Comments from the EBRD (European Bank for Reconstruction and Development)

["Nour, Andrea" <NourA@xxxxxxxx>]

The comments below are submitted on behalf of the European Bank for 
Reconstruction and Development.

The recent IGO-INGO Identifier Protection recommendations adopted by the GNSO 
Council on 20 November 2013 are unfortunate.

The GNSO Council recommendations, while accepting protections for full names at 
both the top and second levels, refuse such protections for IGO acronyms.

There is no valid reason for making a distinction between full names and 
acronyms.   In fact, it is well known by all that a vast majority of IGOs are 
far better known by their acronyms than their full names.  In the context of 
the DNS, it defies basic logic to refuse protection for the commonly known 
acronyms and instead protect the often lengthy full names, which is meaningless 
for most of us (including "ICANN" itself) and would thus amount to giving IGOs 
no protection at all. Limitation of protection to full names would effectively 
defeat the very purpose of the envisaged protection and would carry a real cost 
for vital public missions, especially as funding is today heavily reliant on 
the Internet.  As ICANN's mission includes, inter alia, protecting consumers 
from abuse in connection with the new gTLD program, it is surprising that such 
considerations in no way motivated the GNSO decision.

In any event, at the second level, reasonable co-existence principles and a 
simple and cost-neutral process could be devised, so a blanket refusal to 
protect IGO acronyms was not warranted.  If there was a will, the PDP could 
have explored such mechanisms.  IGOs have indicated on many occasions that our 
intention is not to prevent in absolute terms good faith use of our acronyms in 
the DNS by third parties. Rather, IGOs are looking for solutions to pre-empt 
third-party abuse of our acronyms to prevent user confusion and the resulting 
loss of confidence in both IGOs and the DNS.

Instead, it appears the entire PDP process clearly may have served only to 
confirm conclusions which were predetermined from the start.  Fact, law, public 
policy considerations and even logic and reason appears to have been ignored 
during the process and the so called "consensus" against IGO acronym 
protections was reached despite fierce opposition from participating IGOs.   It 
is certainly at odds with the very concept of consensus to allow for a decision 
to be adopted when strong dissent is clearly and decisively voiced by a number 
of stakeholders. We would simply like to recall one of the "core values" ICANN 
Board of Director's Code of Conduct: "7.  Employing open and transparent policy 
development mechanisms that (i) promote well-informed decisions based on expert 
advice, and (ii) ensure that those entities most affected can assist in the 
policy development process."

It is important to recall that ICANN's founding documents require ICANN to 
carry out its activities in conformity with relevant principles of 
international law and applicable international conventions, to cooperate with 
relevant IGOs and to duly take into account governments' and public 
authorities' recommendations, recognising that public authorities are 
responsible for public policy.

The GAC repeatedly advised that IGOs, as entities created by governments under 
public international law, are in an objectively different category to other 
rights holders and that there is a prevailing global public interest to provide 
special preventative protections for IGO names and acronyms at both the top and 
second levels.

The GNSO recommendations fail to take into account public policy concerns, the 
unique status of IGOs and longstanding and repeated GAC advice.  We sincerely 
hope that the ICANN Board will not follow this same route.

END.



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