Comment on Preliminary Task Force Report on the Purpose of Whois and ,of the Whois Contacts
From: OrtmeierJ@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:OrtmeierJ@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] Sent: Wednesday, February 08, 2006 9:36 AM To: whois-comments@xxxxxxxxx Subject: Comment on Preliminary Task Force Report on the Purpose of Whois and of the Whois Contacts To Whom It May Concern: I am intellectual property counsel for the American Red Cross charged with protecting the AMERICAN RED CROSS and RED CROSS trade names. The American Red Cross is a non-governmental, humanitarian organization, led by volunteers, that provides disaster relief to victims of disasters and helps people prevent, prepare for and respond to emergencies. Since 1905, the American Red Cross name has been protected by statute in the United States, now codified as 18 U.S.C. §§ 706 and 917. In 1999, the United States Congress protected the American Red Cross from bad faith registration of domain names containing the RED CROSS name and the trafficking in or use of such domain names on the Internet by incorporating the American Red Cross statute (18 U.S.C. § 706) into the Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act, 15 U.S.C. § 1125(d)(1)(A)(ii)(III). The American Red Cross owns and maintains a number of websites, including websites containing the words RED CROSS. The American Red Cross' public website is www.redcross.org <http://www.redcross.org/> . In 2004, www.redcross.org <http://www.redcross.org/> averaged over 1.5 million successful hits per day with an average of over 904,000 unique visitors to its www.redcross.org <http://www.redcross.org/> website each month in 2004. Pursuant to its statutory authority, the American Red Cross has actively pursued websites, domain name registrations and e-mail campaigns that have used the RED CROSS name without authorization, including those directing donations to websites other than those authorized by the American Red Cross. During my tenure at the American Red Cross, hundreds of unauthorized third parties have registered domain names containing the words RED CROSS. In particular, national disasters like September 11th and Hurricane Katrina or international disasters like the Southeast Asia tsunami resulted in significant spikes in the number of third parties registering domain names containing the words RED CROSS. By way of example, in the days after Hurricane Katrina made landfall on August 25, 2005, the following domain names were registered by third parties unaffiliated with and unauthorized by the American Red Cross: o www.katrinaredcross.com <http://www.katrinaredcross.com/> o www.donateredcross.com <http://www.donateredcross.com/> o www.red-cross-help.com <http://www.red-cross-help.com/> o www.americaredcross.org <http://www.americaredcross.org/> This is a very limited sample of unauthorized domain names registered in the days after Hurricane Katrina. Many of the unauthorized websites at domain names containing the words RED CROSS fraudulently solicit donations. As another example of the egregious nature of some of these unauthorized activities, a third party registered www.american-redcross.org <http://www.american-redcross.org/> in the days after the Southeast Asia tsunami and then proceeded to cut and paste the donation page from www.redcross.org <http://www.redcross.org/> to the new, unauthorized web site at www.american-redcross.org <http://www.american-redcross.org/> . The two donation pages (one legitimately belonged to the American Red Cross, the other was fraudulent) were nearly identical. The American Red Cross uses Whois data to shut down the web sites conducting these unauthorized and fraudulent activities. The owners, once discovered by the American Red Cross, will often shut down their web sites within minutes of receiving an email from the American Red Cross. At the height of disaster response, the American Red Cross often discovers these unauthorized web sites within days of the RED CROSS domain name being registered, and it is not uncommon that the American Red Cross can get the web site shut down within hours, thus mitigating the number of victims who unknowingly give money or personal financial information (credit card numbers, bank account and PIN numbers, etc.) to web sites that are not affiliated with the American Red Cross. For the owners that do not willingly (or immediately) shut down their web sites, the American Red Cross often notifies the owner's hosting company (found through the Technical Contact details of Whois records) and/or the domain name registrar to alert them to the unauthorized and/or fraudulent activity being conducted by the domain name registrant/owner. Lastly, the American Red Cross uses Whois data to further investigate these unauthorized and fraudulent activities and ultimately assist federal, state and local law enforcement. All of these uses of Whois data fall outside the scope of Formulation 1 in the Task Force preliminary report. Without accurate Whois data, the American Red Cross is incapable of shutting down unauthorized and fraudulent RED CROSS web sites quickly enough so as to minimize the impact on American Red Cross donors, the victims of the disasters and the public at large - all of whom are impacted when members of the public, intending to support the victims of a disaster by contributing to the American Red Cross' disaster relief fund, instead unknowingly give their money and financial information to someone perpetrating a fraud. If ICANN adopts Formulation 1 as the purpose of Whois and subsequently revises its contractual policies to conform to Formulation 1, the American Red Cross will no longer have the information it needs to quickly shut down unauthorized and fraudulent RED CROSS web sites. The number of victims unknowingly using these unauthorized RED CROSS web sites to donate after a disaster will likely increase, and the money will not reach its intended target - the victims of the disaster. In the long run, reduced public confidence in the integrity of online donation sites could reduce the ability of the American Red Cross, and similar organizations, to use the Internet to raise funds quickly and efficiently to help disaster victims and respond to emergencies. I urge ICANN not to adopt Formulation 1. Respectfully submitted, Julie A. Ortmeier Senior Counsel American Red Cross 2025 E St., N.W. Washington, D.C. 20006 Phone (202) 303-5356 Fax (202) 303-0146 OrtmeierJ@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx This e-mail message contains information from the Office of the General Counsel at the American Red Cross and may be confidential or privileged. The information is intended to be for the use of the individual or entity named above. If you are not the intended recipient, be aware that any disclosure, copying, distribution or use of the contents of this e-mail message is prohibited. If you have received this e-mail message in error, please notify me by telephone (202) 303-5356 or by reply e-mail (OrtmeierJ@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx) immediately and delete this e-mail message from your computer. Thank you. -- Glen de Saint Géry GNSO Secretariat - ICANN gnso.secretariat[at]gnso.icann.org http://gnso.icann.org |