Subject: GA-DIGEST V1 #748
From: [email-masked] (GA-DIGEST)
To: [email-masked]

GA-DIGEST        Wednesday, September 19 2001        Volume 01 : Number 748

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2001 14:10:50 +0000
From: "Roberto Gaetano" <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: [ga] Geographic and Geopolitical Names in .info

Elisabeth Porteneuve wrote:
>
>Would you explain why you consider trademarks rights
>more important that countrie's and people's rights ?
>

I am not under the impression that Alexander was considering TM superior 
rights as the countries' rights.
As for the people's rights, I don't see them always better protected by a 
Government rather than by another body. But that's bringing us away from the 
scope of the comment.

I also think that the reservation of the country name as per ISO-3166 does 
not make sense at all, and I am very much surprised that the GAC did not 
notice it. According to the motion voted by ICANN, fancy things will happen, 
like for instance:
- - the names "germany.info" and "allemagne.info" will be reserved for 
Germany, while maybe the German Government would have probably have rather 
chosen "Deutschland.info", but the latter is not in ISO-3166 (remember that 
ISO-3166 is bilingual French-English, but does not contain the names in 
their native language[s]);
- - very useful and easy to guess strings like "holy see (vatican city 
state).info" and "macedonia, the former yugoslav republic of.info" will be 
reserved.

Also, ISO-3166 does not define the names of the countries, but their codes: 
the names are provided for reference to point to the ISO codes. In fact, if 
you look at ISO-3166 attentively, there are some slight glitches in the 
names (for instance, "Taiwan, Province of China" should read "Taiwan 
Province of China", without comma).
The authoritative source for the names is not ISO, but the United Nations 
Statistic Division (see: http://www.un.org/Depts/unsd/methods/). Official 
bulletins define both the short form, used in day-to-day work, and the long 
(official) form. Moreover, this list is translated in all official UN 
languages, and UNSD keeps track of the names of the countries in their 
native language[s]. First hand, complete and correct information.
In simple words, the matter is a little bit more complicated than what some 
Directors have assumed.

Anyway, my personal pick is for a specialised TLD where the Member States of 
the UN can register one or more SLDs of their choice (to be consistent with 
the documentation managed by UNSD), and then it is their choice whether they 
want to use it or not, subdivide geographically, give it to trademarks 
owners or tourist associations or their national Registry. They can choose 
if the name will be in English, French, or the national language[s], 
provided, as I said, that the string is compatible with the UNSD 
documentation.

My personal thanks to Directors (in alphabetical order) Abril y Abril, 
Auerbach, Blokzijl, Mueller-Maguhn, Murai, Pisanty, Quaynor, who voted 
against, arguing that some more thinking was needed before deciding.

Best regards
Roberto

_________________________________________________________________
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Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2001 10:59:23 -0400
From: "J. William Semich" <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: [ga] Geographic and Geopolitical Names in .info

I strongly recommend that the US Government's DOC release .gov for the use 
by all other officially recognized (by the UN?) government/geopolitical 
organizations wishing to have their own domain names, and not reserve 
geopolitical names in .info for government use. Then at least the 
"consumers" of information on the Internet will know when they are at an 
official government site, and can judge the quality and truthfulness of the 
information presented in that light.

For example, Afghanistan.gov would clearly have information that is 
sanctioned and approved by the government of Afghanistan; but 
Afghanistan.info may have more complete, and objective, information, if it 
is allowed to be registered by an independent source of information about 
Afghanistan (perhaps the Encyclopedia Britannica or some other reliable 
source of information.) The same would hold for usa.info and others.

The key issue here is that a domain name for governments should clearly be 
labeled as just that. And the .gov domain name which is currently "closed 
for US use only", should be opened to other governments to serve that 
purpose internationally, and not the more general .info.

The purpose and meaning of ".info" should not be twisted to mean "whatever 
a particular government of the day wants you to know."

