RE: Registrar accreditation, WIPO, and the end of freedom.

["William X. Walsh" <william@dso.net>]

>  Guidelines for Accreditation of Internet Domain Name Registrars
>  (http://www.icann.org/draftguidelines.html#IIC)
>  
>  "In addition, the proposed accreditation agreement includes various
>  provisions relevant to, although not necessarily motivated by, trademark
>  concerns, which should make it possible to implement promptly most of the
>  provisions in the WIPO Interim Report, in the event those
>  recommendations are adopted in the future." 
>  
>  "ICANN's full consideration of the WIPO recommendations should await the
>  final WIPO report. However, many of the WIPO recommendations appear to serve
>  the goals of the accreditation process, particularly where the provisions
>  also address functional (i.e. non-trademark) needs of the DNS. In these
>  cases, provisions similar to the WIPO recommendations have been included in
>  this proposal. These include: 
>   
>  Prepayment of registration fee
>  
>  Registration for fixed periods
>  
>  Excluded SLD names
>  
>  Written registration agreement required
>  
>  Contact information
>  
>  Representation by domain name holder that
>  use will not infringe third party's legal rights 
>  
>  Domain name holder's consent to jurisdiction
>  
>  Suspension, cancellation, or transfer of SLD assigned by mistake or where
>  there is a dispute."

So now ICANN will not repeat NSI's mistakes, but instead will go them one
better by adopting a set of rules that creates a Supra Level set of protections
for trademark holders.

Anyone who still wants to claim that WIPO is a neutral third party without an
agenda please let me know.  I have a bridge you might be interested in, cheap,
as only the naive could continue to stick to that statement.


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E-Mail: William X. Walsh <william@dso.net>
Date: 10-Feb-99
Time: 01:29:09
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