Opposition to GAC's Advice

["Mary" <Mary@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

 To Whom It May Concern:  I am writing to oppose the GAC's proposed changes to 
the Registry agreement as well as the GAC's proposal to make additional 
requirements for certain types of TLDs.  My opposition stems from the fact that 
I feel that the GAC's suggestions, above, are in opposition to ICANN's bylaws 
and outside the scope of ICANN's responsibilities.  Indeed, the Governmental 
Advisory Committee (GAC) seems to think that ICANN is some sort of world 
government.  But ICANN is not a government and is not responsible for creating 
trademark regulations (also known as 'trust mark' standards), verifying 
identity of registrants, catching criminals, deciding what is family-friendly 
programming, regulating consumer products, or responding to demands for 
censorship.  ICANN is a corporation.  ICANN should not attempt to create 
regulations (or 'standards') that are better enacted by national or local 
governments.   Moreover, GAC's advice is in conflict with ICANN's Bylaws.  Four 
of ICANN's Core Values as outlined in ICANN's Bylaws are in direct conflict 
with the GAC's advise:  Excerpt from ICANN's Bylaws:  "In performing its 
mission, the following core values should guide the decisions and actions of 
ICANN:  .  3. To the extent feasible and appropriate, delegating coordination 
functions to or recognizing the policy role of other responsible entities that 
reflect the interests of affected parties.  .  5. Where feasible and 
appropriate, depending on market mechanisms to promote and sustain a 
competitive environment.  .  8. Making decisions by applying documented 
policies neutrally and objectively, with integrity and fairness.  .  11. While 
remaining rooted in the private sector, recognizing that governments and public 
authorities are responsible for public policy and duly taking into account 
governments' or public authorities' recommendations.  
http://www.icann.org/en/about/governance/bylaws     Core Value 3: To the extent 
feasible and appropriate, delegating coordination functions to or recognizing 
the policy role of other responsible entities that reflect the interests of 
affected parties.  The GAC would have ICANN become responsible for determining 
what is family-friendly programming, what levels of security banking websites 
should put in place, what is the definition of a "doctor", and whether or not 
TLDs such as .SEARCH are anti-competitive.  The GAC members seem strangely 
eager to ask ICANN to take over Intellectual Property regulation, consumer 
products regulation, licensing standards, and anti-trust.   This is such a 
giant leap from ICANN's core mission of overseeing the Internet naming system 
and ensuring the interoperability of the Internet that I have trouble taking it 
seriously.   ICANN regulates the Internet naming system and ensures that the 
Internet remains operable across national lines.  This is primarily a technical 
function, although of course ICANN does rely on cooperation from world 
governments in order to ensure that the Internet known as the World Wide Web is 
accessible world-wide.      5. Where feasible and appropriate, depending on 
market mechanisms to promote and sustain a competitive environment.  ICANN 
should not be proactively identifying TLDs like .CLOUD and .BOOK as 
anti-competitive.  Not only is this outside of the scope of ICANN's 
responsibility, but it defies common sense.  There is no reason to think that 
generic TLDs such as .BOOK would give their owners significant market power and 
thus enable them to create a book monopoly.  For example, the domain name 
www.book.com cannot hope to compete with www.Amazon.com.      8. Making 
decisions by applying documented policies neutrally and objectively, with 
integrity and fairness.  Clearly, the almost arbitrary selection of TLDs 
provided in the GAC's advise is not a neutral and objective attempt at 
fairness.  It is a random selection of TLDs with little justification provided 
for their selection.  For example, why was .Kid selected but not .Family?      
11. While remaining rooted in the private sector, recognizing that governments 
and public authorities are responsible for public policy and duly taking into 
account governments' or public authorities' recommendations.  Private sector 
companies do not create trust mark standards or determine what is 
anti-competitive and what is not anti-competitive.  Governments are responsible 
for creating public policy, and they should do so within the scope of their own 
national laws, and not attempt to outsource their rule-making decisions on 
trust marks, anti-trust, and family programming to ICANN.     Sincerely,  Mary 
Iqbal