Bill Semich
Internet Users Society - Niue

At 02:10 PM 9/19/01 +0000, Roberto Gaetano wrote:
>Elisabeth Porteneuve wrote:
>>
>>Would you explain why you consider trademarks rights
>>more important that countrie's and people's rights ?
>
>I am not under the impression that Alexander was considering TM superior 
>rights as the countries' rights.
>As for the people's rights, I don't see them always better protected by a 
>Government rather than by another body. But that's bringing us away from 
>the scope of the comment.
>
>I also think that the reservation of the country name as per ISO-3166 does 
>not make sense at all, and I am very much surprised that the GAC did not 
>notice it. According to the motion voted by ICANN, fancy things will 
>happen, like for instance:
>- the names "germany.info" and "allemagne.info" will be reserved for 
>Germany, while maybe the German Government would have probably have rather 
>chosen "Deutschland.info", but the latter is not in ISO-3166 (remember 
>that ISO-3166 is bilingual French-English, but does not contain the names 
>in their native language[s]);
>- very useful and easy to guess strings like "holy see (vatican city 
>state).info" and "macedonia, the former yugoslav republic of.info" will be 
>reserved.
>
>Also, ISO-3166 does not define the names of the countries, but their 
>codes: the names are provided for reference to point to the ISO codes. In 
>fact, if you look at ISO-3166 attentively, there are some slight glitches 
>in the names (for instance, "Taiwan, Province of China" should read 
>"Taiwan Province of China", without comma).
>The authoritative source for the names is not ISO, but the United Nations 
>Statistic Division (see: http://www.un.org/Depts/unsd/methods/). Official 
>bulletins define both the short form, used in day-to-day work, and the 
>long (official) form. Moreover, this list is translated in all official UN 
>languages, and UNSD keeps track of the names of the countries in their 
>native language[s]. First hand, complete and correct information.
>In simple words, the matter is a little bit more complicated than what 
>some Directors have assumed.
>
>Anyway, my personal pick is for a specialised TLD where the Member States 
>of the UN can register one or more SLDs of their choice (to be consistent 
>with the documentation managed by UNSD), and then it is their choice 
>whether they want to use it or not, subdivide geographically, give it to 
>trademarks owners or tourist associations or their national Registry. They 
>can choose if the name will be in English, French, or the national 
>language[s], provided, as I said, that the string is compatible with the 
>UNSD documentation.
>
>My personal thanks to Directors (in alphabetical order) Abril y Abril, 
>Auerbach, Blokzijl, Mueller-Maguhn, Murai, Pisanty, Quaynor, who voted 
>against, arguing that some more thinking was needed before deciding.
>
>Best regards
>Roberto
>
>
>
>_________________________________________________________________
>Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp
>
>--
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------------------------------

Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2001 11:17:49 -0400
From: Dan Steinberg <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: [ga] Geographic and Geopolitical Names in .info

Thanks Roberto,

I was about to raise these points, but you eloquently saved me the effort.

Just one thing to add: many country strings in many languages have meanings
other than the country. For example "france" is not only the name of a country
in both English and French and probably a few other languages. But it is also a
relatively common first name.

As I compose this note I'm thinking that I have many many more things I could
add, like the question of non-ASCII character sets (which the IETF is commited
to implementing), the issue of ___________, etc.  But since I promised just one
more...

As the alphabetical directors noted, more thinking is required.

Roberto Gaetano wrote:

