Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN)
The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) is a California non-profit corporation created in 1998 to oversee a number of Internet-related tasks previously performed directly on behalf of the US Government. The tasks of ICANN include managing the assignment of domain names and IP addresses. ICANN operates based on a "Memorandum of Understanding" or MoU (now called Joint Project Agreement (JPA)) with the US Department of Commerce. Although ICANN is only authorized to make decisions regarding a narrow scope of technical issues related to coordination of the Internet’s domain name system, ICANN’s mission has expanded and often creeps into general social policy issues and circumvents legitimate international legal regimes.
IP Justice participates at ICANN through the Non-Commercial Users Constituency (NCUC) in the Generic Names Supporting Organization (GNSO). The Non-Commercial Users Constituency (NCUC) is the home for non-commercial individuals and organizations in ICANN’s GNSO. NCUC develops Internet domain name policies that protect non-commercial online activity and it participates in the selection of ICANN Board Members. NCUC represents a wide range of groups and individuals at ICANN including academic organizations, civil liberties groups, consumer advocates, library associations, non-commercial individuals and more.
- Both non-commercial organizations and individuals interested in protecting the rights of non-commercial users are invited and encouraged to join ICANN’s Non-Commercial Users Constituency (NCUC) to participate in the ICANN policy development process. Here is more info on how and why to get involved at ICANN with NCUC.
- IP Justice Executive Director Robin Gross is the Chair of ICANN’s Non-Commercial Users Constituency (NCUC). Mary Wong represents Asia and Carlos Affonso Pereira de Souza is the Latin American representative and William Drake is the North American Representative for NCUC on the GNSO Policy Council.
Above: Photo of (L) Norbert Klein and Robin Gross from NCUC, and Ross Rader of Registrar Constituency at July 2005 GNSO Policy Council Meeting in Luxembourg. Below: Photo of NCUC representatives with ICANN’s Liz Williams in Vancouver, November 2005.
The ICANN-wiki provides more detailed and timely information on ICANN meetings and policy issues under development. Many experts in the ICANN community contribute to Internet governance discussions at ICANN-watch.
ICANN Policy Issue: WHOIS Data Protection & Privacy IP Justice considers ICANN’s policies for the collection and management of domain name owners’ personal information to violate universally recognized freedom of expression rights. By forcing the disclosure and publication of every website owner’s name, home address, home telephone number and email address, ICANN intrudes upon the privacy rights of Internet users around the world. ICANN should respect the privacy rights of individuals and change its policies to provide for optional disclosure and to prohibit any use of the information without the subject’s explicit consent.
ICANN Policy Issue: Introduction of New Generic Top-Level Domains (gTLDs) Another important issue that the GNSO Policy Council is currently addressing is the introduction of new generic top-level domain names (gTLDs). IP Justice supports the introduction of new gTLDs and is concerned about the chilling effect on freedom of expression raised by some proposals to limit new gTLDs to only those words that are not controversial, are not trademarked, and have no religious meaning. IP Justice and the Non-Commercial Users Constituency (NCUC) are members of the "Keep the Core Neutral" Coalition to protect free expression and innovation in domain name policy.
ICANN Policy Issue: GNSO Improvements
On 3 February 2008, the BGC issued its final report on GNSO Improvements (summary) with key proposals to reform the organization charged with making policy recommendations for top-level domains. (ICANN GNSO Improvements page)
3 Oct, 2009: US Agreement With ICANN Leaves Much Undone: The oversight of the Internet’s infrastructure will become more international under a new government agreement with ICANN. But many concerns remain unresolved (Information Week) 
The US government appears to be loosening its grip on the governance of the Internet, a move welcomed by many. But critics see the government shirking its obligations to support free expression and free trade. ... ICANN can interfere with freedom of expression by censoring the domain name space and regulating the use of the space indirectly. Experts criticize ...
30 Sep, 2009: ICANN Accountability Post-JPA: No Meaningful Change Expected
While many are dancing in the streets over today's decision by the US Government to loosen some of its ties to ICANN as its a single governmental authority, I'm not convinced this decision will change much on a practical level. The Affirmation of Commitments was signed today by ICANN and the US Government to replace the Joint Project Agreement, ...
