
convened by Chehade at the request of the Intellectual Property Constituency 
and Business Constituency.

These meetings came up with the strawman 
proposals<http://domainincite.com/11064-straw-man-proposed-to-settle-trademark-deadlock-at-secretive-icann-meeting>,
 which would create (arguably) new rights protection mechanisms and bolster 
others in favor of trademark owners.

Registries, registrars and new gTLD applicants complained that the IPC/BC 
proposals had already been considered multiple times by ICANN and the community 
and discarded.

Apparently Chehade has now come around to their way of thinking, helped in part 
by Non-Commercial User Constituency member Maria Farrell’s complaint about the 
strawman 
process<http://domainincite.com/11294-ombudsman-probing-secretive-trademark-clearinghouse-meetings>.

“I frankly didn’t fully understand until I went through the process, and 
appreciated what people were actually trying to do,” Chehade said. “So, okay, 
big learning experience for me… I take it, I move on and hopefully I won’t make 
that mistake again.”

What does this mean for the strawman? Well, it’s not looking great.

While the proposals are still open for public comment, at some point ICANN is 
going to have to decide which bits it wants to adopt as “implementation” and 
which are more suited to policy development.

After today’s comments, I’d expect Chehade to be less inclined to push for the 
former.