ICANN has a public comment period for the Final Report from the EPDP on Specific Curative Rights Protections for IGOs, which proposes to harm registrants’ rights, by making IGOs (intergovernmental organizations like the UN) exempt from the mutual jurisdiction clause of the UDRP/URS. This would mean that a domain owner’s rights to judicial review of an adverse UDRP/URS decision would be prejudiced.
Our comments can be read on the ICANN site, along with all the other public comment submissions. [including those of the Internet Commerce Association]
We submitted 3 separate PDFs:
Those pressed for time might want to jump directly to section 10 of the January 30, 2023 PDF, to get a sense of our major concerns, and then circle back to all the rest later. The deadline for comments is later today (23:59 UTC time, January 30, 2023), so there are only a few hours left (as of the time of this blog post) to be heard. You might want to endorse the comments of those you agree with (perhaps us or the ICA), if you’re concerned about these issues and don’t have time to submit a detailed comment.
Here’s the “Final Thoughts” section from the January 30, 2023 PDF above.
In conclusion, the Board should reject the final report in its entirety. It’s the product of a demonstrably captured group. The final report itself is internally inconsistent. As discussed in section 10 above, the working group has no rational or credible basis for “believing” that they’re preserving registrant rights on page 16 of the final report, when on page 20 they admit that they are prejudicing those same rights. It shocks the conscience that they could even put forth such a fatally flawed final report that contradicts itself. It’s a fundamentally dishonest document, that cannot be repaired or tweaked. It must be discarded. Those who advanced this final report should be held accountable for wasting the time and resources of the organization, and for disrespecting the public’s input.
The working group did not meaningfully review the public comments to the initial report. They can’t “show their work” in how they arrived at their recommendations in light of the feedback to their initial report, as they simply didn’t do the work.
The working group ignored the Board’s own past guidance to not provide IGOs with rights greater than that which exists under international law. Instead, the recommendations directly harm domain name registrants, adopting a “win-lose” approach rather than a “win-win” approach.
As a way forward, we strongly urge consideration and adoption of a “Notice of Objection” system, as it can provide strong benefits to IGOs, while simultaneously preserving the full legal rights of domain name registrants. It’s a true win-win solution, and we would be willing to assist ICANN and the community to design a solution that all stakeholders can support.