22 Sep, 2009: ICANN Staff Up To Same Old “Divide & Conquer” of Civil Society Strategy
I had a conversation recently with a person who had been actively engaged at ICANN in its early days but became disillusioned and disengaged after a few years because his participation lead him to the conclusion that ICANN staff manage the organization's board of directors and the "community" via the GNSO and the At-Large Advisory Committee. He said the ...
3 Sep, 2009: Public Interest Groups in ICANN Appeal to New President For Fairer Treatment For Civil Society
The organization that represents Non-Commercial Internet Users in the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) issued an open letter to the Board this week, expressing concern about the possible failure of ICANN's attempt to balance the representation of commercial and noncommercial interests.
24 Aug, 2009: ICANN GNSO Chair Joins the Non-Commercial Users Constituency (NCUC) to Support Civil Society at ICANN
GNSO Chair Avri Doria joined ICANN's Non-Commercial Users Constituency (NCUC) to support civil society at ICANN in its struggle for a stakeholder group charter that is drafted in a bottom-up fashion and considers the needs of noncommercial users of the Internet. Although not a card-carrying member of NCUC before now, Doria had been a long time supporter of civil ...
21 Aug, 2009: “Top Ten Myths About Civil Society Participation in ICANN” From the Non-Commercial Users Constituency (NCUC)
ICANN Staff and the commercial constituencies at ICANN have been busy spreading mis-information about civil society participation at ICANN - largely to keep civil society and noncommercial interests marginalized. For example, ICANN is not allowing the noncommercial users to elect their representatives on the GNSO Policy Council and will instead "appoint" representatives, unlike all the other constituencies at ICANN. ...
18 Aug, 2009: Letter from Non-Commercial Users to ICANN Board of Directors and CEO on Stakeholder Group Charter Issue
This letter comes from nearly 150 individual and organizational members of ICANN’s Non-Commercial Users Constituency (NCUC). It is also endorsed by public interest groups outside of NCUC. We are all deeply concerned about the July 30, 2009 ICANN Board decisions regarding the restructuring of the Generic Names Supporting Organization (GNSO). We believe that the Noncommercial Stakeholder Group ...
26 Jul, 2009: Will ICANN Listen to Civil Society and Respect Noncommercial Users?
Public comments on stakeholder group charters are in - again. Comments submitted to ICANN were overwhelmingly in favor of reinstating the consensus charter submitted by noncommercial users. The Internet Governance Project asks "Is ICANN Listening?" to civil society yet.
24 Jul, 2009: Scooby Doo and Mystery Crew Take on ICANN to Defend Noncommercial Users
Longtime ICANN participant Harold Feld's amusing tale of Scooby Doo and the Mystery Crew go to ICANN. "...recycling the same tired plot line of ICANN staff and Business & IP constituencies trying to limit the ability of the Non-commercial User Constituency (NCUC) to “cause trouble” — especially those meddling civil society do-gooders Milton Mueller and Robin Gross. Season after season, ...
21 Jul, 2009: ICANN Injustices in Stakeholder Group Charters - Ask ICANN to Respect Democratic Process and Noncommercial Users
The public is invited to send an email to ICANN on the subject of the injustices of the draft charters proposed for the noncommercial and commercial stakeholder groups in the new GNSO. ICANN will accept public comment on the subject until 23 July. Send a comment to ICANN by sending an email to gnso-stakeholder-charters@icann.org.
- View all entries under ICANN
16 Jul, 2009: IP Justice in Financial Times on ICANN Being Driven by Commercial Interests
"Icann is full of people who work for corporations and think that Icann should be run like one. When I try to remind people that it is a not-for-profit public benefit organisation, they look at me like I am mad. Icann is dominated by commercial stakeholder groups" said Robin Gross, a cyberspace rights lawyer, and executive director of IP ...
13 Jul, 2009: Is ICANN Accountable to the Global Public Interest? ICANN Ignores Non-Commercial Users in Internet Policy Development Process
The message is clear. ICANN has forgotten who it works for - us - Internet users - including noncommercial users. Now is the time to remind ICANN that it must be accountable to the global public interest or it has no business in Internet governance. Tell ICANN to listen to noncommercial users and not to ...
