There's No 'I' in .US —continued

The terms of the RFQ document have raised red flags with advocates everywhere. Here are some of the factors that will prove to the NTIA a business is a viable candidate:

• Administer the domain at no cost to the government.
• Have a plan in writing describing how to expand the number of registrants on the domain.
• Implement a "sunrise policy" for trademark owners.
• Have a plan in place to allow only people from the U.S. to own the domain.
• Implement a Uniform Domain Name Resolution Procedure (UDRP).
• Abide by government advisory committee principles to avoid conflicts with U.S. law.
• Submit and publicize a progress report six months after taking over the ccTLD, to prove the company is abiding by its obligations.

Kathryn Kleiman, director of the Association for Computing Machinery's (ACM) Internet governance project, said the NTIA's insistence to include measures like the UDRP—political compromises brokered and written by Louis Touton, ICANN general counsel, to appease big corporations and small domain players alike—infringe on basic U.S. First Amendment rights.

"The requirement of UDRP is extremely dangerous," Kleiman said. "It is not consistent with the rights and protections existing under the U.S. First Amendment. The first amendment protections are much broader than what are given to people who use the UDRP, which is not a fair and accurate reflection of the balance, under U.S. law, of the trademark rights of all. This will create a problem in the .us domain space.

In fact, both policies are currently under fire at ICANN, as more and more resolutions end up favoring big business and leaving the entrepreneur and non-commercial domain registrants with the short end of the stick.

Kleiman, one of several advisors during the drafting of the UDRP, said that with as many problems as the measure is facing in the international arena, applying it to the .us domain space will spell disaster. Also, the inclusion of a sunrise policy, which allows trademark owners to reserve their domain name before any others can take it, is inherently flawed and unnecessary.

"We have the anti cybersquatting Act, so we don't need the UDRP or sunrise policy," Kleiman said. "We also have the history of the UDRP, which shows it overwhelmingly and unfairly favors trademark owners over anyone else. We have to fix the UDRP first: it's not appropriate to extend it anywhere else, particularly the U.S."

The ACM joined a growing list of organizations that includes Congressmen and schools when it sent a letter to Department of Commerce Chairman Donald Evens, calling for an extension to the RFQ process. Letters have been pouring into Evan's office lately, letters the DoC will be hard-pressed to brush off with glib reassurances.

The Senate Commerce Committee also threw its weight behind opposing the RFQ process, with a letter asking for a delay until the DoC names a new NTIA director, which has been left unfilled since Bush came into office and named Evans to the DoC.

Ernest Hollings, Commerce chairman, proposed a non-profit organization to take the reins.

"Several organizations have proposed that this domain be administered by a non-profit entity that would use any profits from registering domain names for activities which would promote the public interest," Hollings wrote to Evans. "This seems consistent with the Administration's interest in promoting competition for domain names while at the same time allowing this resource to continue to benefit the public."

DoC spokesperson Ensslin said the agency plans on responding to lawmaker and organization concerns publicly in the near future, but was unable to comment on whether that would be before or after the RFQ date.

— End

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