IGOs divide internet community on DNS

Experts in the global internet community may have differed on giving special privileges to international treaty rights in the Domain Name System (DNS).

Some of the experts who commented on this subject, said there are various ways and argument there are similar, for the Red Cross and Islamic Organisation Congress (IOC) to name a few.

One of those experts from the global internet community who commented on this subject of special privileges for international treaty rights on DNS included David Cake, Konstantinos Komaitis, Adam Peake among others.

For Dr. Konstantinos Komaitis, Senior Lecturer, Director of Postgraduate Instructional Courses and Director of LLM Information Technology and Telecommunications Law at University of Strathclyde, lamented that there is a very bad precedent set by ICANN, the global internet coordinating body with the fact that ICANN was willing to entertain the demands (partial) of IOC and the Red Cross would inevitably create problems and it has.

International Non-Government Organisations (IGOs), he beliefs should have the same rights as these two organizations, and they sort of have a point if one puts all of them within the same basket of treaty organizations.

He noted that but considering the fact that the issue here is much bigger there should be clear that ICANN is neither a legislator nor an enforcer of trademark rights.

“What these organizations are asking ICANN is to interpret trademark law treaties, thus its just huge and problematic,” he said.

Avri in her submission, stated that the Generic Names Supporting Organization (GNSO), should absolutely not throw this issue in with Red Cross and IOC issues like International Maritime Organisation (IMO), which should come out fairly strongly against this idea that the Reserved Name should be expanded on a general public interest idea.

For Dave Cake the position could be argued that treaties or legislation granting special rights to the IOC and RC have strong arguments against them, hence they have nevertheless been ratified or passed and it is not ICANNs position to reopen the issue but simply to acknowledge decisions already made.

According to him, while the other rights being asked for are not currently reflected in legislation or treaty, and it is within ICANNs purview to review and reject if appropriate requests to grant new rights.

“I’m not saying I personally take this position. I personally think the IOC request is an ambit claim and the case in favour is insufficient. But I think that someone who takes the IOC and RC treaty justification seriously could quite consistently accept the IOC and RC positions, while rejecting the other IGOs seeking to protect their acronyms,” he said, stressing that the RC case for special treatment is considerably stronger than the IOCs, and the IOCs case far stronger than the other IGOs.

He insisted that three different cases should be argued on their respective merits.

Remmy Nweke

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