ICANN should confine itself to technical and operational matters

[Tracy Sanford <sanfort@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Name: Tracy Sanford
Email: sanfort@xxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject:
ICANN should confine itself to technical and operational matters

Comments:
ICANN should not try to regulate morality and public order on the Internet.  
But the proposed policy for approving new gTLDs threatens to do just that. 
There is no global consensus on these cultural issues, and applying a 
one-size-fits-all policy to censor the global Internet cannot work. Also, 
trademark law doesn't match the way Internet domains are used, and the proposed 
policy would apply trademark law in ways that are completely unprecedented in 
any national law or international treaty.  This is completely inappropriate, 
and is likely to be illegal in many cases.

The proposed challenge process allows too much subjective uncertainty in what 
should be a completely objective, transparent and well-defined application 
procedure.  It requires ICANN to judge cases for which it has no established 
institutional capacity, and sets up a completely spurious legal jurisdiction 
without any accountable political authority. It would also allow wealthier and 
more powerful gTLD applicants to hijack the application process, suppress 
competition and innovation, and generally establish more firmly entrenched 
gatekeeper power in the market for gTLDs.

These problems are too important to let the proposed policy be approved without 
fixing them. Please protect freedom of expression and innovation by removing 
non-technical and non-operational criteria from all ICANN policies.  Keep the 
Internet open and nondiscriminatory.  Keep the core neutral!