FC: More on ICANN, .org domains, and evicting non-"nonprofits"

[Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>]

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Date: Mon,  5 Mar 2001 15:26:04 -0500
From: Jamie McCarthy <jamie () mccarthy vg>
Subject: Re: FC: ICANN responds to politech message about evicting .org owners
To: declan () well com
cc: mclaughlin () pobox com

> From: "Andrew McLaughlin" <mclaughlin () pobox com>

> We don't have any intention of kicking out existing domain name
> holders. The idea is to turn over management of .org to some
> appopriate organization/association/entity/whatever, which would
> then make decisions about .org registration policy.
>
> I'm always amazed by the amount of misreporting & hyperventilation
> about domain name stuff -- this one's no exception.

That's not what ICANN's proposed revisions call for.

   "The net result of this would be a .org registry returned,
   after some appropriate transition period, to its originally
   intended function as a registry operated by and for non-profit
   organizations."

   <http://www.icann.org/melbourne/
   proposed-verisign-agreements-topic.htm>

Compare to RFC 1591 which actually does list .org's original function,
and in which the word "nonprofit" is nowhere to be seen:

   "ORG - This domain is intended as the miscellaneous TLD for
   organizations that didn't fit anywhere else.  Some
   non-government organizations may fit here."

   <http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc1591.txt>

This is very simple.  The proposed revisions are factually wrong and
if adopted would represent a quiet, dramatic change in policy.
Whether ICANN intends to make the change itself or hand .org off to
some other agency to let them make the change is immaterial;  people
are still going to be upset and rightly so.

Now that this has gotten a ton of press, presumably ICANN will back
down and explain that it's a misunderstanding, etc.

But the reassurances that existing .org owners will be allowed to
squat are not very reassuring.  If new .org registrations are not
allowed except to "bona fide" nonprofit corporations, that will be a
great disservice to individuals.

.com has become a trademark-holder-only zone.  The alleged enforcers
of the UDRP routinely break its rules in an effort to take away
more and more domains from people who bought them and hand them over
to corporations which have similar trademarks.  (And thus earn more
money from the fees which these same corporations pay.)

   <http://slashdot.org/yro/01/02/07/0631201.shtml>

The same is now true for .net.  Although originally it was for
providers of network services (see RFC 1591, which is very specific on
this point, unlike .org), .net is just as much a trademark-only zone
as .com.  For example, the 4th Circuit Court recently took away vw.net
from Virtual Works, Inc., a genuine internet service provider since
1996, and gave it to Volkswagen, which provides no network services
that I know of.  Under the "originally intended function" of .net,
Volkswagen should not even be _allowed_ to own a .net domain, much
less take one away from its rightful owner, but such is life on the
internet these days.

   <http://pacer.ca4.uscourts.gov/opinion.pdf/001356.P.pdf>

So if we seem a little skittish about news that .org will soon be
declared off-limits to mere individuals as well, you'll have to
excuse us.  We're wondering where this is going to end.
--
        Jamie McCarthy
        jamie () mccarthy vg
 http://jamie.mccarthy.vg/

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From: "Andrew McLaughlin" <mclaughlin () pobox com>
To: "Jamie McCarthy" <jamie () mccarthy vg>
Cc: <declan () well com>
Subject: RE: FC: ICANN responds to politech message about evicting .org owners
Date: Tue, 6 Mar 2001 00:20:12 -0500

Jamie:

I must be missing something here.  If .com was for commercial entities, .net
for network elements, .gov for government, .mil for military, etc., how is
it inaccurate to say that .org was for non-commercials?  Seems to me that if
you undergo a process of elimination, it's hard to call that inaccurate.
Individuals are non-commercials, by my estimation.  But even if we were to
take RFC 1591 literally, individuals don't fall within its scope, because
they're not "organizations."

Personally, I'd rather have some group of non-commercials (including, I
would hope, individuals domain name holders) making decisions about
registration policy for .org, rather than Verisign (or ICANN, for that
matter).

If you read the stuff on our website about the proposed agreements, you
won't find a shred of support for the idea that we'd kick existing domain
name holders out of .org. See
<http://www.icann.org/melbourne/proposed-verisign-agreements-topic.htm>.

--Andrew

     -------------------------------------------------------------------
andrew mclaughlin        |       chief policy officer & cfo
internet corporation for assigned names and numbers
<ajm () icann org>         |        <http://www.icann.org>
     -------------------------------------------------------------------

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Date: Tue,  6 Mar 2001 12:23:05 -0500
From: Jamie McCarthy <jamie () mccarthy vg>
Subject: RE: FC: ICANN responds to politech message about evicting .org owners
To: mclaughlin () pobox com, declan () well com

mclaughlin () pobox com (Andrew McLaughlin) writes:

> I must be missing something here.  If .com was for commercial
> entities, .net for network elements, .gov for government, .mil for
> military, etc., how is it inaccurate to say that .org was for
> non-commercials?  Seems to me that if you undergo a process of
> elimination, it's hard to call that inaccurate.  Individuals are
> non-commercials, by my estimation.

But ICANN did not say "non-commercials."  It said "non-profit
organizations."

Here's what most people understand by "non-profit organizations."
There is a process, in the United States and I assume most other
democracies, through which an organization can go to register itself
with the government as a nonprofit.  In the United States, this is
done at the state level and entails drawing up bylaws and articles of
incorporation, putting together an initial Board of Trustees (or
Directors), registering the documents with the state and paying the
application fee, having the appropriate office in your state approve
your language (or send it back in edited form for you to resubmit),
and then waiting typically a month or so before hearing of your
approval and receiving the official certificate and so on.

Is that what ICANN is referring to?

I've gone through this twice;  I'm on the Boards of two nonprofits.
On the other hand, I own seven .org domain names.  Some of those, I
just registered because of a neat idea I have that I'd like to do
something with as soon as I get the time.  I picked .org because I
have no commercial intentions for any of them and they aren't related
to providing net services;  process of elimination.  But I have no
intention of registering myself as a nonprofit with my state.

And frankly, I really have no intention of joining forces with one or
more other people to form an "organization" in the strict sense.
I consider myself an organization of one but I'm guessing that's not
going to fit in with what ICANN is proposing.

It sounds like you agree that individuals are noncommercial and thus
should be allowed to hold .org domains.  That's great.  But I don't
see that in ICANN's proposal;  quite the opposite.  Clarification
would be much appreciated.

> If you read the stuff on our website about the proposed
> agreements, you won't find a shred of support for the idea that
> we'd kick existing domain name holders out of .org.

Ted Bridis of the Wall Street Journal reports that "one Icann official
*suggested* that current 'org' Web sites *may* be allowed to continue
regardless of their affiliation with nonprofits."  (Emphasis added.)

There's no way to read that without concluding that the alternative
possibility, kicking out domains, is also under consideration.

http://www.politechbot.com/p-01774.html

> See
> <http://www.icann.org/melbourne/proposed-verisign-agreements-topic.htm>.

Yes, we're talking about the same URL.  Again, here's what ICANN is
proposing:

      ...an endowment of $5 million for the purpose of funding the
      reasonable operating expenses of a global registry for the specific
      use of non-profit organizations, and would make global resolution
             ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
      resources available to the operator of the .org registry for no
      charge for one year and on terms to be determined thereafter, for so
      long as it operates the .com registry. The net result of this would
      be a .org registry returned, after some appropriate transition
      period, to its originally intended function as a registry operated
      by and for non-profit organizations.
                 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
--
        Jamie McCarthy
        jamie () mccarthy vg
 http://jamie.mccarthy.vg/

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