1 May, 2009: Global Civil Society Weighs In Supporting Petition for a Non-Commercial Stakeholder Group at ICANN
Dozens of civil society organizations from all corners of the globe signed a statement submitted to ICANN's Public Forum supporting the proposal to form a Non-Commercial Stakeholder Group (NCSG) from the Non-Commercial Users Constituency (NCUC). Supporters of NCUC's petition include non-commercial organizations such as Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Public Knowledge, FreePress, European Digital Rights ...
19 Mar, 2009: Ralph Yarro and His Anti-Porn Crusaders March on ICANN & Demand Global Censorship
ICANN is accepting comments from the public on the proposed censorship constituency until 5 April 2009. SCO Group Chairman Ralph Yarro III, the ultra-conservative behind what Business Week dubbed "the most hated company in tech" (SCO) for stealing the computer code of thousands of Linux open source programmers is now behind efforts to flood ICANN with identical form letters ...
11 Mar, 2008: US Govt Seizes Blacklisted Domain Names of European Company for Selling Cuba Trips
"An interesting story broke recently in the NY Times about a Spanish travel company that had its domain names taken away by the US Government for selling Europeans vacations to Cuba. Even though the company's business was not targeted at the US and was lawful in its national jurisdiction, the company's websites were put on a domain name ...
15 Feb, 2008: Comments to US Government on Review of Joint Project Agreement with ICANN by Robin Gross
"...In my view, given the international nature of the Internet, it is imperative that ICANN work toward moving away from oversight by a single nation and toward responding to the needs of the global Internet community. However, ICANN has yet to demonstrate that it has sufficiently evolved to the point that it should be left without any oversight and ...
16 Jul, 2009: IP Justice in Financial Times on ICANN Being Driven by Commercial Interests
"Icann is full of people who work for corporations and think that Icann should be run like one. When I try to remind people that it is a not-for-profit public benefit organisation, they look at me like I am mad. Icann is dominated by commercial stakeholder groups" said Robin Gross, a cyberspace rights lawyer, and executive director of IP ...
6 Jul, 2009: IP Justice Comments on ICANN Proposal to Expand Trademarks Rights in Domain Names
IP Justice submitted comments today in opposition to the proposals contained in the "IRT Report" a proposal from ICANN's Intellectual Property Constituency to create new trademark rights to domain names that do not exist in law.
ICANN's Noncommercial Users Constituency (NCUC) also filed comments with ICANN discussing thesubstantive problems with the proposal and also the procedural concerns, which led to the ...
6 Jul, 2008: ICAAN – Preventing Hatred v. Censorship of TLD Applications (Digital Journal)
With all the excitement over expansion of IP addresses to be expanded from 4-string to 6-string format, little has been reported on the current and proposed regulations to restrict new domain registration. Watchdogs are deeply concerned over censorship. ....
1 Jul, 2008: ICANN Go-Ahead on GTLDs with “String Criteria” of “Morality and Public Order”
"There has been wide coverage of ICANN’s decision this week to adopt a new process for creating new global Top Level Domains (gTLDs).... Civil libertarians supporting Susan Crawford’s line argue that if governments are able to pressure ICANN into prohibiting .jihad (which has perfectly non-violent meanings in Islam as well as the terrorist connotations it has recently acquired in the ...
26 Jun, 2008: ICANN Board Approves Censorship Policy for Domain Names Based on Morality: 2 Board Members Speak Against It
Today in Paris the ICANN Board passed the GNSO's controversial recommendations to censor top level domains based on notions of "morality and public order", and broadly defined "community" wishes. However, 2 ICANN board members, law professors Wendy Seltzer (on behalf of the At-Large Internet Users) and Susan Crawford, made very powerful and compelling statements to protect free expression on ...
15 May, 2008: US Congress Cites Free Expression as Reason ICANN Must Remain Controlled by US Govt.
US Congressmen are up to their old tricks of pretending to care about free expression publicly, while undermining it's practice with their policy decisions -- especially when it comes to free speech on the Internet. Congressman Edward Markey, the Chairman of the Congressional Sub-committee on Telecommunications and the Internet sent a letter urging the US Government to refuse ...
20 Feb, 2008: Domain Names are Bigger than Trademarks: ICANN’s New Consumer Protection Role
The terminology “confusingly similar” lends itself to the expansion of trademark rights to domain names by commercial uses and governments to the disadvantage of non-commercial users. ICANN should refrain from taking on consumer protection type roles (such as preventing “confusion” in people) and only regulate issues related to the technical coordination of the Domain Name System.
