Dispute Resolution Policy

[Dan Parisi <dparisi@garden.net>]

It seems that ICANN is giving a Christmas Present two months early to
corporate interests as you have greatly expanded the domain name
resolution policy to allow for much more challenges as was allowed under
the current Network Solution policy. This is not suprising since all the
funding for ICANN is coming from corporate interests. Why is there a
dspute resolution mechanism at all? It does not prevent the inevitable
of a company suing in the courts if they lose in this arbitration round.
Unless this is just a ploy to somehow get the courts completely out of
the picture down the line. You have just made it much easier for a
companies to make challenges on anything with your new policy. Before a
company had to have a registered trademark with the exact string of
letters such as "whitehouse" to make a challenge under the old rules
without going to a court. In the real world there are several brands or
companies who use the same string of words to identify their product. As
an example  there are over 200 worldwide registered trademarks for
"whitehouse". Now anyone can make a claim even if the domain name is not
the exact string or even if they do not even have a registered
trademark. So now someone can go after somebodies domain name without
even having a registered trademark. As Ralph Nader has noted your system
could also be used against people who registered domain names such as
gmsucks.com which I own even though there is no likelihood of confusion
and courts in the United Sates would consider such uses acceptable. You
are also forcing jursidiction in the Fourth Circuit in the United States
to appeal from your decisions since both Network Solutions and
yourselves are now located there. As you know the Fourth Circuit is one
of the most conservative in the country and one of the most pro business
and anti-domain name holder courts. I wonder if this had anything to do
with you moving the ICANN operations from California which was the most
pro-domain name holders courts to Virginia which is probably the worst
court for domain name holders to litigate in. Under Network Solutions
Policy you could appeal in any court not just where they were located.
Do you have a mechanism in place where someone can change registrars so
the domain name holder can go to court in a place closer to where they
live rather than being forced to go to Virginia since 99% of the current
domain names are registered By Network Solutions.

Dan Parisi
WhiteHouse.com