Blacknight Comments on ICANN's Draft Anti-Harassment Policy

[Michele Neylon - Blacknight <michele@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Dear Sir / Madam

I am submitting these comments in my capacity as CEO and Founder of Blacknight 
Internet Solutions Ltd, an ICANN accredited registrar based in Ireland.

I’ve been attending ICANN meetings for the better part of 10 years and one of 
the reasons why I and others keep coming back is that, in general, the 
“community” is warm and friendly. Any policy that is designed to deal with 
issues of harassment should not have a “chilling effect” and be kept as narrow 
in scope as possible. 

While I have no issue with ICANN having a policy to cover “harassment” and 
would welcome it, I would urge that any such policy does not create more 
problems than it solves.

As others have noted, the current language is problematic in several areas. For 
example, “medical condition” covers all conditions, so calling out specific 
ones is not necessary.
Also, as others have noted, ((ALAC, RySG and others)  the key underlining 
principle behind this should be that the behaviour is “unwelcome” or “without 
consent”. In many cultures it is the norm to hug, kiss and touch in a 
non-offensive and non-predatory manner. 

The current draft policy might suit some audiences, but would cause issues for 
many people from other cultures and I suspect this is not the intention of the 
policy.

Regards

Michele

--
Mr Michele Neylon
Blacknight Solutions
Hosting, Colocation & Domains
http://www.blacknight.host/
http://blacknight.blog /
http://ceo.hosting/
Intl. +353 (0) 59  9183072
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