29 Jun, 2007: KEEP THE CORE NEUTRAL: Global Petition Urges ICANN to Protect Free Expression and Innovation in Domain Name Policy
"The "Keep The Core Neutral" campaign officially launched this week with an educational workshop at the 29th meeting of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) in San Juan, Puerto Rico. ICANN handles technical coordination of the Internet and sets policy surrounding the domain name system (DNS), the Internet’s basic addressing system that allows people to locate web sites and use email. The DNS is informally called the technical “core" of the Internet. The Keep The Core Neutral Coalition launched with over 100 members from around the world, including both individuals and organizations. Coalition members signed a petition urging ICANN to resist efforts to evaluate applications for new generic top-level domains (gTLDs) based ...

22 Jun, 2007: Broadcast Treaty will be dead for a long time
"Today member states of WIPO decided that there will be neither a diplomatic conference on the proposed Broadcast Treaty, nor any more Special Sessions of the Standing Committee on Copyrights and Related Rights (SCCR). Till the end the Chair Yukka Liedes and the WIPO Secretariat intensely tried to keep the process on a way, at last by proposing that member states may propose to the General Assembly to decide to hold two more Special Sessions of the SCCR and to postpone the Diplomatic Conference to 2008. Finally member states disagreed in all this points...."

20 Jun, 2007: Joint NGO Statement at the 2nd Special Session of WIPO’s SCCR
We call upon WIPO delegates to reject the proposed WIPO Broadcast Treaty. After more than 9 years of discussions, efforts to find a treaty formulation that deals with piracy of broadcast signals, but which does not harm copyright owners and the legitimate users of broadcasts have failed.

19 Jun, 2007: Basic Question on the Proposed WIPO Broadcast Treaty: Why?
IP Justice Intervention Statement at WIPO Broadcast Treaty Meeting. "In our view the only way to solve the anticipated problems and to complain with the General Assemblies mandate is a draft-treaty which is narrowed down to a real signal-theft approach meaning that no exclusive rights are granted therein. Reading on the other hand that broadcasters do not want an instrument without exclusive rights and seeing on the other hand no need for such rights I have one last question to you: Wouldn't it perhaps be better to have no treaty at all? ..."

13 Jun, 2007: NCUC Statement on Draft GNSO New GTLD Policy Recommendations
"... Our overall concern remains that despite platitudes to certain, transparent and predictable criteria—the GNSO’s draft recommendations create arbitrary vetoes and excessive challenges to applications. There are some for incumbents; for trademark rights holders; for the easily offended, for repressive governments and worst of all, for “the public”. Among the more troubling proposals is the introduction of criteria in which strings must be ‘morally’ acceptable and not contrary to ‘public order’. A concept borrowed from trademark law without precedent in the regulation of non-commercial speech. NCUC opposes any string criteria related to ‘morality’ or ‘public order’ as beyond ICANN’s technical mandate...."

12 Jun, 2007: “Keep the Core Neutral” Civil Society Workshop at ICANN Board Meeting 27 June in San Juan
Civil society's "Keep the Core Neutral" workshop will explore freedom of expression issues in the policy development process to introduce new generic top-level domains (gtlds)? As the ICANN community debates policy options to allow new top-level domains, it must consider important issues that impact what ideas may be expressed in a domain name. The workshop aims to provide a public discussion point in the ICANN policy development process for new top-level domains.

6 Jun, 2007: Legal Briefing Paper from Law Professor Christine Haight Farley on GNSO Recommendations for Domain Name Policy
Before I make observations specific to these recommendations, I would like to offer some general remarks about the overall incongruence between trademarks and domain names. It is important to note at the outset this general lack of equivalence between trademark law and domain name policy. For instance, trademark law the world over is fundamentally based on the concept of territoriality. Thus trademark law seeks to protect regionally and market-based marks without implication for the protection or availability of that mark in another region. In contrast, domain names have global reach, are accessible everywhere and have implications for speech around the world. ...

6 Jun, 2007: Legal Briefing Paper from Law Professor Jacqueline Lipton on GNSO Recommendations for Domain Name Policy
"... It is important to start re-focusing the regulation of the Internet domain name system generally on interests outside of pure trademark interests. The introduction of new gTLDs and the development of processes for introducing them may provide a good opportunity for achieving this goal. However, any attempt to regulate broad policy issues relating to social and cultural norms on speech, public order and morality in domain names will be very difficult for any national or international body or group. ICANN also faces the practical difficulty that its major area of expertise is technical and functional. It is therefore important for ICANN to clarify what groups, bodies or individuals it might utilize in carrying out future ...

2 Jun, 2007: NCUC Proposes Amendments to Protect Free Expression in Domain Name Policy at ICANN
ICANN's Non-Commercial User's Constituency (NCUC) introduced 5 proposals to amend the draft GNSO recommendations for a policy to introduce new generic top-level domains (gtlds). NCUC's amendments are intended to provide some recognition of respect for freedom of expression rights in the GNSO recommendations. NCUC proposes that ICANN keep the core neutral of national, regional, moral, and religious policy conflicts. The current draft GNSO recommendations would not permit a controversial or offensive word to be included in a top-level Internet domain name and would expand the rights of trademark owners on the Internet.