[wg-review] [WG A, B, C and DNSO][Names Council] DNSO Review

[Sotiropoulos <sotiris@hermesnetwork.com>]

I have included an excerpt from a review of the DNSO that I'm sure many of you will find interesting: 

"Review of the Domain Name Supporting Organization
by Jonathan Weinberg, <weinberg@msen.com>"

"IV. DNSO Responsibilities

To what extent has the DNSO fulfilled the responsibilities in A, B and C?

 The DNSO has not fulfilled its policy-development responsibilities to any meaningful extent, and has played little role in domain name policy
development.  On the one hand, Working Group A was able to develop a UDRP proposal, and the Names Council did approve that proposal.  But
Working Group A's plan was the target of considerable criticism on process and substantive grounds; the Names Council's approval was without 
extensive discussion and amounted to a rubber stamp.  The ICANN Board reacted by setting aside the proposal in favor of a different one drafted by a
registrars' group, with the caveat that the new plan would be modified further by Louis Touton in consultation with persons chosen by ICANN staff.  The 
final plan owed little to the proposal that emerged from the DNSO.

 With respect to protections for the holders of "famous" trademarks against the registration of second-level domains similar or identical to those marks, the 
DNSO was unable to generate any coherent recommendations.   The Names Council issued a statement, but that statement had little content.  While the 
Names Council managed to recommend that "there should be varying degrees of protection for intellectual property during the startup phase of new top-
level domains," the statement stopped there; it did not speak at all to the nature and strength of that protection or how it should be achieved.

 Finally, when it came to the addition of new generic top-level domains, the Names Council produced a statement of stunning generality.  ICANN staff 
were hardly constrained in crafting their own proposal to the board; they responded by preparing a discussion document that requested public comment 
on 74 policy and technical questions that would have to be answered in connection with the rollout of new TLDs. Those questions, in turn, were just a 
subset of those that staff might have chosen to ask. Almost none of the key policy issues raised by the deployment of new top-level domains were 
addressed by the Names Council; they were left to be decided, either explicitly or sub silentio, by the ICANN staff and board. Indeed, the key policy 
decisions relating to adding new gTLDs, as well as a proposed country code top-level domain for the European Union, are currently being handled by 
ICANN staff, under the supervision of the board, with no DNSO participation."

I recommend that those interested in the above read the rest of this Review at:  http://www.law.wayne.edu/weinberg/dnso_review.htm

Sotiris Sotiropoulos
          Hermes Network, Inc.