> Elisabeth Porteneuve wrote:
> >
> >Would you explain why you consider trademarks rights
> >more important that countrie's and people's rights ?
> >
>
> I am not under the impression that Alexander was considering TM superior
> rights as the countries' rights.
> As for the people's rights, I don't see them always better protected by a
> Government rather than by another body. But that's bringing us away from the
> scope of the comment.
>
> I also think that the reservation of the country name as per ISO-3166 does
> not make sense at all, and I am very much surprised that the GAC did not
> notice it. According to the motion voted by ICANN, fancy things will happen,
> like for instance:
> - the names "germany.info" and "allemagne.info" will be reserved for
> Germany, while maybe the German Government would have probably have rather
> chosen "Deutschland.info", but the latter is not in ISO-3166 (remember that
> ISO-3166 is bilingual French-English, but does not contain the names in
> their native language[s]);
> - very useful and easy to guess strings like "holy see (vatican city
> state).info" and "macedonia, the former yugoslav republic of.info" will be
> reserved.
>
> Also, ISO-3166 does not define the names of the countries, but their codes:
> the names are provided for reference to point to the ISO codes. In fact, if
> you look at ISO-3166 attentively, there are some slight glitches in the
> names (for instance, "Taiwan, Province of China" should read "Taiwan
> Province of China", without comma).
> The authoritative source for the names is not ISO, but the United Nations
> Statistic Division (see: http://www.un.org/Depts/unsd/methods/). Official
> bulletins define both the short form, used in day-to-day work, and the long
> (official) form. Moreover, this list is translated in all official UN
> languages, and UNSD keeps track of the names of the countries in their
> native language[s]. First hand, complete and correct information.
> In simple words, the matter is a little bit more complicated than what some
> Directors have assumed.
>
> Anyway, my personal pick is for a specialised TLD where the Member States of
> the UN can register one or more SLDs of their choice (to be consistent with
> the documentation managed by UNSD), and then it is their choice whether they
> want to use it or not, subdivide geographically, give it to trademarks
> owners or tourist associations or their national Registry. They can choose
> if the name will be in English, French, or the national language[s],
> provided, as I said, that the string is compatible with the UNSD
> documentation.
>
> My personal thanks to Directors (in alphabetical order) Abril y Abril,
> Auerbach, Blokzijl, Mueller-Maguhn, Murai, Pisanty, Quaynor, who voted
> against, arguing that some more thinking was needed before deciding.
>
> Best regards
> Roberto
>
> _________________________________________________________________
> Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp
>
> --
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SYNTHESIS:Law & Technology
35, du Ravin  phone: (613) 794-5356
Chelsea, Quebec  fax:   (819) 827-4398
J9B 1N1                 e-mail:[email-masked]

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------------------------------

Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2001 17:40:28 +0200
From: Jefsey Morfin <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: [ga] Geographic and Geopolitical Names in .info

Dear Roberto,
... and all the independist movements Govs usually do not like, will get 
the same Internet recognition as the country they oppose, only in 
registering the intended country name. UDRP will close in bombs and 
military actions. Will thibet.info be reserved? what about palestine.info? 
euskadi.info, breizh.info and corsica.info will certainly be registered in 
France. I suggest ICANN reserves world.info.  will sioux.info or 
apache.info be seditious?
This seems crazy to me, I will register "nomore.info" :-)
Jefsey

On 16:10 19/09/01, Roberto Gaetano said:
>Elisabeth Porteneuve wrote:
>>
>>Would you explain why you consider trademarks rights
>>more important that countrie's and people's rights ?
>
>I am not under the impression that Alexander was considering TM superior 
>rights as the countries' rights.
>As for the people's rights, I don't see them always better protected by a 
>Government rather than by another body. But that's bringing us away from 
>the scope of the comment.
>
>I also think that the reservation of the country name as per ISO-3166 does 
>not make sense at all, and I am very much surprised that the GAC did not 
>notice it. According to the motion voted by ICANN, fancy things will 
>happen, like for instance:
>- the names "germany.info" and "allemagne.info" will be reserved for 
>Germany, while maybe the German Government would have probably have rather 
>chosen "Deutschland.info", but the latter is not in ISO-3166 (remember 
>that ISO-3166 is bilingual French-English, but does not contain the names 
>in their native language[s]);
>- very useful and easy to guess strings like "holy see (vatican city 
>state).info" and "macedonia, the former yugoslav republic of.info" will be 
>reserved.
>
>Also, ISO-3166 does not define the names of the countries, but their 
>codes: the names are provided for reference to point to the ISO codes. In 
>fact, if you look at ISO-3166 attentively, there are some slight glitches 
>in the names (for instance, "Taiwan, Province of China" should read 
>"Taiwan Province of China", without comma).
>The authoritative source for the names is not ISO, but the United Nations 
>Statistic Division (see: http://www.un.org/Depts/unsd/methods/). Official 
>bulletins define both the short form, used in day-to-day work, and the 
>long (official) form. Moreover, this list is translated in all official UN 
>languages, and UNSD keeps track of the names of the countries in their 
>native language[s]. First hand, complete and correct information.
>In simple words, the matter is a little bit more complicated than what 
>some Directors have assumed.
>
>Anyway, my personal pick is for a specialised TLD where the Member States 
>of the UN can register one or more SLDs of their choice (to be consistent 
>with the documentation managed by UNSD), and then it is their choice 
>whether they want to use it or not, subdivide geographically, give it to 
>trademarks owners or tourist associations or their national Registry. They 
>can choose if the name will be in English, French, or the national 
>language[s], provided, as I said, that the string is compatible with the 
>UNSD documentation.
>
>My personal thanks to Directors (in alphabetical order) Abril y Abril, 
>Auerbach, Blokzijl, Mueller-Maguhn, Murai, Pisanty, Quaynor, who voted 
>against, arguing that some more thinking was needed before deciding.
>
>Best regards
>Roberto
>
>
>
>_________________________________________________________________
>Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp
>
>--
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>Send mail to [email-masked] to unsubscribe
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Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2001 12:45:50 EDT
From: [email-masked]
Subject: [ga] archives of the domain policy list

