Correspondence from the ALAC regarding IGO and INGO Identifiers in All gTLDs (PDP) Recommendations for Board Consideration

[Olivier MJ Crepin-Leblond <ocl@xxxxxxx>]

Ref: AL-ALAC-CO-0114-2-00-EN

Dear Sir/Madam,

the At-Large Advisory Committee has already made its position known on
several occasions in past Statements and in its Minority Statement
published in Appendix A subheading 6 of the Final Report. We kindly draw
the attention of the Board to this Appendix.

Kind regards,

Olivier MJ Crépin-Leblond
ALAC Chair

This Minority Statement is reproduced below.

--- --- --- ---

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 on specific outcomes of this PDP are reflected
in the Final Report.

Given the wide range of views expressed in this report, and noting that
nothing presented 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 some
reflecting a WG Consensus (as defined by the GNSO Working Group
Guidelines) some with an even weaker level of support. 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 of the recommendations
originally considered by the WG and strongly supported by some, the
overall participant views were Divergent. The collection of
Recommendations with Consensus level or Strong support, taken as a
whole, does not form a cohesive and consistent set of policies. Although
each individual Recommendation received sufficient support, the net
result is a set of Recommendations that may be incomplete and perhaps
even conflicting. [1]
<https://community.icann.org/display/alacpolicydev/Protection+of+IGO+and+INGO+Identifiers+in+All+gTLDs+%28PDP%29+Recommendations+for+Board+Consideration#_ftn1>

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 procedure options outlined in the
report could meet the targets that the ALAC believes are mandatory.

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 the protected name with the
    intent to deceive users. Formal trademarks should not be necessary
    to demonstrate such a right. [2]
    
<https://community.icann.org/display/alacpolicydev/Protection+of+IGO+and+INGO+Identifiers+in+All+gTLDs+%28PDP%29+Recommendations+for+Board+Consideration#_ftn2>
 3. The procedures used to grant the protection exceptions identified in
    number 2 must be both inexpensive and fast.
 4. No top level protections are necessary. Existing or new objection
    processes are sufficient.


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[1]
<https://community.icann.org/display/alacpolicydev/Protection+of+IGO+and+INGO+Identifiers+in+All+gTLDs+%28PDP%29+Recommendations+for+Board+Consideration#_ftnref1>
As an example, there may be cases where a strong protection is not
recommended, but the recommendations may be silent on weaker forms of
protection.

[2]
<https://community.icann.org/display/alacpolicydev/Protection+of+IGO+and+INGO+Identifiers+in+All+gTLDs+%28PDP%29+Recommendations+for+Board+Consideration#_ftnref2>
Although not a gTLD registration, 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.