Internationalized Domain Names: Legal Issues and Potential Abuses Michael YAKUSHEV cctld.ru

IDNs: Legal Issues and Potential Abuses 1.IDNs as new objects of legal regulation: role of ICANN 2.IDNs and International Public Law 3.Domestic legal regulation 4.Potential abuses

New objects of legal regulation: IDNs Who is authorized to create/distribute new top-level domain zones? –Why ICANN? Do new/old domain zones constitute ‘limited national resources’? What is the role of ITU? Who can be the recipient (=administrator) of the new TLDs? –IDNs = identifier for the state? Nation? Language?.РФ=> ok!.CША => ? Should the new TLDs reflect the practice of the existing domains? –Why two-letters only? “УКРАIHA” ? –What is the legal difference between gTLDs and ccTLDs? –Can top-level IDNs be used for other geographical indications?. РФ=> ok!.MOCКВА =>?.CAT=> ok!.TAT=> ? s

New objects of legal regulation: IDNs Known issues: –Role of ICANN as the ‘source’ of new domain zones is questioned (as well as it role in other aspects) <= lack of international consensus on Internet Governance (global level) –Perception (in certain countries): TLDs = ‘national resources’ –Lack of long-term strategy on development of DNS and the requires legal framework Solutions: –Clear and widely acceptable definition of ICANN’s role in creating and developing new domain zones (in line of overall concept of Internet Governance) –International (Universal) Treaty –Elaboration of the indicative strategy for DNS (like ‘DNS-2015’, ‘DNS-2020’ etc.) => to have legal framework prepared to implement by each stage –Possible merger of gTLDs and ccTLDs => TLDs of different types TLDs cannot be treated as ‘limited national resources’

IDNs: what should be solved on international level Geopolitics –Acceptability of the new TLDs by other countries –No ISO guidance Second-level domains registration –Harmonization of registrations policies (jointly accepted restrictions?) E.g. obscene lexical components in the same alphabet system for different languages (different IDNs) –Intellectual property (e.g. trademarks) protection –Trans-border disputes resolution Internationalized WHOIS –Importance for law enforcement activities “Techno”-legal issues –Adaptation of software (e.g.browsers) and hardware (e.g.keyboards) –IDNS -> internationalized applications

IDNs: what should be solved on international level Known issues: –Lack of international public law regulation in ‘sensitive’ cases UN experience on geographical borders –Lack of any bilateral/multilateral framework for harmonization –Need for new standards, including WHOIS Solutions: –Accurate and comprehensive discussions and analysis of new IDNs in ICANN before their implementation –Sponsoring bilateral and multilateral mechanisms based on three- stakeholders principles Best practices welcome! –WIPO involvement –Research and development for new standards => should be acceptable for all Overall conclusion: no ‘uniform’ or ‘universal’ solution is possible, each issue should be analyzed and solved separately

IDNs: Domestic regulation (Russian example) “National resource” issue –Who (which state body) is ‘responsible’? Which legal acts should be approved before? –Legal status of registry/registrars Protection of ‘state interests’ –Reserved names for the state institutions –Reserved names for territorial (federal) units Municipal level should be included? Intellectual Property Protection –Sunrise mechanisms Avoidance of cyber-squatting Harmonization of.RU,.РФ. and.SU procedures and practices ‘Better’ identification of domain administrators Creation of ‘National System’ for Russian citizens based on cyrillic DNS

IDNs: Potential Abuses Nothing new from legal point of view…. –Non-Latin symbols do not change the nature of legal relationship Поживем – увидим… –The Future will show

Thanks for your attention!