DNSO Archives: [council]

ICANN/DNSO
Draft Names Council resolution on the reservation of geographical and geopolitical names
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Whereas,
in a communiqué made by the Government Advisory Council (GAC) at its
Montevideo meeting
http://www.icann.org/committees/gac/communique-09sep01.htm
"the GAC recommends that the names of countries and distinct economies,
particularly those contained in the ISO 3166-1 standard, as applied by ICANN
in identifying ccTLDs, should be reserved by the .info Registry, (or if
registered in the Sunrise Period challenged by the Registry and, if
successful, then reserved) in Latin characters in their official language(s)
and in English and assigned to the corresponding governments and public
authorities, at their request, for use. These names in other IDN character
sets should be reserved in the same way as soon as they become available"

Whereas,
in the same communiqué the GAC further "draws the attention of ICANN and the
Registries to the fact that a large number of other names, including
administrative sub-divisions of countries and distinct economies as
recognised in international fora, may give rise to contested registrations.
Accordingly the GAC recommends that Registrars and eventual Registrants
should be made aware of this".

Whereas,
the ICANN Board in reaction to this communiqué has initiated an action plan
http://www.icann.org/montevideo/action-plan-country-names-09oct01.htm
and that following a request from ICANN, Afilias, the dot info registry, has
in September 2001 reserved around 130 ISO 3166-1 standard names and their
equivalents in official languages.

Whereas,
in this action plan the Board will establish a discussion group comprising
Board and GAC members on the ISO 3166-1 names and has called upon the DNSO
to consider the longer-term issue of other geographical identifiers,

Whereas,
the recent report from WIPO The Recognition of Rights and the Use of Names
in the Internet Domain Name System
http://wipo2.wipo.int/process2/report
(WIPO-2) concludes:
"For geographical identifiers, ? it is recognized that certain norms exist
at the international level which prohibit false and deceptive indications of
geographical source on goods and which protect geographical indications, or
the names of geographical localities with which goods having particular
characteristics derived from that locality are associated. However, these
rules apply to trade in goods and may require some adaptation to deal with
the perceived range of problems with the misuse of geographical indications
in the DNS. Furthermore, the lack of an international agreed list of
geographical indications would pose significant problems for the application
of the UDRP in this area because of the need to make difficult choices of
applicable law. It is suggested that the international framework in this
area needs to be further advanced before an adequate solution is available
to the misuse of geographical indications in the DNS. As far as other
geographical terms are concerned, the Report produces considerable evidence
of the widespread registration of the names of countries, places within
countries and indigenous peoples as domain names by persons unassociated
with the countries, places or peoples. However, these areas are not covered
by existing international laws and a decision needs to be taken as to
whether such laws ought to be developed".

Whereas,
the WIPO report shows that seeking to extend coverage to anything narrower
that the ISO 3166 country list is fraught with problems some of which have
occupied the WTO and other fora for years due to conflicts arising:

   * between geo-political indicators e.g. Venice Italy, Venice CA; Los
     Angeles California USA, Los Angeles Panama City Panama.
   * between geographical indicators and descriptors e.g. Chablis (French
     wine region and Chablis-style wines from California).
   * between geographical indications and trademarks e.g. Torres (a
     Portuguese village that grows vines and Torres, a Spanish winemaker),
   * between geo-political and geographic indications of origin e.g. Parma
     the town and Parma ham.

Whereas,
the further work recommended in the WIPO-2 report has already been scheduled
in two upcoming sessions of the WIPO Standing Committee on the Law of
Trademarks, Industrial Designs and Geographical Indications, with the
deadline of reporting to the WIPO General Assembly for consideration before
September, 2002.

Whereas,
the recent expansion of top-level domain names by ICANN has been a limited
rather cautious test and included the names dot biz, dot name and dot info
as well as chartered domain names, and that the implication of this
expansion is that there are more to come in the near future.

Whereas,
the dot info registry has adopted the UDRP to enable the return of names
acquired in bad faith.

Whereas,
the ICANN Board has approved initiatives relating to Multilingual Domain
Names and these initiatives have yet to complete their work,

The Names Council advises:
1. That while it understands the concerns of the GAC, caution should be
exercised to avoid a short-term reaction to a problem that is not inherent
to dot info but a function of a restriction in the supply of domain names.
2. That retrospective action of the kind GAC seeks in other domain names is
damaging to suppliers and confusing to users.
3. That, due to the inherent complexity, the best forum for governments to
seek solutions to the problems perceived by the GAC is the existing forum of
such expertise, namely the inter-governmental specialised UN agency, the
World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO).

The Names Council therefore calls upon the ICANN Board:
a) to recommend to the GAC that it reconsiders its recommendation in this
matter in the light of the work already in progress at WIPO following the
recent WIPO report The Recognition of Rights and the Use of Names in the
Internet Domain Name System,
b) to encourage the GAC and all interested parts of the ICANN structure to
contribute to WIPO?s work in this respect.
c) to invite the Names Council to participate in the discussion group on ISO
3166-1 names.
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Information from: © DNSO Names Council

[council]

[council] Draft NC resolution GAC