- --part1_3a.1afff348.28da25be_boundary
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

Now that VRSN removed them, does anyone maintain archives of the 
domain-policy list, specifically from the 1998 era?

- --part1_3a.1afff348.28da25be_boundary
Content-Type: text/html; charset="US-ASCII"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

<HTML><FONT FACE=arial,helvetica><FONT  SIZE=2>Now that VRSN removed them, does anyone maintain archives of the domain-policy list, specifically from the 1998 era?</FONT></HTML>

- --part1_3a.1afff348.28da25be_boundary--
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------------------------------

Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2001 09:54:31 -0700
From: Mike Roberts <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: [ga] Geographic and Geopolitical Names in .info

Alexander - excellent post on a complicated topic.

The tactical situation is traceable back to a continuing ambiguity 
about the extent to which the DNS namespace is a public resource to 
be allocated through governmental processes versus a private resource 
recently opened to investment and commercialization.

Obviously, what we have today is some of both in a fairly confused 
mix and no well defined boundary line between the two.  In addition 
to the confusion generated by varying national law and culture 
differences, there are philosophical differences.  In the US, we have 
long had the assumption that if a resource has not specifically been 
placed or retained under government management, then it's open for 
private exploitation.  In many parts of the world, the tradition is 
that resources are public unless placed in the private sector.

The newly elected black majority government of South Africa firmly 
believes it is entitled to control of the name of its country in the 
DNS namespace and it is currently litigating an existing registration 
in a US court.  If it loses, I have no doubt that it will seek other 
remedies through national law and international treaty. If it wins, 
there will be an immediate effect on DNS registration policies.

There are deeply felt national identity issues here, and the ICANN 
community against developing country governments is an unequal 
contest, especially when the counter-argument, in the view of the 
governments concerned, is an excess of commercial greed in first 
world countries.

So I think the challenge is to see if we cannot find a middle ground 
which is responsive to the desires of these governments and can 
attract their support, or at least their acquiescence, without unduly 
compromising the flexibility and availability of domain names through 
private sector mechanisms.

- - Mike

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Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2001 10:28:21 -0700
From: Bret Fausett <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: [ga] Geographic and Geopolitical Names in .info

Elisabeth Porteneuve wrote:
> Would you explain why you consider trademarks rights
> more important that countrie's and people's rights ?

One reason you can draw a line between the protection of trademark rights,
which we've already done with the UDRP, and the protection of country names
and personal names is that trademarks are already protected internationally,
in a relatively uniform way, through international treaties. The names of
countries and persons have not enjoyed similar protection.

The Second WIPO report (in sections 65-67, for example) contains a
thoughtful discussion of the need to avoid making new law, as might be
required with the protection of geographic and personal names. It
distinguishes the act of creating new law from applying existing law, as was
putatively done with the UDRP.

In my view, implementing the UDRP but not extending it to geographic and
personal names does not reflect a value judgment that trademark rights are
more important than personal name rights, just the fact that the
international community of nations has come to some documented agreement on
the protections that it will give to trademarks.

