ICANN vs. ICANNWatch: An Interview with Opponents in the Domain Space Playoffs
When the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) was created in November 1998, the fledgling organization had little idea that its decisions would carry so much weight and create the broadside of contention that has dominated the domain name headlines in the past months.
Now the object of criticism for public interest groups and concerned Web users worldwide, ICANN is treading carefully. Common Cause and the Center for Democracy and Technology, for example, exposed the organization's election procedures in a report, calling ICANN "undemocratic" and driving ICANN to change its policies.
And ICANNWatch, a watchdog group of three Internet law-savvy activists, monitors ICANN's actions vigilantly. ICANNWatch believes "nothing is of greater importance to the future of the global resource that is the Internet than the way in which ICANN performs its role as manager of the domain name system."
The group has devoted its energy to an informational Web site, which "serves as a place where people can see the other side of the story." As ICANNWatch puts it, the site is "a kind of hill overlooking the often chaotic information landscape from which anyone seeking a better understanding ... can survey the ever-changing terrain."
Truly, the rules and regulations are changing so rapidly that trying to keep the facts straight becomes a confusing and difficult undertaking. So journalist Crystal Dreisbach asked to talk to the big contenders in the domain game directly.
Point, Counterpoint
An ICANN spokesperson (who asked not to be identified) and David Farber (who is one of the three ICANNWatch founders, telecommunications professor at the University of Pennsylvania, and chief technologist at the Federal Communications Commission) were both asked to explain exactly what ICANN is doing and how it's dealing with its controversial policy making, and also to add what they each see in the future of the domain name space.
Interestingly, many of their responses are drastically different. ICANN, for example, claims that the organization is responsible only for the "technical management of domain names, IP addresses, and Internet protocol," but ICANNWatch says that ICANN's decisions, "while originally restricted to those dealing with the management the domain name space, go far beyond that."
And while ICANN reports that its board is successfully coming to conclusions about how the new top-level domain names will be introduced and is setting guidelines for the upcoming at-large board member election, ICANNWatch divulges that ICANN's "big headache and controversy right now is the very touchy question of trademarks and domain names." ICANN has to figure out what to do about that, says ICANNWatch, because the issue, which involves intellectual property rights and trademark ownership, is "quicksand."
ICANN's other major task, ICANNWatch says, is to deal with .com value issues and the new top-level domain names, in which "big companies with their powerful commercial interests are playing their usual mean games."
So here's the interview. Read what each side has to say, and judge for yourself.
Q: Will new top-level domain names be available on a first come, first served basis? Won't problems come as a result of that?
ICANN: That's still an issue to be discussed. ICANN has already had a lot of problems with first come, first served policy in the original three top-level domains.
Basically, before we release the new domains, we have to figure out how to make sure it's not a giant land rush, where everybody runs out and gets their .com domain names in the new domains. That wouldn't help anything anyway. We're just not sure how to prevent that yet.
ICANNWatch: It will be a nightmare. The headache all starts when people try to interpret what they believe is trademark law into the Internet space. In the trademark world, if I have a hardware store called Ford, the Ford Motor Co. can't touch me. But when you go into the Internet world, Ford Motor Co. will complain that Ford Hardware violated its trademark if [ Ford Motor Co.] had the name first.
The worst part of it all is that all this is not a good thing for small businesses. Small companies are going to get beaten up endlessly by big companies, because the big companies will claim rights to the names the little guys register under the new top-level domains -- even if the little guys register them first.
Q: How will ICANN resolve trademark disputes that will arise from the new top-level domain names?
ICANN: The Uniform Domain-Name Dispute-Resolution Policy (UDRP) is a three-part test. First, the name has to be trademarked or copyrighted in some way, somewhere. Secondly, the person who has used the name has to have no legal rights to the name. And three, the person who has used the name has to have acted in "bad faith" in some way.
So it's pretty tailored, and it all works online. There are currently three providers of arbitration services. The complainant pays the cost of the arbitration provider [ and] files a complaint with all the specifics and details, the person who holds the domain name can respond, and then the arbitrator will make a decision. If the person who holds the name doesn't like the decision, they have 10 days to file a lawsuit. But if they don't choose to, then the name has to be transferred. So it's mandatory arbitration, but it's not binding.