5 Dec, 2007: IGP Blog on ICANN Domain Name Policy: “Land Grab? ccTLDs and multilingual names”
"The introduction of internationalized domain names (IDNs) offers the world one of the best opportunities it will ever have to introduce more diversity and competition into the domain name registry market. That market is currently dominated by VeriSign, which operates the .com and .net domains (as well as a couple of TLDs it bought, .tv and cc) and hence controls ...
13 Nov, 2007: Robin Gross’ Remarks at IGF 2007 on Internet Bill of Rights
Today I’d like to address a few issues that are specifically relevant to the positive development of the Internet and a healthy information society. 1. Freedom of Expression Rights. 2. Access to Knowledge Rights. 3. Communication Rights.
4. Privacy Rights and Data Protection. 5. Anonymity. 6. Excessive and ...
12 Nov, 2007: Internet Domain Name Censorship Vote Delayed (Toward Freedom)
The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), which makes policy governing the Internet's Domain Name System, recently held its 30th International Public Meeting in Los Angeles. ICANN has stumbled into serious controversy as it threatens to establish policies for systematic censorship of generic top-level domains ("gTLDs" such as '.com' or '.org'), and it left these issues unresolved as ...
- View all entries under New Domain Names (gtlds)
1 May, 2008: New Canadian Internet Registry Association (CIRA) Whois Policy Strikes a Balance Between Privacy and Access (Michael Geist)
"Under the new policy, CIRA will continue to collect the same contact information from registrants as under its current policy. However, it will no longer require that such information be publicly available through its whois directory. In its place, CIRA will only require the public disclosure of limited technical information, though individual registrants may voluntarily "opt-in" to providing more ...
13 Nov, 2007: Robin Gross’ Remarks at IGF 2007 on Internet Bill of Rights
Today I’d like to address a few issues that are specifically relevant to the positive development of the Internet and a healthy information society. 1. Freedom of Expression Rights. 2. Access to Knowledge Rights. 3. Communication Rights.
4. Privacy Rights and Data Protection. 5. Anonymity. 6. Excessive and ...
4 Nov, 2007: Explanation of NCUC’s Votes on Whois at LA ICANN Meeting - “Halloween Vote” on Whois
NCUC strongly supported Motion #3 because it provided a mechanism to spur uncompromising parties to the negotiating table on Whois in good faith. Without a mechanism to bring to the negotiating table parties who already have what they want, there is no incentive to voluntarily agree to any changes to the status quo with whois. NCUC continues to ...
30 Oct, 2007: EPIC & NGO Letter to ICANN Board on Need for Whois Reform
"The purpose of this letter is to express our support for changes to WHOIS services that would protect the privacy of individuals, specifically the removal of registrants' contact information from the publicly accessible WHOIS database. It is also to propose a sensible resolution to the long-running discussion over WHOIS that would establish a bit of "policy stability" and allow ...
30 Oct, 2007: IP Community Critical Of Proposals On ICANN Agenda (IP-Watch)
"A draft by ICANN’s Generic Name Supporting Organisation (GNSO) on ICANN’s necessary evaluation of new TLD application requests also proposes checks on moral and public order - a task for which ICANN’s not fit, according to the Keep the Core Neutral Coalition (KTCN). KTCN wants ICANN to “stay within its technical mandate and refrain from embedding particular national, regional, ...
18 Oct, 2007: ICANN Public Comment Period on Whois Reform to Protect Privacy
Whois changes
Open:
14 Sep 07
Closed:
30 Oct 07
Explanation: A Whois taskforce convened in June 2005 completed its work and sent a final ...
22 Aug, 2007: Whois Privacy Stalemate Again (IGP Blog)
"The ICANN Working Group that was trying to reconcile data protection and privacy principles with the domain name system’s legacy Whois directory, which publishes the name and full contact details of all domain name registrants, was finished today. “Finished off” might be a better term. Despite flirting with the kind of compromises and reforms that might actually reconcile privacy rights ...
20 Aug, 2007: Final Outcomes Report of the WHOIS Working Group
22 May, 2007: Debate Over Confidentiality of Web Site Registration Information Continues (Law.com)
27 Mar, 2007: Internet Governance Project Blog
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