     -- Bret

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Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2001 13:38:52 -0400
From: Joanna Lane <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: [ga] Geographic and Geopolitical Names in .info

on 9/19/01 10:59 AM, J. William Semich at [email-masked] wrote:

<snip>

> The key issue here is that a domain name for governments should clearly be
> labeled as just that. And the .gov domain name which is currently "closed
> for US use only", should be opened to other governments to serve that
> purpose internationally, and not the more general .info.
> 
> The purpose and meaning of ".info" should not be twisted to mean "whatever
> a particular government of the day wants you to know."
> 
> Bill Semich
> Internet Users Society - Niue

I concur with Mr Semich. If we wanted to create consumer confusion, we
couldn't have done a better job if we tried. The .info TLD was being sold as
an unchartered TLD and apparently now it is not.

Regards,
Joanna 

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Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2001 13:34:34 -0700
From: Jeff Williams <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: [ga] Geographic and Geopolitical Names in .info

Jefsey and all assembly members,

  I am in agreement with Jefsey.  We [INEGroup] have made it quite clear
where our policy is on this and these sorts of issues.  Domain names regardless

or what TLD name space they reside in, should be determined by a
First come First serve basis.  Neither individuals or countries governments
have a superior right to a domain name, regardless of the similarity to their
respective country names.

Jefsey Morfin wrote:

> Dear Roberto,
> ... and all the independist movements Govs usually do not like, will get
> the same Internet recognition as the country they oppose, only in
> registering the intended country name. UDRP will close in bombs and
> military actions. Will thibet.info be reserved? what about palestine.info?
> euskadi.info, breizh.info and corsica.info will certainly be registered in
> France. I suggest ICANN reserves world.info.  will sioux.info or
> apache.info be seditious?
> This seems crazy to me, I will register "nomore.info" :-)
> Jefsey
>
> On 16:10 19/09/01, Roberto Gaetano said:
> >Elisabeth Porteneuve wrote:
> >>
> >>Would you explain why you consider trademarks rights
> >>more important that countrie's and people's rights ?
> >
> >I am not under the impression that Alexander was considering TM superior
> >rights as the countries' rights.
> >As for the people's rights, I don't see them always better protected by a
> >Government rather than by another body. But that's bringing us away from
> >the scope of the comment.
> >
> >I also think that the reservation of the country name as per ISO-3166 does
> >not make sense at all, and I am very much surprised that the GAC did not
> >notice it. According to the motion voted by ICANN, fancy things will
> >happen, like for instance:
> >- the names "germany.info" and "allemagne.info" will be reserved for
> >Germany, while maybe the German Government would have probably have rather
> >chosen "Deutschland.info", but the latter is not in ISO-3166 (remember
> >that ISO-3166 is bilingual French-English, but does not contain the names
> >in their native language[s]);
> >- very useful and easy to guess strings like "holy see (vatican city
> >state).info" and "macedonia, the former yugoslav republic of.info" will be
> >reserved.
> >
> >Also, ISO-3166 does not define the names of the countries, but their
> >codes: the names are provided for reference to point to the ISO codes. In
> >fact, if you look at ISO-3166 attentively, there are some slight glitches
> >in the names (for instance, "Taiwan, Province of China" should read
> >"Taiwan Province of China", without comma).
> >The authoritative source for the names is not ISO, but the United Nations
> >Statistic Division (see: http://www.un.org/Depts/unsd/methods/). Official
> >bulletins define both the short form, used in day-to-day work, and the
> >long (official) form. Moreover, this list is translated in all official UN
> >languages, and UNSD keeps track of the names of the countries in their
> >native language[s]. First hand, complete and correct information.
> >In simple words, the matter is a little bit more complicated than what
> >some Directors have assumed.
> >
> >Anyway, my personal pick is for a specialised TLD where the Member States
> >of the UN can register one or more SLDs of their choice (to be consistent
> >with the documentation managed by UNSD), and then it is their choice
> >whether they want to use it or not, subdivide geographically, give it to
> >trademarks owners or tourist associations or their national Registry. They
> >can choose if the name will be in English, French, or the national
> >language[s], provided, as I said, that the string is compatible with the
> >UNSD documentation.
> >
> >My personal thanks to Directors (in alphabetical order) Abril y Abril,
> >Auerbach, Blokzijl, Mueller-Maguhn, Murai, Pisanty, Quaynor, who voted
> >against, arguing that some more thinking was needed before deciding.
> >
> >Best regards
> >Roberto
> >
> >
> >
> >_________________________________________________________________
> >Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp
> >
> >--
> >This message was passed to you via the [email-masked] list.
> >Send mail to [email-masked] to unsubscribe
> >("unsubscribe ga" in the body of the message).
> >Archives at http://www.dnso.org/archives.html
>
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Regards,

