So is there anything to be done?<div>I'm not very enthusiastic about "finger-voting" but would a loud display of enthusiasm from somewhere like Avaaz or Access Now be likely to have any effect?</div><div>This is the second time in the same hour that I'm quoting Bob Marley "<span style="color:rgb(34, 34, 34);font-family:arial, sans-serif;line-height:16px;background-color:rgb(255, 255, 255)">Get up, stand up:Â </span><em style="font-style:normal;font-family:arial, sans-serif;line-height:16px;background-color:rgb(255, 255, 255)">stand up for your rights</em><span style="color:rgb(34, 34, 34);font-family:arial, sans-serif;line-height:16px;background-color:rgb(255, 255, 255)">!"Â although on different issues.</span></div>
<div><font color="#222222" face="arial, sans-serif"><span style="line-height:16px">It might also be useful to remember Martin Niemoller. I had occasion to quote him yesterday on a third issue.</span></font></div>
<div><p style="margin-top:0.4em;margin-right:0px;margin-bottom:0.5em;margin-left:0px;line-height:1.5em;font-family:sans-serif;font-size:12px;background-color:rgb(249, 249, 249)">First they came for the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communist" title="Communist" style="text-decoration:none;color:rgb(6, 69, 173);background-color:initial;background-repeat:initial initial" target="_blank">communists</a>,<br>
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a communist.</p><p style="margin-top:0.4em;margin-right:0px;margin-bottom:0.5em;margin-left:0px;line-height:1.5em;font-family:sans-serif;font-size:12px;background-color:rgb(249, 249, 249)">
Then they came for the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trade_unionist" title="Trade unionist" style="text-decoration:none;color:rgb(6, 69, 173);background-color:initial;background-repeat:initial initial" target="_blank">trade unionists</a>,<br>
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a trade unionist.</p><p style="margin-top:0.4em;margin-right:0px;margin-bottom:0.5em;margin-left:0px;line-height:1.5em;font-family:sans-serif;font-size:12px;background-color:rgb(249, 249, 249)">
Then they came for the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jews" title="Jews" style="text-decoration:none;color:rgb(6, 69, 173);background-color:initial;background-repeat:initial initial" target="_blank">Jews</a>,<br>
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a Jew.</p><p style="margin-top:0.4em;margin-right:0px;margin-bottom:0.5em;margin-left:0px;line-height:1.5em;font-family:sans-serif;font-size:12px;background-color:rgb(249, 249, 249)">
Then they came for me<br>and there was no one left to speak out for me.</p><p style="margin-top:0.4em;margin-right:0px;margin-bottom:0.5em;margin-left:0px;line-height:1.5em;font-family:sans-serif;font-size:12px;background-color:rgb(249, 249, 249)">
<br></p><p style="margin-top:0.4em;margin-right:0px;margin-bottom:0.5em;margin-left:0px;line-height:1.5em;font-family:sans-serif;font-size:12px;background-color:rgb(249, 249, 249)">My mother tongue is English. I use Latin script. I neither read, nor write, nor understand Cyrillic or Greek script. I believe that this issue is relevant and important to me and to others like me.</p>
<p style="margin-top:0.4em;margin-right:0px;margin-bottom:0.5em;margin-left:0px;line-height:1.5em;font-family:sans-serif;font-size:12px;background-color:rgb(249, 249, 249)">Deirdre</p><p style="margin-top:0.4em;margin-right:0px;margin-bottom:0.5em;margin-left:0px;line-height:1.5em;font-family:sans-serif;font-size:12px;background-color:rgb(249, 249, 249)">
<br></p><br><div class="gmail_quote">
On 10 November 2011 09:27, Avri Doria <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:avri@acm.org" target="_blank">avri@acm.org</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
Hi,<br>
<br>
I was in Bulgaria for the domain.forun at which Rod spoke.<br>
<br>
Of course I do not know what Rod and Parvanov spoke about. Â But in other statements Rod, and Veni both made, they hid behind the bottom-up process and stated that it was rejected because of the bottom-up process and said that if the Bulgarians and Greeks wanted to change the rules they needed to go back to the ccNSO. Â It is amazing how many time they invoked bottom-up process to defend unpopular Staff decisions - it was the mantra of the day.<br>
<br>
Of course they never spoke of what bottom-up decisions they were talking about. Â Was there a bottom-up decision about what sort of things were confusing similar? Â Was there a bottom-up decision about a lack of transparency and the absence of an appeal of an arbitrary decision or an extended review procedure? Â No, these are ICANN implementation details. Â I was an observer of the ccNSO group that made recommendations, and these issues never came up. Â And for the GNSO, no matter how much the bottom-up process has requested an extended review for confusing similarity, it has been rejected by the ICANN Staff. Â ICANN Staff has decided on its own that it is supreme when it comes to harmful confusing similarity. Â I remember no bottom-up decisions giving ICANN staff supremacy in any topic, let alone this one.<br>
<br>
Another disturbing thing came up during these meetings. Â There was a new notion introduced by those who spoke for ICANN. Â I must note that I may have misunderstood it because some of it came from ICANN Staffers speaking in Bulgarian so I only heard a translation, but it sounded like the following:<br>
<br>
In any review of Cyrillic or Greek characters, not only do they have to  worry about existing LDH (letter digit hyphen) ASCII TLDs, but also myst complete with potential LDH ASCII that might be applied for some day.  This notion was extend not only to un-allocated ISO 2 character designations but to any Cyrillic or Greek TLD that may look similar to LDH characters.<br>
<br>
I.e. the notion I got out was that if the Cyrillic or Greek looks anything like ASCII, they can't have it.  ASCII trumps all. While this is bad, considering the stretch ICANN Staff makes when making these decision (б looks like b - really???), it is really awful. From the discussions I understood this would apply in gTLDS as much as it does in ccTLDs.<br>
<br>
If I understood correctly, this is a bad thing, and this issue of .бг is just the tip of the iceberg of a really serious defect in the ICANN process for new TLDs.<br>
<span><font color="#888888"><br>
avri<br>
</font></span><div><div><br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
On 9 Nov 2011, at 10:06, Kleinwächter, Wolfgang wrote:<br>
<br>
> As I can see from the ICANN website, ICANNs Rod Beckstrom had a meeting with the Bulgarian president Mr. Parvanow, the day before yesterday (November 7). Did the Bulgarian president raise the issue of .bg and what was Beckstroem response?<br>
><br>
> Thanks<br>
><br>
> wolfgang<br>
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</div></div></blockquote></div><br><br clear="all"><div><br></div>-- <br>“The fundamental cure for poverty is not money but knowledge" Sir William Arthur Lewis, Nobel Prize Economics, 1979<br>
</div>