Digital Rights + Internet Governance + Innovation Policy

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. ..."

GNSO New TLDs Committee Draft Final Report -Introduction of Generic Top Level Domains

... The section sets out the principles, policy recommendations and implementation guidelines the GNSO Council’s Committee on the introduction of new top-level domains has developed through its policy development process. The development of all elements of the Committee’s work has been done in close consultation with an ICANN staff team who have provided advice on policy, operational and legal matters for the Committee. ... Recommendation 6 - Strings must not be contrary to generally accepted legal norms relating to morality and public order.

NCUC Minority Report on GNSO New gTLD Policy Proposal

NCUC Minority Report I wish to supplement the work of the Committee by adding these comments. It is my view that any general Principle which seeks to prohibit any gTLD promoting hatred, racism, discrimination, crime or any abuse of religions or cultures is fundamentally flawed insofar as it fails to include any reference to Freedom [...]

Letter from Chairman of EU’s Article 29 Working Party on Data Protection Regarding WhoIs

ARTICLE 29 - DATA PROTECTION WORKING PARTY ON THE PROTECTION OF INDIVIDUALS WITH REGARD TO THE PROCESSING OF PERSONAL DATA Opinion on the application of the data protection principles to the WhoIs Directories (ORIGINAL DOCUMENT AS .PDF) 1. Introduction: The WhoIs directories raise several issues from the data protection perspective. WhoIs data relates to those [...]

Power-Grab: ICANN to Become Internet’s “Word Police” — Top-Level Domain Policy to Bypass National Sovereignty and Free Speech

Civil Society Proposes Amendment to Protect Civil Liberties and Innovation ICANN’s Non-Commercial Users Constituency (NCUC) submitted a proposal to protect freedom of expression and innovation in the introduction of new generic top-level domains (gTLDs). ICANN’s policy council, the Generic Names Supporting Organization (GNSO), is currently developing policy recommendations to regulate the introduction of new top-level domain names on the Internet. NCUC is troubled by the GNSO’s draft recommendation to create string selection criteria that would prevent the registration of a new gTLD string that contains a controversial word or idea. ..."

Power-Grab: ICANN to Become Internet’s “Word Police” – New gTLD Policy to Bypass National Sovereignty & Free Speech

"... Unless reformed, this ICANN policy will prevent anyone in the world from being able to use controversial words like "abortion" or "gay" in a new gTLD if a single country objects to their use. The proposal would further prevent the use of numerous ordinary words like "herb" and "john" in a string since they can have an illegal connotation in certain contexts. In addition to any country in the world being able to stop a new gTLD string, ICANN staff would also be able to prevent any idea that it deemed too controversial to exist in the new domain space. The 13 Feb. proposal (Term of Reference 2(x)) gives ICANN staff the important job of making preliminary determinations as to whether a string is inappropriate and who the "legitimate sponsor" of a domain name (such as .god) should be. "The 13 Feb proposal would essentially make ICANN the arbiter of public policy and morality in the new gTLD space, a frightening prospect for anyone who cares about democracy and free expression," said Robin Gross, Executive Director of IP Justice, an NCUC member organization. "The proposal would give ICANN enormous power to regulate the use of language on the Internet and lead to massive censorship of controversial ideas." ...

NCUC Proposal to Reform Draft Policy on Introduction of New gTLDs

"Current proposal is unworkable due to competing standards of morality and competing public policy objectives. Current proposal usurps national sovereignty. ICANN is not a legislative body to be determining "appropriate" public policy objectives and global standards of morality. National legislatures determine what is lawful in their own jurisdictions. Current proposal places enormous burden and liability on ICANN for its decisions as to what is controversial and who is the worthy applicant for a particular string. ICANN will have to remain content-neutral to avoid legal liability. Freedom of expression can be better protected with NCUC's proposal since the restrictions are more narrowly tailored to meet national law...."

Chairman’s Closing Remarks of IGF Open Consultation (13 Feb 2007)

13 February 2007 IFG Consultations Geneva "Taking stock and the way forward" CHAIRMAN NITIN DESAI - Conclusions I think we've had a very valuable and useful discussion. I'm going to try and say a few things which draw on this, as well as perhaps integrating some ideas which emerged yesterday in the discussions in the [...]

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