| 1. Current Proposal |
NCUC Proposal |
Amendment |
Rationale for Amendment |
| Recommendation No. 3: "...The process for introducing new gTLDs must make proper allowance for prior third party rights, in particular trademark rights..." |
"...The process for introducing new gTLDs must make proper allowance for third party rights, including trademark and freedom of expression rights..." |
Remove the word "prior" and add recognition of free expression rights so as to not give special registration privileges to 1 particular type of interest over other equally legitimate interests. |
Trademark owners are only one set of legitimate interests and privileging their use of and access to a domain is at the unfair disadvantage of other competing legitimate rights, including legal rights to criticize companies and trademarks. Our recommendations need recognition that there are competing legitimate free expression rights to use trademarked words. The existing recommendation that privileges a special interest is not tied to any ICANN Mission or Core Value. |
|
2. Current Proposal
Recommendation No. 6: "Strings must not be contrary to generally accepted legal norm relating to morality and public order...." |
NCUC Proposal
"Applicants must abide by all national laws applicable to their registration and use of the domain (including local restrictions on free expression)." |
Amendment
Keep the core neutral of national policy debate. The draft tries to tie this recommendation to ICANN's Mission 3 regarding policymaking related to technical functions. But the draft is a proposed regulation to encourage human behavior that utilizes its technical function as a lever to control that behavior. The draft recommendation 6 and the Mission 3 principle are not a good fit because these recommendations are no longer about technical issues and are now general public policy debates. |
Rationale for Amendment
No need for ICANN to set a global "standard" for morality and public order. The proposal to create such a standard is a 'solution in search of a problem'. Existing law regulates this area, and there is no rationale for ICANN rules to circumvent national law and legitimate free expression rights. The existing proposal's legislating of 'morality' only adds to the subjectivity and arbitrariness that we are supposedly trying to guard against. It takes ICANN even further removed from its technical mission and into regulating human behavior. Decisions about 'morality' will by their nature be subjective and arbitrary and open ICANN up to enormous legal liability and burden, an entirely unnecessary risk and under-taking. |
|
3. Current Proposal
Recommendation No. 6a: New gTLDs should respect: a) The provisions of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights which seek to affirm "fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person and in the equal rights of men and women." b) The sensitivities regarding terms with national, cultural, geographic and religious significance. [GAC2.1] |
NCUC Proposal
New gTLDs should respect: a) The provisions of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights which seek to affirm "fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person and in the equal rights of men and women," and b) the right to freedom of expression, including "the right to to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers." |
Amendment
Add recognition that there is a legitimate freedom of expression right to be taken into consideration in the evaluation process. Delete adoption of the GAC2.1 principle to adequately protect free expression rights to use words. This principle is misguided and the GNSO should not endorse it's adoption. |
Rationale for Amendment
Note: "ICANN Core Value 2. Respecting the creativity, innovation, and flow of information made possible by the Internet by limiting ICANN's activities to those matters within ICANN's mission requiring or significantly benefiting from global coordination." Since any attempt to set global standards for 'morality' will result in stifling creativity, innovation, and free flow of information, ICANN should avoid unnecessary regulation in this area. |
|
4. Current Proposal
Recommendation No. 8: "An application will be rejected or otherwise deferred if it is determined, based on public comments or otherwise, that there is a substantial opposition to it from among significant established institutions of the economic sector, or cultural or language community, to which it is targeted or which it is intended to support." |
NCUC Proposal
Delete this add-on to recommendation 8, which has nothing to do with financial, organizational or operational capacity (the subject of recommendation 8). |
Amendment
Delete this unrelated add-on. |
Rationale for Amendment
What is this doing in the recommendation about operational and technical capacity? This sentence describes the process for meshing out all the public policy and morality conflicts we are asking for in Recommendation #6. If we are going to have this public-objection process at all, it belongs in Recommendation #6 where it's need is created, not hidden in an unrelated recommendation about technical and operational capacity. |
|
5. Current Proposal
Recommendation No. 11: "Staff evaluators will be used to make preliminary determinations about applications as part of a process which includes the use of expert panels to make decisions." |
NCUC Proposal
"Staff evaluators will make preliminary determinations as to whether the application has met objective operational, technical, and financial criteria." |
Amendment
Remove need for expert panels to decide public policy issues since evaluation criteria would be purely operational, technical, and financial. |
Rationale for Amendment
These panels will be adjudicating fundamental rights, but there is no public accountability for decisions of expert panels (or ICANN staff). Draft encourages subjective and arbitrary decisions and requires ICANN to pick from competing perspectives on what is 'moral' and what is 'the objective'. Keep the core neutral. |