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[ispcp] .xxx Briefing Notes

  • To: ispcp@xxxxxxxxx
  • Subject: [ispcp] .xxx Briefing Notes
  • From: Mark McFadden <mcfadden@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Fri, 26 Jan 2007 10:30:28 -0600
  • Organization: 21st Century Texts
  • Reply-to: mcfadden@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Sender: owner-ispcp@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • User-agent: Thunderbird 1.5.0.9 (Windows/20061207)

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Internet Service Provider and Connectivity Provider Constituency
Generic Names Supporting Organization
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NOTES - Conference Call for .xxx Briefing

Mark McFadden and Tony Harris represented the ISPCP on this conference call. These notes are a very rough guide to the conversation during the call. A PowerPoint presentation was made available to the participants and it is attached to this message.

The ICM Registry CEO gave an overview of the .xxx application and the process that they have been going through. In March of 2004 ICM Registry submitted the sTLD application and in June of 2005 the ICANN Board determined that the ICM proposal met the published the sTLD criteria. In May of 2006 the ICANN Board rejected proposed registry agreements. In January 2007 ICANN posted a revised, negotiated registry agreement.

The ICM Registry claims significant support for the proposal -- however, they are not making the organizations that have supported the proposal available to the public. ICM's Registry has a pre-registration service that is already in place.

ICM is reserving expanded geographic identifiers as well as a list of names that will not be available for registry. The ICM CEO stressed that there are strict eligibility requirements -- they must be members of the online adult community. The ICM Registry makes a distinction between non-resolving strings and resolving strings (the resolving string holders have to be members of the online adult community, those who are not resolving the strings would not have to be members of the adult services community).

Regarding whois: they will be supporting proxy services that are approved by ICM. Holder data will be verified and retained by the ICM registry. Marilyn Cade brought up the problem of performance of the proxy service provider. The ICM CEO said that this would be addressed in performance contracts between ICM and the proxy agents. The proxy agents would probably be the lawyers of those adult industry participants. A significant part of the discussion revolved around the ability to use proxy services. For those names that are not resolving, there will not be a significant verification of the holder of the name.

Non-resolving names can never become resolving names according to the rules of the registry. Non-resolving names can be registered by anyone for any reason. There is no qualification rule for non-resolving names. IP holders do not want to have to go after all the possible variants of a trademark holders registered names.

There was significant discussion about mechanisms that could be used to abuse trademark or IP in either non-resolving strings or in the potential of moving a non-resolving name to resolving status. Much of the discussion was technical legal discussion surrounding the protection of servicemarks and trademarks.

ICM has also been offering (since may of 2006) a free "Pre-Reservation service to IP holders. This gives trademark holders a chance to reserve non-resolving strings.

If, during the pre-registration period, there is only one registration for a name, that organization will get to register that string. There will be a fee for "stop" requests made by trademark holders.

ICRA will be relaunched on the 13th of February of this year as the Family Online Safety Institute (FOSI). FOSI's mission will be to be a body where technology and policy stakeholders meet in the field of family online safety. Founding members include AOL, AT&T, BT, Cisco, CompTIA, the GSM Association, Microsoft, RuleSpace, SolarSoft, Telmex and Verizon. ICM is in negotiations at this time regarding how its sites will be labeled.

Questions outside Intellectual Property concerns were ruled out of order and not allowed on the call.

Becky Burr said that, if the ICANN Board approved the registry agreement, they would still have time to address the policy issues that came up regarding IP during the call. The ICANN Board, it was noted, approved the application to be added into the root. The issue on the table now is the contract. The inital contract was rejected on concenrs about policy development commitments. Becky Burr offered to get together with anyone in Washington DC. Becky offered to answer questions via email.

The conference call ended after 60 minutes.



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