Digital Rights + Internet Governance + Innovation Policy

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So far Robin Gross has created 346 blog entries.

Milton Mueller & Bruce Tonkin Discuss Censorship and New gTLD Policy

>>MILTON MUELLER: And I think that's tragic, that you are basically saying -- you are creating a political process of censorship. You're sort of abandoning 300 years of liberal ideology about freedom of expression and saying that we are going to decide what is allowed to be uttered at the top level based on an alleged universality that doesn't exist. And I would just remind you that one of the ways that we ended several centuries of religious warfare was not by deciding which religion was right; it was by the principle of tolerance, which allowed all the religions to exist and separated state power from expression and conscious and belief. And that's, I'd suggest, a direction we have to go. ....

ICANN Board Member Susan Crawford’s Remarks on Vote to Prevent .xxx Domain Name Space Application

Excellent comments on new gTLD process: "... I note as a side point that such a requirement in the U.S. would violate the first amendment to our Constitution. But this content-related censorship should not be ICANN's concern and ICANN should not allow itself to be used as a private lever for government chokepoint content control by making up reasons to avoid the creation of such a TLD in the first place. To the extent there are public policy concerns with this TLD, they can be dealt with through local laws. ... We should be examining generic TLD applicants on the basis of their technical and financial strength. We should avoid dealing with content concerns to the maximum extent possible. We should be opening up new TLDs. ..."

2007 USTR Report on Trade Policy Agenda and 2006 Annual Report

The 2007 Trade Policy Agenda and 2006 Annual Report of the President of the United States on the Trade Agreements Program are submitted to the Congress pursuant to Section 163 of the Trade Act of 1974, as amended (19 U.S.C. 2213). Chapter II and Annex II of this document meet the requirements on the World Trade Organization in accordance with Sections 122 and 124 of the Uruguay Round Agreements Act. In addition, the report also includes an annex listing trade agreements entered into by the United States since 1984. The Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) is responsible for the preparation of this report, which was written by USTR staff. The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative gratefully acknowledges the contributions of the Environmental Protection Agency, the Departments of Agriculture, Commerce, Health and Human Services, Justice, Labor, and State.

2007 USTR Report on Trade Policy Agenda and TRIPS

"...The Transitional Review Mechanism under Section 18 of the Protocol on the Accession of the People’s Republic of China has been an important means to raise concerns about China’s implementation of the TRIPS Agreement. This process has been instrumental in helping to understand the levels of protection of intellectual property rights in China, and provides a forum for addressing the concerns of U.S. interests in this process. The United States has been active in seeking answers to questions on a wide range of intellectual property matters and in raising concerns about enforcement of intellectual property rights. The United States also continued to seek satisfactory responses to a formal request submitted to China in October 2005 seeking additional enforcement-related information pursuant to Article 63.3 of the TRIPS Agreement. During 2006, the TRIPS Council undertook reviews of the implementing legislation of Congo and Qatar, in addition to the above-referenced review of China. ..."

ICANN Government Advisory Committee (GAC) Principles for New GTLDs

"The purpose of this document is to identify a set of general public policy principles related to the introduction, delegation and operation of new generic top level domains (gTLDs). They are intended to inform the ICANN Board of the views of the GAC regarding public policy issues concerning new gTLDs and to respond to the provisions in the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) process ...."

ICANN New gTLD Policy Up for Debate in Lisbon: Censorship and National Sovereignty at Issue

One of the most hotly contested issues at ICANN is the current draft proposal regarding the introduction of new generic top-level domains (gTLDs) and its impact on free expression and national sovereignty. While the latest draft proposal would no longer allow a single country to block a new gTLD string application for non-technical reasons, it would allow any group of nations to block an application for a new top-level domain for non-technical reasons. The proposed gTLD policy is still a recipe for censorship and an attack on national sovereignty. Why should the restrictions in one country be imposed upon citizens of another country? No one has even attempted to provide a justification for that.

Sample Letter to Govt Advisory Committee (GAC) Member on Proposed New gTLD Policy

I am writing to you because I am concerned about the GNSO draft final report on the Introduction of New Generic Top-Level Domains, GNSO PDP-Dec05, released 16 March 2007. This proposal contains several troubling provisions involving criteria and processes to select which text strings will be accepted as new gTLDs. These provisions will threaten the national sovereignty of individual nations by allowing other countries to block new gTLD strings that are perfectly lawful in another country.

Sample Letter to ICANN Board Member on Proposal for New gTLDs

I am writing to you because I am concerned about the GNSO draft final report on the Introduction of New Generic Top-Level Domains, GNSO PDP-Dec05, released 16 March 2007. The policy proposal contains several troubling provisions involving criteria and processes to select which text strings will be accepted as new gTLDs. If accepted, the policy will create an enormous work-load burden and legal liability for ICANN in order to decide which new gTLDs to accept. It is also a recipe for censorship since it would give GAC power to prevent strings for non-technical reasons.

“Please, Keep the Core Neutral” – By Michael Palage and Avri Doria

"... Instead of specifying the number of governments to meet a required threshold that can block a potential TLD applicant from being added to the root, the new standard should be that any applicant operating properly under the laws of the country in which it is organized should be subject only to ICANN’s technical, operational and other criteria. Assuming the basic TLD application criteria and processes are met, the TLD should be added to the root. ..."

UNESCO Report on “Ethical Implications of Emerging Technologies: A Survey”

"The report further aims at alerting UNESCO’s Member States and partners to the increasing power and presence of emerging technologies and draws attention to their potential to affect the exercise of basic human rights. Perhaps as its most salient deduction, the study signals that these days all decision makers, developers, the corporate scholar and users are entrusted with a profound responsibility with respect to technological developments and their impact on the future orientation of knowledge societies. It is our hope that this study will impress upon the policy makers, community, producers and users the need to carefully observe evolutions in ICTs – and, by so doing, to comprehend the ethical and moral consequences of technological choices on human rights in the Knowledge Societies. ..."

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