[ NNSquad ] Re: Got $55K to spare for ICANN?

["Seth Johnson" <seth.johnson@realmeasures.dyndns.org>]

Certainly good news!  I know that Kathy Kleiman and the
non-commercial users constituency and many others have been very
frustrated with ICANN's practices for many years.  Aside from
finally appearing to take the free speech implications on the
trademark issue seriously -- by going back and taking the GNSO and
ALAC seriously -- what exactly has been worked out between NCUC,
ALAC and others, in terms of representation of what might broadly
be called the public interest in ICANN's decisionmaking?  How many
votes does the public interest have now?  Does ALAC have one yet?

ISOC-NY hosted an online meeting in October going over these same
types of issues that I and the others had brought up at the IRT
event, as many had brought up many times before:

Civic Representation in ICANN: What Now? forum
> http://www.isoc-ny.org/?p=886

. . . at which Milton Mueller of the Non-Commercial Users
Constituency, Beau Brendler, a consumer advocate, and Danny
Younger of At-Large articulated their various views regarding the
representational structure at ICANN.  Subsequent to this meeting,
it was agreed they'd meet in Seoul, and that's the last I heard on
the issue.  Do you know anything about what ensued?  It almost
seemed as if real headway was imminent.

The bogus conception of trademark that ICANN has been promulgating
is a substantive point, but that doesn't address the influence of
"moneyed interests" on ICANN.  If ICANN wants to do things that
have policy implications, they have to show how they're operating
in regard to assuring they serve the interests of all.


Seth




-----Original Message-----
From: Olivier MJ Crepin-Leblond <ocl@gih.com>
To: ssc <ssc@strikenet.kicks-ass.net>
Cc: nns <nnsquad@nnsquad.org>
Date: Sun, 17 Jan 2010 16:04:37 +0100
Subject: [ NNSquad ] Re: Got $55K to spare for ICANN?

> Hi there,
> 
> Le 17/01/2010 11:49, ssc a écrit :
> > An awful lot of "lawyer-vulture-speak' I'm afraid.
> > Lets say xyz.company (small company in the US) has been
> around since
> > 1973, and xyz.corp in Bangladesh, a billion dollar company
> wants,
> > xyz.com, yet the smaller guy has been using it as a website
> for years.
> >
> > Is the small guy, who's only claim is he registered his
> company in 1973
> > at as a local county business, going to be stood up for? I
> think not.
> > Not without him spending huge amounts to preserve his name.
> > As I expect its "lawver-vulture-speak" for robbing the little
> guy all
> > over again.
> >    
> 
> Absolutely not: the process is pre-launch, not post-launch. The
> new 
> Trademark protection mechanisms will not affect anyone who
> already has 
> their .com, .net etc. It will not affect anybody who has
> already built 
> their brand online. It will be applied only to the new gTLD
> launches.
> The whole process is designed to reduce domain/trademark
> hijacking by 
> domain pirates, whilst allowing for fair use by small
> businesses. The 
> point you mention was raised and discussed for a long time
> during our 
> conference calls.
> I hope this helps.
> 
> Warm regards,
> 
> Olivier