Application Comment Details

These comments are filed on behalf of Coalition for Online Accountability, www.onlineaccountability.net.

In applying ICANN evaluation criteria 28 (Abuse Prevention and Mitigation) and 30 (Security Policy) to this application, we urge evaluators to employ the “Enhanced Safeguards for New gTLDs Targeting Creative Sectors,” which can be found at http://www.onlineaccountability.net/pdf/2012_Mar06_EnhancedSafeguards.PDF. They were transmitted to ICANN on March 6, 2012, and ICANN staff advised us at the San Jose ICANN meeting that they had been shared with evaluators. A list of international, regional and national organizations endorsing the safeguards is at http://onlineaccountability.net/pdf/2012_Aug09_Enhanced_Safeguards_Endorsing_Organizations.PDF.

This application, self-classified as a “community” application within the ICANN typology, clearly targets an industry sector dependent on copyright protection. The application of these enhanced safeguards in the evaluation process will promote the use of new gTLDs in this sector for legitimate and law-abiding purposes, while reducing the real risk that these registries will become havens for piracy or other online abuse. This application includes a number of features that are responsive to the concerns embodied in the enhanced safeguards. However, we have not analyzed the provisions of this application in detail.

We urge evaluators to apply these safeguards as an example of “security measures [that] are appropriate for the applied-for gTLD string.” Given the continuing vulnerability of creative industries to services built on copyright theft online, we believe that new gTLDs targeted to copyright industry sectors clearly fit the “exceptional potential to cause harm to consumers ” criterion that the Applicant Guidebook uses to describe applications for which enhanced safeguards are appropriate. Moreover, the application process has confirmed that these safeguards are feasible and attainable, as various applications have included specific proposed measures that are consistent with these safeguards, such as: specifying intellectual property infringement as a type of domain-name abuse that can lead to consequences for registrants; using robust contact information verification systems to verify WHOIS accuracy (under penalty of cancellation of the domain name after multiple failed contact attempts); rejecting registrations from known bad-actors or previous violators; specifying that an abuse point of contact will respond to complaints within prompt deadlines; and supplementing full public access to WHOIS with a searchable WHOIS service that balances the need for open access with sufficient security controls.