ICANN has set up a new GNSO Working Group (WG) on IGO/INGO acronyms and we know of at least five ICA members who have already joined it. Other domainers should consider doing the same.
Here’s the reason. IGOs are International Governmental Organizations, and INGOs are International Nongovernmental Organizations, and through ICANN’s Governmental Advisory Committee (GAC) they have been waging a relentless campaign to ban all the acronyms of their organization names from being registered at any gTLD and, if they can’t get that, to create a new dispute resolution process separate from the UDRP and URS where domain registrants wouldn’t get to appeal to a national court of jurisdiction (because IGOs and INGOs contend they are beyond the reach of any sovereign power or its courts). If they got their way it could threaten lots of existing short letter domains, and prevent others from being registered at new gTLDs, even when the domain is not being used in any bad faith manner. It would also be an ominous sign of how registrant rights and the multistakeholder model could be suppressed if governments had more say over ICANN and the DNS.
ICA has been pushing back on this issue since it first surfaced. In December 2013 we were the only organization to file a letter of support for a unanimous GNSO Resolution taking a reasonable stance on it. But letters opposing the GNSO stance were filed by the UN, NATO, Interpol, and WIPO, among others. In March we spoke out again in support of the GNSO Resolution during the Public Forum at the ICANN Singapore meeting. And in April we sent a second letter urging ICANN to adopt the GNSO position and to reject any request for a Policy Development Process (PDP) to modify the UDRP and URS solely for the benefit of the international organizations.
But, rather than taking a final decision that supported the resolution unanimously adopted by the multistakeholder policy body for gTLDs, ICANN apparently decided it would rather avoid the heat that would generate from the GAC at a sensitive time for consideration of the IANA transition and enhanced ICANN accountability – and opted to kick the can down the road by starting a PDP.
We expect many IGOs and INGOs to participate in the new Working Group that will consider UDRP/URS modifications, or creation of an entirely new DRP. That why professional domain registrants need to be involved as well. ICANN’s “Call for Volunteers to New GNSO Working Group on Curative Rights Protection for IGOs and INGOs” can be found at http://gnso.icann.org/en/announcements/announcement-11jul14-en.htm, with information on how to join up. Members of the WG will be expected to participate in regular conference calls and to monitor and provide comments on an e-mail list. If you can’t spare the time for that, you can enlist as an Observer and have access to updates and draft documents.
Domainers, please give serious consideration to joining your colleagues who have already enlisted in this effort. Otherwise, in the future new acronym registrations may be DOA while existing acronym domains will RIP.
PS—If you do join please let us know so we can set up our own e-mail list to share views amongst ourselves. Thanks!