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.
Public Interest Organizations Thank US Senators Lieberman and Cornyn for Sponsoring Bill to Improve Public Access to Research Funded By Tax-Payers. IP Justice, Knowledge Ecology International, Electronic Frontier Foundation, OXFAM, Essential Action, Universities Allied for Essential Medicines, are part of a broad coalition of groups ....
"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 Justice, an international civil liberties organisation. "In Iran the protesters were able to communicate with the outside world because of proxy servers that allowed them to remain anonymous. But there are working groups within Icann working to prevent anonymous proxy servers because they might interfere with trademarks."
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 impose the stranglehold charter on noncommercial users against our will. Thomas Jefferson noted that the exercise of political power without the consent of the governed is illegitimate. ICANN's attempt to impose a governance structure on noncommercial users against our will calls into question ICANN's legitimacy to govern; it undermines confidence in ICANN's commitment to democratic values; and it appears ICANN is unable to protect the broader public interest against commercial pressures. We must remind ICANN to protect the public interest and the rights of noncommercial users - all of us. Send a quick email to ICANN today.
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 creation of a one-sided report....
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 Initiative, ARTICLE 19, EPIC, Rits-Brazil, Alfa-Redi, Association for Progressive Communications, African Commons, Internet Society of Mauritius, UWI At-Large, ICT Consumers Association of Kenya, Knowledge Ecology International, Privacy International, Yale Law School Information Society Project, and dozens more...
Over 60 Non-Commercial Organizations from all corners of the globe signed in support of the petition from the Non-Commercial Users Constituency (NCUC) for a stakeholder group at ICANN including Article 19, Privacy International, EPIC, FreePress, Asociatia pentru Tehnologie si Internet, EDRi, Public Knowledge, CPSR, Electronic Frontier Foundation, ICT Consumer Association of Kenya, AGEA DENSI, Association for Progressive Communications, Knowledge Ecology International, University of West Indies At Large Structure, RITS, Bangladesh NGOs Network for Radio and Communication, Alfa-Redi, Internet Society Mauritius, International Institute for Sustainable Development, FGV-CTS, Asociación por los Derechos Civiles, and many more NGOs
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 encouraging the adoption of Yarro's "Cybersafety" Constituency during the Public Comment Period. The proposed "Cybersafety" Constituency claims to be concerned with "safety", but in reality is just a couple of anti-porn extremists in Yarro's flock who see ICANN as an opportunity for control of the flow of information on the Internet. The proposed constituency is run by CP80, Yarro's anti-porn outfit that argues for using ICANN as a 'choke point' to impose global censorship on the Internet. Naturally, Yarro and his anti-porn zealots at CP80 propose that they know what is best for you and to what information you should be permitted access. Send ICANN a comment today.
The essential elements of this proposal are: Noncommercial stakeholders join the NCSG directly, and the NCSG keeps track of membership and administers voting for Council seats by the membership as a whole. The NCSG is administered by an annually elected Chair and a Policy Committee. The Policy Committee is composed of the 6 elected GNSO Councilors and one representative from each Constituency. There are three classes of membership: 1) large organizations (which receive 4 votes), small organizations (which receive 2 votes) and individuals (who receive 1 vote). Constituencies are formed as sub-units within the NCSG. We have deliberately made it relatively easy to form and join constituencies; at the same time we have de-linked Constituency formation from Council seats so that NCSG participants do not have artificial incentives to fragment into competing groups. If the Board wishes to approve constituency formation under these terms we will embody this requirement in the charter. Constituencies are given special rights to propose Working Groups and assured that their positions are incorporated into any and all public comments submitted by the NCSG into the policy development process. To protect the voice of minorities in the policy process, we require all NCSG representatives on the GNSO Council to vote in favor of the formation of a Working Group if it has the support of 1/3 of the constituencies or 1/5 of the whole membership.....
Poster-Child Case for Fair Use or Illegal Art? The Associated Press is claiming that it is the copyright owner of a photograph of President Obama that was used by an Obama supporter to create to poster for the political campaign and the now-famous poster is a copyright infringement of its photo. However this case could be considered the "poster-child" case for fair use. It is unfortunate that the AP is trying to turn political expression into illegal art. But these facts would be a good opportunity to set some positive legal precedent protecting fair use of political expression should the AP pursue this matter in the courts. ..."