Re: [gtld-council] string criteria

[Ross Rader <ross@xxxxxxxxxx>]

On 2-Mar-07, at 4:37 AM, Bruce Tonkin wrote:

> I can understand that a court in
> the USA would have such authority over ICANN with respect to adding a
> string to the root.
>
>
> (1) Are we creating a system that requires a party affected to use the
> USA legal processes
I am also not a lawyer, but I believe the answer to this is yes - we  
would be looking for a system that requires ICANN to submit to the  
judgement of a court that has authority over ICANN - wherever that  
may be. Not only would this include the United States, but any  
country where ICANN has nexus. For example, Tucows is a Canadian  
company, but we have nexus in many, many countries (notably the US)  
and depending on circumstances, would need to submit to these foreign  
courts in various circumstances - either that or risk arrest or other  
action when our executives touch soil in those regions ;)
As ICANN becomes increasingly globalized, the number of courts that  
have authority over ICANN will ostensibly increase.
BTW - this situation exists no matter what administrative choices we  
make. I believe you are proposing that we create options so that  
ICANN can avoid the courts, but this simply amounts to recreating a  
subset of these legal systems (badly) inside our various contracts.
My preference would be to preserve this status quo instead of  
creating a large pseudo-legal bureaucracy in an attempt to cover over  
the fact that ICANN is a US corporation.
Ross Rader
Director, Retail Services
t. 416.538.5492
c. 416.828.8783
http://www.domaindirect.com

"To solve the problems of today, we must focus on tomorrow."
- Erik Nupponen