Internet Commerce Association - ICA

ICA Counsel Philip Corwin recently traveled to San Francisco to present ICA’s views to the Implementation Recommendation Team (IRT) created by  the ICANN Board to propose “solutions” addressing the concerns of trademark owners about new gTLDs. The IRT letter of invitation noted ICA’s filing of a request for investigation by ICANN’s ombudsman, alleging that the IRT is an ICANN “constituent body”  and as such is failing to comply with key aspects of ICANN Bylaws; it stated that the decision to invite us had been made prior to that filing and that the invitation in no way conceded any agreement with the points raised in our complaint. The ICA Board considered the invitation and concluded that, notwithstanding our strong concerns about the IRT’s procedures and composition, we would be failing our members if we did not take the opportunity to bring our policy views directly to it and engage in dialogue with its members. Our acceptance letter noted that our presence at the meeting should not be construed as conceding any of the issues we raised with the Ombudsman.

On Friday, April 24th the Department of Commerce’s National
Telecommunications and Information Administration posted a Notice of
Inquiry (NOI) requesting comment on the upcoming September 30, 2009
expiration of the current Joint Project Agreement (JPA) with ICANN. The
NOI can be found at http://edocket.access.gpo.gov/2009/E9-9409.htm

as well as

The ICA has just submitted a formal request to Mr. Frank Fowlie, ICANN Ombudsman, requesting an immediate investigation of the non-compliance of the Implementation Recommendation Team (IRT) with applicable provisions of ICANN’s Bylaws. The IRT was created by a March Resolution adopted by the ICANN Board during its Mexico City meeting, and was charged with proposing “solutions” to the concerns of trademark holders.

The Internet Commerce Association today joined in a
Friend-of-the-Court brief filed with the Kentucky Supreme Court urging
it to uphold the decision of the Court of Appeals that domain names are
not “gambling devices” subject to seizure under Kentucky law. Other
organizations signing this brief were the Center for Democracy and
Technology (CDT), Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and the American

The comment period on Version two of ICANN’s Draft Applicant Guidebooks for new gTLDs closed on April 13th, and the ICA submitted the comment letter below to apprise ICANN of our views on this critically important proposal for DNS expansion.

We read and hear a lot of complaints from trademark interests about allegedly rampant cybersquatting and other forms of trademark infringement, but it’s rare to see a story about reverse domain name hijacking and other abuses committed by them.

The U.S. Department of Commerce’s (DOC) National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) oversees the current Joint Project Agreement (JPA) with ICANN and will be responsible for recommending whether that arrangement should be terminated or extended when the current JPA expires in September.

On April 5th ICA filed a comment letter with ICANN in regard to a proposal to establish a CyberSafety Constituency. While sharing concerns about pornography and other offensive and inappropriate content that children may be exposed when they access the Internet, we urged ICANN to reject the proposal.

As reported on Domain Name Wire here, a recent decision by an arbitrator for the National Arbitration Forum provides another example of a UDRP decision that stretches both the intent of the UDRP and the limitations of trademark law. The panelist ordered the transfer of a seemingly generic domain citing that subsequent registration of a domain name, previously used by a Complainant, automatically indicates bad faith on the part of the new owner unless contrary evidence is provided.