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Olympics wastes more money on ICANN nonsense

Kevin Murphy, May 14, 2012, 10:42:38 (UTC), Domain Policy

International Olympic Committee lawyers have lodged an official appeal of ICANN’s latest decision to not grant it extra-extra special new gTLD protection.
The [O]Lympic Cafe, close to both DI headquarters and the London 2012(TM) Olympic(TM) Park, which apparently found a novel solution when the IOC's lackeys came knocking.The IOC last week filed a Reconsideration Request asking the ICANN board to rethink an April 10 decision that essentially ignored the latest batch of “.olympic” special pleading.
As previously reported, ICANN’s GNSO Council recently spent a harrowing couple of meetings trying to grant the Olympic and Red Cross trademarks even more protection than they already get.
Among other things, the recommendations would have protected strings confusingly similar to “.olympic” at the top level in the new gTLD program.
But a month ago the ICANN board of directors’ newly created, non-conflicted new gTLD program committee declined to approve the GNSO Council’s recommendations.
The committee pointed out in its rationale that the application window is pretty much closed, making changes to the Applicant Guidebook potentially problematic:

a change of this nature to the Applicant Guidebook nearly three months into the application window – and after the date allowed for registration in the system – could change the basis of the application decisions made by entities interested in the New gTLD Program

It also observed that there was still at that time an open public comment period into the proposed changes, which tended to persuade them to maintain the status quo.
The decision was merely the latest stage of an ongoing farce that I went into much more detail about here.
But apparently not the final stage.
With its Reconsideration Request (pdf), the IOC points out that changes to the Applicant Guidebook have always been predicted, even at this late stage. The Guidebook even has a disclaimer to that effect.
The standard for a Reconsideration Request, which is handled by a board committee, is that the adverse decision was made without full possession of the facts. I can’t see anything in this request that meets this standard.
The IOC reckons the lack of special protections “diverts resources away from the fulfillment of this unique, international humanitarian mission”, stating in its request:

The ICANN Board Committee’s failure to adopt the recommended protection at this time would subject the International Olympic Committee and its National Olympic Committees to costly and burdensome legal proceedings that, as a matter of law, they should not have to rely upon.

Forgive me if I call bullshit.
The Applicant Guidebook already protects the string “.olympic” in over a dozen languages – making it ineligible for delegation – which is more protection than any other organization gets.
But let’s assume for a second that a cybersquatter applies for .olympics (plural) which isn’t specially protected. I’m willing to bet that this isn’t going to happen, but let’s pretend it will.
Let’s also assume that the Governmental Advisory Committee didn’t object to the .olympics application, on the IOC’s behalf, for free. The GAC definitely would object, but let’s pretend it didn’t.
A “costly and burdensome” Legal Rights Objection – which the IOC would easily win – would cost the organization just $2,000, plus the cost of paying a lawyer to write a 20-page complaint.
It has already spent more than this lobbying for special protections that it does not need.
The law firm that has been representing the IOC at ICANN, Silverberg, Goldman & Bikoff, sent at least two lawyers to ICANN’s week-long meeting in Costa Rica this March.
Which client(s) paid for this trip? How much did it cost? Did the IOC bear any of the burden?
How much is the IOC paying Bikoff to pursue this Reconsideration Request? How much has it spent lobbying ICANN and national governments these last few years?
What’s the hourly rate for sitting on the GNSO team that spent weeks coming up with the extra special protections that the board rejected?
How much “humanitarian” cash has the IOC already pissed away lining the pockets of lawyers in its relentless pursuit of, at best, a Pyrrhic victory?

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Comments (3)

  1. John Smith says:
    May 14, 2012 at 1:47 pm

    When lawyers run wildly, I guess. Does anyone REALLY believe there will be applicants for .olym*(anything) after all the discussion that went into this? I mean, really? They are thus fighting windmills here. There is nothing to gain here but the clients money.

    Reply
  2. Avri Doria says:
    May 14, 2012 at 6:04 pm

    It is worth the money to them because the solution they got from the GNSO included as part of their special rights, the ability to exchange permission to applicants for ‘similar’ names for either direct licensing fees or for ‘coincidental’ contributions. This special right is worthinvestment by these organizations.

    Reply
  3. Honest individual says:
    December 9, 2018 at 4:41 am

    If ianna and icann weren’t so greedy they would let people register equally. Wait, I believe they quoted “fair use”. Nope, they would rather commit fraud and decieve everyone by using a reverse webcrawler from Google to steal data and accounts and illegally transfer it over to share alike commons so they can keep what does not rightfully belong to any of them. P2p sharing, gaming, api user invasion, links everywhere via internet, slander, account theft, trashing an innocent persons identity for greed.white collar crime. Criminal behavior is the new wave. How’s that wearble working out for ya mark? They are the third party invasion. Stealing identities is illegal. Keeping the innocent person silenced was a huge mistake. Everyone needs to wake up. They planned this for quite some time. America needs to wake up.

    Reply

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