Re: [alac] WIPO2: Advice to board due on 12 May.

[Vittorio Bertola <vb@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Wed, 9 Apr 2003 14:06:28 -0700, you wrote:

>The ALAC received a note on this on 10 March (see below).  As with any item
>pending in ICANN, the ALAC may submit comments, regardless of whether or not
>the Cmt. receives an official request to do so.

I've been reading some comments here and there on this matter, and
these are some points that I think we could make (subject to deeper
understanding of the matter):

- IGO names are very common strings ("ITU", "ISO"...) that are already
registered in most TLDs; a revised UDRP should allow IGOs to fight and
prevent misleading or competing usage of their names, but not to gain
priority rights on such names or to win the domains against current
registrants (except in cases where bad faith usage is already
happening);

- similar considerations apply to country names (though I'm less
strongly convinced on this - there is some merit to the idea that
country.anything is reserved to the national government, though there
is a significant problem with existing registrations, and it might
simply be too late for it);

- more generally, in no case existing good faith registrations should
be transferred (unless when the current registrant has given his/her
free consent) as this would open the way to unsolvable debates to who
has "more merit" to a given string; first come first served is the
only reasonably objective criteria that can prevent instability and
unpredictability in name allocation, and applicable national and
international legislation on unfair competition and trademark usage
already exists; UDRP is for clear bad faith cybersquatting cases, not
for "more merit" discussions;

- perhaps the most appropriate solution could be the creation of new
sponsored TLDs for official IGO and country domains, and/or the usage
of the existing .int TLD; in such specific TLDs, these organizations
could get their names reserved;

- an indication of specific cases in which problems have been arising
would really help in designing the best remedies; for example, one of
the few cases that are publicly known is that of a national Red Cross
branch which forgot to renew its domain and found it registered by
someone else who redirected the website to a porn site; in this case,
if one thinks that additional protection (more than the newly
introduced redemption grace period) is necessary to prevent "ex post"
inappropriate usage, such protection should be offered to all
registrants and not just to some categories.
-- 
vb.                  [Vittorio Bertola - vb [at] bertola.eu.org]<---
-------------------> http://bertola.eu.org/ <-----------------------