[kictanet] New blog and whitepaper "How Threats Against Domain Names Are Used to Censor Content"

Fri Jul 28 13:27:18 EAT 2017

Grace

It's very relevant and I think .Africa is implementing this during the
Sunrise Period. Maybe @Alice Munyua can give us more information?

By the way even KeNIC is implementing a Sunrise Period in the delegation of
the second level domains (.ke) which I understand kicked off last weekend?

@KeNIC can you maybe educate us on this?

Regards

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On Fri, Jul 28, 2017 at 7:06 AM, Grace Mutung'u via kictanet <
kictanet at lists.kictanet.or.ke> wrote:

> I wonder how much.africa is implementing the trade mark clearing house and
> whether this debate is relevant for Africa.
>
>
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
>
>
> EFF is now encouraging registrants to avoid domains that are subject to
> the TMCH.  From https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/
> 2017/07/how-threats-against-domain-names-used-censor-content:
>
> "Today EFF and Public Knowledge are releasing a whitepaper titled Which
> Internet registries offer the best protection for domain owners?
> <https://www.eff.org/files/2017/07/26/domain_registry_whitepaper.pdf> ...
>
> To draw one example of out of our whitepaper, if you're running a website
> to criticize an established brand and you use that brand as part of your
> domain name, it may be wise to avoid registering it in a top-level domain
> that offers special rights and procedures to brand owners, that could
> result in your domain name being wrongly taken away or could embroil you in
> dispute settlement proceedings.
>
> This probably means you'll want to think twice about registering in any of
> the newer global top-level domains (gTLDs), which provide brand owners
> access to a privately-run Trademark Clearinghouse that gives them veto
> powers that go far beyond those they would receive under the trademark law
> of the United States or those of most other countries.
>
> For example, under U.S. trademark law, if a trademark applicant sought to
> register an ordinary word such as smart, forex, hotel, one, love, cloud,
> nyc, london, abc, or luxury, they would have to specify the category of
> goods or services they provide, and protection for the mark might only be
> extended to its use in a logo, rather than as a plain word. Yet each of the
> plain words above has been registered in the Trademark Clearinghouse
> <https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2017/03/icanns-special-privileges-trademark-owners-are-theworst>,
> to prevent them being used in *any *of the new gTLDs without triggering a
> warning to prospective registrants about possible infringement.
>
> This applies regardless of whether the planned usage covers the same
> category of goods or services as the original trademark—indeed there isn't
> even any way for the registrant to find out what that category was, or even
> which country accepted the mark for registration, because the contents of
> the Trademark Clearinghouse database are secret. And since 94% of
> prospective registrants abandon
> <https://www.icann.org/news/announcement-2017-02-23-en> their attempted
> registration of a domain after receiving a trademark warning, this has a
> drastic chilling effect on speech.
>
> EFF is currently participating in an ICANN
> <https://www.eff.org/issues/icann> working group fighting to ensure that
> brand owners' veto rights aren't extended even further (for example to
> catch domains that include *typos* of brand names), and to prevent these
> outrageous rules being applied to older gTLDs such as .com, .net, and .org.
> But for now, you can minimize your exposure to trademark bullying by
> avoiding registering your website in one of the new domains that is subject
> to these unfair policies. Our whitepaper explains what to look for."
>
> --
> Jeremy Malcolm
> Senior Global Policy Analyst
> Electronic Frontier Foundationhttps://eff.orgjmalcolm@eff.org
>
> Tel: 415.436.9333 ext 161
>
> :: Defending Your Rights in the Digital World ::
>
> Public key: https://www.eff.org/files/2016/11/27/key_jmalcolm.txt
> PGP fingerprint: 75D2 4C0D 35EA EA2F 8CA8 8F79 4911 EC4A EDDF 1122
>
>
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