Jeri -
In our conversation on Thursday, I said to you that we had endorsed many of
the "principles" of the WIPO report, most notably uniform dispute
resolution, but not the specific recomemendations.
I suggested that you consult the press release and resolutions for
details, which include separate approaches to three separate
categories/sections of the report (and which you to some extent outline
later in the story). We did, as many public comments had advised us to,
refer the second two categories (as opposed to approaches we had de facto
already adopted in our registrar accreditation guidelines) to the DNSO. In
other words, though the second paragraph of the story and subsequent details
were better, the lede was seriously misleading. What more can I say?
Unfortunately, these seemingly subtle distinctions are important. (For
everyone: The details are at
http://www.icann.org/berlin/berlin-resolutions.html and
http://www.icann.org/berlin/berlin-details.html.)
Esther
May 28, 1999
Internet Board Backs Rules to Limit
Cybersquatters
By JERI CLAUSING
he board of the Internet's new oversight organization on Thursday
endorsed a controversial set of recommendations for cracking
down on so-called cybersquatters, who register trademarks and other
popular words as Internet addresses.
Esther Dyson, interim chairman of the organization, the Internet
Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, emphasized that the
board's endorsement merely affirmed the broader principles of the
recommendations, which were issued last month by the World
Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), an arm of the United
Nations. Many of the details, she said, would be open to amendment.
The board deferred final adoption of the
recommendations until they can be reviewed by
one of ICANN's newly formed member groups.
Absent from that group, however, is the
constituency that critics say have the most to lose
under the recommendations: individuals and
non-commercial interests who have already
registered Internet addresses and could have them
taken away.
Like everything surrounding the Clinton
Administration's process for handing administration
of the Internet to ICANN, the board's action was
immediately criticized as contrary to its charge to
be a "bottom's up" organization and follow the lead
of its worldwide constituents.
Brian O'Shaughnessy, a spokesman for Network Solutions Inc., which
has held an exclusive government contract for registering names in the
top-level domains of .com, .net and org since 1993, said after
Thursday's
action that ICANN was envisioned "as a limited standard-setting body
which is consensus based." But he said that when the board begins
making such decisions, "It's top down instead of bottoms up."
A. Michael Froomkin, a University of Miami law professor who advised
WIPO on the recommendations and who has been critical of some of its
major provisions, said he was pleased that the ICANN endorsement
applied only to the broader dispute resolution principles. Three other
chapters, including that recommending that ICANN establish a system
for protecting not only trademarks but other famous words, was
referred
to the membership committee without recommendation.
Still, he questioned the need for the board to take any action yet.
"Why are they endorsing things before they send them to the supporting
organization for review? " he asked.
The unanimous endorsement of the principles by ICANN's board came
during an eight-hour closed board meeting in Berlin, where the board
also finalized a $5.9 million budget that will be financed in part
by a $1 a
year fee on every domain name registered and on fees and dues from
companies ICANN approves to begin competing with Network
Solutions.
In addition, the board approved the structure of two of three
supporting
groups that will make up the nonprofit corporation's membership.
One of those three is the Domain Name Supporting Organization
(DNSO), which has been charged with making recommendations to
ICANN on how and when to add new top-level domains like .com to
the global network.
Its first order of business, however, is to carry out rules
governing the
registration of domain names. Specifically, ICANN asked the new group
to begin drafting a plan on how to move forward with the WIPO
recommendations.
"It's clear that this is urgent so we sent that right to the DNSO
saying that
we basically support the WIPO report but there are issues about how to
implement it," Dyson said.
The WIPO proposal has been criticized as favoring trademark holders
and wealthy corporate interests over small businesses, nonprofit
groups
and individual Internet users.
Although the board action is an official endorsement of the WIPO
principals, Dyson said the recommendations are still "very much" open
for change by the domain name supporting organization.
But that group is still lacking one of its seven constituencies:
the group
that is supposed to represent individual and non-commercial domain
name holders. The other six constituencies - representing groups like
trademark holders, registries and Internet service providers - were
approved by the board Thursday.
"These guys are stragglers," Dyson said. "They basically did not come
together with a proposal. We hope to have that resolved in June. We
told them to come back to us."
Despite the missing link, Dyson said the DNSO has been asked to begin
work immediately on the WIPO report so that the board can adopt some
of its provisions at its next board meeting in Santiago, Chile, in
August.
ICANN on Thursday also accepted
an application for the Protocol
Supporting Organization, which will
deal with more technical aspects of
the Internet's architecture. It expects
to formally recognize a third group,
the Address Supporting Organization
in Santiago.
Thursday's board meeting - the third formal meeting of the interim
ICANN board -- followed a daylong public hearing where the board
took comment on all of the items on its closed meeting agenda. It also
discussed the progress, or lack thereof, in opening the domain name
registration business to competition.
ICANN was formed last year to take over the administrative
functions of
the Internet that previously were conducted by government contractors
and to open the registration process to competition. Last month it
chose
the first five companies to test a shared registration system built by
Network Solutions.
The test phase officially began April 26, but none of the five
companies
has yet been able to go live and begin registering names in the
top-level
domains of .com, .net and org.
Ken Stubbs, who represents the only nonprofit entity participating
in the
test, the Internet Council of Registrars, complained to the board that
important software from Network Solutions does not work, and that the
non-disclosure agreement Network Solutions made the test participants
sign prohibits them from discussing the test problems with ICANN.
Dyson said she was disturbed by Stubbs comments.
"My goal had been for the test to be a source of information not
just for
the people directly involved in the test but for everyone who
wants to be
a registrar down the road," she said.
O'Shaughnessy said the non-disclosure agreement was a standard
contract meant to protect the company's proprietary information.
"There is nothing particularly unique about it," he said. "They
are holding
it up as if it's restrictive, but it's a standard NDA.
The reason the test information has not yet been shared with ICANN is
simple, O'Shaughnessy said: "ICANN hasn't signed the non-disclosure
agreement."
Esther Dyson Always make new mistakes!
chairman, EDventure Holdings
interim chairman, Internet Corp. for Assigned Names & Numbers
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
1 (212) 924-8800
1 (212) 924-0240 fax
104 Fifth Avenue (between 15th and 16th Streets; 20th floor)
New York, NY 10011 USA
http://www.edventure.com http://www.icann.org
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