- --
Jeffrey A. Williams
Spokesman for INEGroup - (Over 118k members strong!)
CEO/DIR. Internet Network Eng/SR. Java/CORBA Development Eng.
Information Network Eng. Group. INEG. INC.
E-Mail [email-masked]
Contact Number:  972-447-1800 x1894 or 214-244-4827
Address: 5 East Kirkwood Blvd. Grapevine Texas 75208

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------------------------------

Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2001 13:41:24 -0700
From: Jeff Williams <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: [ga] Geographic and Geopolitical Names in .info

Mike and all assembly members,

  Although compromise, as you suggest, is always a better overall
solution
to solving policy problems or issues, in this case, compromise is not
likely
to be expectable or especially implimentable in any meaningful way.  Ergo

the respective registries will have to either take a stand on their
individual
registration policies, and be allowed to do so under ICANN registry
accreditation, or registries outside of ICANN purview shall continue
to gain registrants and other support.

Mike Roberts wrote:

> Alexander - excellent post on a complicated topic.
>
> The tactical situation is traceable back to a continuing ambiguity
> about the extent to which the DNS namespace is a public resource to
> be allocated through governmental processes versus a private resource
> recently opened to investment and commercialization.
>
> Obviously, what we have today is some of both in a fairly confused
> mix and no well defined boundary line between the two.  In addition
> to the confusion generated by varying national law and culture
> differences, there are philosophical differences.  In the US, we have
> long had the assumption that if a resource has not specifically been
> placed or retained under government management, then it's open for
> private exploitation.  In many parts of the world, the tradition is
> that resources are public unless placed in the private sector.
>
> The newly elected black majority government of South Africa firmly
> believes it is entitled to control of the name of its country in the
> DNS namespace and it is currently litigating an existing registration
> in a US court.  If it loses, I have no doubt that it will seek other
> remedies through national law and international treaty. If it wins,
> there will be an immediate effect on DNS registration policies.
>
> There are deeply felt national identity issues here, and the ICANN
> community against developing country governments is an unequal
> contest, especially when the counter-argument, in the view of the
> governments concerned, is an excess of commercial greed in first
> world countries.
>
> So I think the challenge is to see if we cannot find a middle ground
> which is responsive to the desires of these governments and can
> attract their support, or at least their acquiescence, without unduly
> compromising the flexibility and availability of domain names through
> private sector mechanisms.
>
> - Mike
>
> --
> --
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Regards,

- --
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CEO/DIR. Internet Network Eng/SR. Java/CORBA Development Eng.
Information Network Eng. Group. INEG. INC.
E-Mail [email-masked]
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Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2001 21:27:52 +0200
From: Jefsey Morfin <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: [ga] Geographic and Geopolitical Names in .info

We could may be extend the UDRP to the new born giving them 15 days to 
respond. If they don't they show their bad faith and they lose their name 
if already in use?

NSI could sell BNs (baby names) (ouhaou what a market!). You could only 
born if you have been delegated a BN (with an ICANN contract never to use 
an open root). This would address the ALSC problem: everyone would be 
entitled to be an @large Member by ... birth (after paying a yearly fee of 
course).

