[Urgent] [Public Comment] Proposed Renewal of .org Registry Agreement

[Mitch Stoltz]

I agree with Amr that the letter should also oppose applying Trademark 
Claims to .ORG, for essentially the same reasons that the letter opposes 
the application of URS. As registrants in .ORG are generally not 
commercial entities, the message conveyed by Trademark Claims notices 
about the possibility of trademark infringement will often be 
inapplicable, and frequently misleading. The notices would give the 
impression that a nonprofit entity's noncommercial use of a word or 
phrase in a domain name is likely to infringe a trademark, which is 
incorrect.
   Mitch

Mitch Stoltz
Senior Staff Attorney, EFF | 415-436-9333 x142
https://www.eff.org/donate | https://act.eff.org/

On 4/25/19 12:30 PM, Mueller, Milton L wrote:
>
> I agree with the letter’s discussion of URS and other RPMs. I agree 
> with Amr that we may need to moderate the language about “unilateral 
> ICANN action” however because PIR may indeed have gone along with this.
>
> On the issue of price caps, I think we need some factual 
> clarification. If Amr is right and the potential price increases only 
> apply to new registrants, then there is much less of an issue. The 
> proposed renewal says “Protections for existing registrants will 
> remain in place, in line with the base registry agreement.“
>
> What, exactly, are those “protections for existing registrants”?
>
> MM
>
> *From:*NCSG-Discuss <NCSG-DISCUSS at LISTSERV.SYR.EDU> *On Behalf Of *Amr 
> Elsadr
> *Sent:* Thursday, April 25, 2019 10:33 AM
> *To:* NCSG-DISCUSS at LISTSERV.SYR.EDU
> *Subject:* Re: [Urgent] [Public Comment] Proposed Renewal of .org 
> Registry Agreement
>
> Hi,
>
> Thanks for sharing this, Rafik. Speaking for myself, I very much agree 
> with the comment on adding the new gTLD Rights Protection Mechanisms 
> (RPMs) to the PIR contract for .org at this time. As the draft comment 
> rightly points out, these RPMs will not actually be Consensus Policies 
> until after the ICANN Board adopts the recommendations of the Review 
> of all RPMs in all gTLDs PDP Working Group, and should not apply to 
> any of the legacy gTLDs, including .org. However to characterize the 
> decision to do so as a unilateral ICANN decision is something I’m not 
> sure of. I presume that PIR negotiated this with ICANN before the 
> public comment period began? I might be wrong, as I’m making an 
> assumption here.
>
> To be clear, the RPMs that would be applicable here (if I’m not 
> mistaken) are the Uniform Rapid Suspension (URS) and the Trademark 
> Claims RPM (part of the Trademark Clearing House), but not the Sunrise 
> Registrations RPM, obviously, since .org has been around for a while.
>
> Substantively, I don’t believe the URS will be much of an issue, since 
> it is largely deemed to be an unappealing mechanism for use by 
> Trademark holders, as the stats and anecdotal evidence that has been 
> shared to date indicate. The impact of Trademark Claims, on the other 
> hand, might be very different, and prior to it being reviewed by the 
> RPMs PDP, and adopted as an ICANN policy, I don’t believe adding it to 
> the .org contract in a renewal is a good move.
>
> On the second issue, where the draft comment disagrees with removing 
> price caps for .org registrations, I’m pretty sure I don’t agree with 
> the rationale or conclusion. I don’t believe PIR’s status as a 
> non-profit entity justifies this. IMO, it imposes unreasonable 
> obligations on PIR that other Registry Operators are not subject to, 
> so effectively penalizing PIR for its status, and its continued 
> mission to /“support many excellent causes”/, as pointed out in the draft.
>
> Furthermore, there is little to no evidence that I can see (at least 
> in the draft) that registrants of .org domain names will be negatively 
> impacted by removal of the price cap. My understanding is that this 
> will mainly impact new registrations, not existing ones, but this 
> isn’t addressed at all.
>
> To me, PIR needs to set its own price taking in to consideration their 
> own consumer base. If they make bad decisions that drive their 
> customers away, I don’t believe this will negatively impact 
> registrants as much as it would PIR itself, especially considering 
> that there are over a thousand gTLDs for registrants to migrate to, 
> should they choose to do so.
>
> Thanks.
>
> Amr
>
>
>
>     On Apr 25, 2019, at 3:59 PM, Rafik Dammak <rafik.dammak at GMAIL.COM
>     <mailto:rafik.dammak at GMAIL.COM>> wrote:
>
>     Hi all,
>
>     We have a suggested draft comment ( attached) on proposed renewal
>     of .org agreement
>     https://www.icann.org/public-comments/org-renewal-2019-03-18-en .
>     The deadline for submission is the 29th April and for NCSG PC to
>     review and endorse. Please share your comments abd input.
>
>     Best Regards,
>
>     Rafik
>
>     <Org Letter Rev.docx>
>

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