Business Constituency - IP Constituency Summary of Joint Statement (September 2000)

The Business Constituency and the Intellectual Property Constituency have written a joint statement concerning minimum safeguards for the introduction of new TLDs. This paper is attached and a summary of its key points follows. Our objective is to create new Internet domain names in a way which simultaneously meets the global desire for more names and reduces the potential for consumer fraud and confusion.

SAFEGUARDS

1. Registration Requirements and Procedures

All registrants in new TLDs should be required to:

• pre-pay all registration fees
• provide accurate contact information and keep it current
• fully complete electronic registration forms
• certify that statements made in the registration application are true.

Grounds for revocation should include:

• the [knowing] submission of false contact data
• the use of a domain for illegal purposes.

Chartered TLDs need special rules to cover:

• who is permitted to register second-level domain names
• what activities are and are not appropriate
• efficient enforcement.

2. UDRP

The UDRP has shown its worth in the steady removal of bad faith domain registrations. It is essential that:

• the UDRP is expanded to all new TLDs
• violation of charter should be a demonstration of bad faith.

3. WhoIs

All applications for new TLDs should provide for unfettered public access, with robust searchability, to a current cross-registry database of contact data, including

• second-level domain name and its status, including link to registrar
• registrant’s [and registrars] name and postal address
• administrative/technical contacts’ name, address, e-mail, telephone and fax
• original registration date, expiration date, update date
• IP addresses, names of primary and secondary nameserver

4. Start up phase

The intentional registration of trademarks by parties other than their owners leads to confusion at best and fraud at worst. In this regard, it is critical to have a procedure for the pre-registration of trademarks of 1 year or more standing.

This summary is not the definitive text of the joint BC/IPC proposals. Please read the full paper for the relevant detail. It should be noted that additional safeguards may be identified as we gain more knowledge of the TLDs being proposed to ICANN.