My 2 cents. Jefsey

On 19:28 19/09/01, Bret Fausett said:
>Elisabeth Porteneuve wrote:
> > Would you explain why you consider trademarks rights
> > more important that countrie's and people's rights ?
>
>One reason you can draw a line between the protection of trademark rights,
>which we've already done with the UDRP, and the protection of country names
>and personal names is that trademarks are already protected internationally,
>in a relatively uniform way, through international treaties. The names of
>countries and persons have not enjoyed similar protection.
>
>The Second WIPO report (in sections 65-67, for example) contains a
>thoughtful discussion of the need to avoid making new law, as might be
>required with the protection of geographic and personal names. It
>distinguishes the act of creating new law from applying existing law, as was
>putatively done with the UDRP.
>
>In my view, implementing the UDRP but not extending it to geographic and
>personal names does not reflect a value judgment that trademark rights are
>more important than personal name rights, just the fact that the
>international community of nations has come to some documented agreement on
>the protections that it will give to trademarks.
>
>      -- Bret
>
>--
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Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2001 21:31:57 +0200
From: Jefsey Morfin <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: [ga] Geographic and Geopolitical Names in .info

Dear Mike,
thank you to permit us to share in a so much vivid way what Staff is 
spending its time on. All this is certainly of US-centric international 
cultural fun, but I hardly see what it has to do with the ICANN's mission 
and from where ICANN would gets the necessary double authority on the 
matter (right to decide and competence to decide). The only thing we can 
say for sure is that the naming space is not the ICANN property.

This (absurd IMO) complexity - the "alphabetical" BoD Members start 
acknowledging - results from the complexity of the ICANN contract policy. 
There is a Latin legal say - Michael you probably knows - stipulating that 
no one should take advantage from its own inability to match his own 
obligations. I suggest it becomes the ICANN motto.

I just want to submit that this forum has actually overlooked two major 
questions. The USA (ISO 3166, French part: Union Sud Africaine) will have a 
good UDRP motive: who is going to have "usa.info" ??? Also who is going to 
have "eu.info" : Europe or les Etats Unis ???

I suggest we ask Louis Touton's opinion and call on some urgent advise by 
Joe Sims.
Jefsey

On 18:54 19/09/01, Mike Roberts said:
>Alexander - excellent post on a complicated topic.
>
>The tactical situation is traceable back to a continuing ambiguity about 
>the extent to which the DNS namespace is a public resource to be allocated 
>through governmental processes versus a private resource recently opened 
>to investment and commercialization.
>
>Obviously, what we have today is some of both in a fairly confused mix and 
>no well defined boundary line between the two.  In addition to the 
>confusion generated by varying national law and culture differences, there 
>are philosophical differences.  In the US, we have long had the assumption 
>that if a resource has not specifically been placed or retained under 
>government management, then it's open for private exploitation.  In many 
>parts of the world, the tradition is that resources are public unless 
>placed in the private sector.
>
>The newly elected black majority government of South Africa firmly 
>believes it is entitled to control of the name of its country in the DNS 
>namespace and it is currently litigating an existing registration in a US 
>court.  If it loses, I have no doubt that it will seek other remedies 
>through national law and international treaty. If it wins, there will be 
>an immediate effect on DNS registration policies.
>
>There are deeply felt national identity issues here, and the ICANN 
>community against developing country governments is an unequal contest, 
>especially when the counter-argument, in the view of the governments 
>concerned, is an excess of commercial greed in first world countries.
>
>So I think the challenge is to see if we cannot find a middle ground which 
>is responsive to the desires of these governments and can attract their 
>support, or at least their acquiescence, without unduly compromising the 
>flexibility and availability of domain names through private sector mechanisms.
>
>- Mike
>
>
>--
>--
>This message was passed to you via the [email-masked] list.
>Send mail to [email-masked] to unsubscribe
>("unsubscribe ga" in the body of the message).
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------------------------------

Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2001 14:27:43 -0700
From: Josh Elliott <[email-masked]>
Subject: RE: [ga] Geographic and Geopolitical Names in .info

Bill,

While I understand your point, I still think you are in fantasy world.  The
reality is that the US will not give up .GOV or .MIL.  I suggest we find a
more realistic alternative or just leave the governments of the world to use
their cctld.  Think of .GOV and .MIL as the Internet's donation to the US
gvt for building the Net in the first place.

