Representatives of governments and ICANN bodies are going to clash for the first time since the IANA functions stewardship transition. However, the topic of discussion has nothing to do with IANA functions transfer but the situation could be a reason for heated debate and speculation. The issue in question is mechanisms of protection of intergovernmental organizations’ acronyms in gTLDs, such as, for example, WIPO (World Intellectual Property Organization) or WHO (World Health Organization). These mechanisms have been discussed for several years already with no success. The problem is that GAC (Governmental Advisory Committee) is seeking a total ban on registration of these acronyms by anyone apart from the intergovernmental organizations (IGOs) themselves. However, GNSO (Generic Names Supporting Organization) believes that IGOs must abide by the same rules as trademarks and brands and if necessary deal with problems through domain name dispute-resolution policies UDRP and URS.
Domain Incite reports that it was a GNSO working group that was meant to develop recommendations on this issue. However, at the same time representatives of GAC and ICANN Board members created a “small group” to discuss the issue. Several days ago it has published its recommendations. First and foremost, ahead of GNSO, secondly, expressing the same view that GNSO believes to be false. Chairman of the GNSO working group Phil Corwin was outraged. In his statement he highlights that government representatives contacted ICANN management directly and violated corporation’s rules. Moreover, this case is a very unpleasant incident. Opponents of IANA functions stewardship transition to the Internet community were mostly worried that governments and IGOs would pressure ICANN. Now they have a bargaining chip. They can claim that today governments are pushing mechanisms of names protection beneficial for them, tomorrow they will start censuring global network. Actually Phil Corwin himself gave a reason for such speculation. In the statement he pointed out that the fact that the “small group” published its recommendations after the US government lost its controlling functions was no coincidence. Supposedly, this situation could become a subject of heated discussions during the upcoming ICANN meeting in Hyderabad.