If we are going to truly have competition among gTLDs, then country names or
ISO-3166 codes should not be protected in the new gTLDs as they are not
protected in .com, .net, and .org.

Josh

- -----Original Message-----
From: [email-masked] [mailto:[email-masked]]On Behalf Of J.
William Semich
Sent: Wednesday, September 19, 2001 7:59 AM
To: Roberto Gaetano; [email-masked];
[email-masked]; [email-masked]
Subject: Re: [ga] Geographic and Geopolitical Names in .info

I strongly recommend that the US Government's DOC release .gov for the use
by all other officially recognized (by the UN?) government/geopolitical
organizations wishing to have their own domain names, and not reserve
geopolitical names in .info for government use. Then at least the
"consumers" of information on the Internet will know when they are at an
official government site, and can judge the quality and truthfulness of the
information presented in that light.

For example, Afghanistan.gov would clearly have information that is
sanctioned and approved by the government of Afghanistan; but
Afghanistan.info may have more complete, and objective, information, if it
is allowed to be registered by an independent source of information about
Afghanistan (perhaps the Encyclopedia Britannica or some other reliable
source of information.) The same would hold for usa.info and others.

The key issue here is that a domain name for governments should clearly be
labeled as just that. And the .gov domain name which is currently "closed
for US use only", should be opened to other governments to serve that
purpose internationally, and not the more general .info.

The purpose and meaning of ".info" should not be twisted to mean "whatever
a particular government of the day wants you to know."

Bill Semich
Internet Users Society - Niue

At 02:10 PM 9/19/01 +0000, Roberto Gaetano wrote:
>Elisabeth Porteneuve wrote:
>>
>>Would you explain why you consider trademarks rights
>>more important that countrie's and people's rights ?
>
>I am not under the impression that Alexander was considering TM superior
>rights as the countries' rights.
>As for the people's rights, I don't see them always better protected by a
>Government rather than by another body. But that's bringing us away from
>the scope of the comment.
>
>I also think that the reservation of the country name as per ISO-3166 does
>not make sense at all, and I am very much surprised that the GAC did not
>notice it. According to the motion voted by ICANN, fancy things will
>happen, like for instance:
>- the names "germany.info" and "allemagne.info" will be reserved for
>Germany, while maybe the German Government would have probably have rather
>chosen "Deutschland.info", but the latter is not in ISO-3166 (remember
>that ISO-3166 is bilingual French-English, but does not contain the names
>in their native language[s]);
>- very useful and easy to guess strings like "holy see (vatican city
>state).info" and "macedonia, the former yugoslav republic of.info" will be
>reserved.
>
>Also, ISO-3166 does not define the names of the countries, but their
>codes: the names are provided for reference to point to the ISO codes. In
>fact, if you look at ISO-3166 attentively, there are some slight glitches
>in the names (for instance, "Taiwan, Province of China" should read
>"Taiwan Province of China", without comma).
>The authoritative source for the names is not ISO, but the United Nations
>Statistic Division (see: http://www.un.org/Depts/unsd/methods/). Official
>bulletins define both the short form, used in day-to-day work, and the
>long (official) form. Moreover, this list is translated in all official UN
>languages, and UNSD keeps track of the names of the countries in their
>native language[s]. First hand, complete and correct information.
>In simple words, the matter is a little bit more complicated than what
>some Directors have assumed.
>
>Anyway, my personal pick is for a specialised TLD where the Member States
>of the UN can register one or more SLDs of their choice (to be consistent
>with the documentation managed by UNSD), and then it is their choice
>whether they want to use it or not, subdivide geographically, give it to
>trademarks owners or tourist associations or their national Registry. They
>can choose if the name will be in English, French, or the national
>language[s], provided, as I said, that the string is compatible with the
>UNSD documentation.
>
>My personal thanks to Directors (in alphabetical order) Abril y Abril,
>Auerbach, Blokzijl, Mueller-Maguhn, Murai, Pisanty, Quaynor, who voted
>against, arguing that some more thinking was needed before deciding.
>
>Best regards
>Roberto
>
>
>
>_________________________________________________________________
>Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp
>
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End of GA-DIGEST V1 #748
************************