Digital Rights + Internet Governance + Innovation Policy

ICANN’s 11th-Hour Domain Name Trademark Policy Negotiations: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly — Dissecting the Strawman

ICANN organized a meeting on 15-16 November 2012 in Los Angeles, the Trademark Clearinghouse policy negotiations, to consider the 8-point policy requests sent by the Intellectual Property and Business Constituencies to the ICANN board and senior staff at the October 2012 Toronto ICANN meeting. I participated in the LA policy meeting on behalf of noncommercial users and below is my personal evaluation of the meeting and initial reactions to the output of the meeting...

Statement of ICANN’s Non-Commercial Stakeholders Group on Proposals for Additional Trademark Rights Protection Measures for New Top-Level Domain Names

* NCSG is concerned by proposals from the IPC and BC to change consensus policy and re-open previously settled policy matters on Rights Protection Mechanisms for new tlds. * The proposal under discussion does not reflect the hard-won balance found in the current consensus policy, nor the traditional limitations that exist in trademark law. * The proposal removes matters from the negotiated RAA and registry agreements into a vague 'backdoor process', and binds ICANN to unlimited compliance obligations. * Both the substance of the proposals and the manner of presenting it directly to ICANN without a proper policy process undermine our shared desire to create a truly multi-equal stakeholder process that honours ICANN's commitment to transparency and accountability.

IP Justice Comment on Olympic Committee and Red Cross Requests to be Granted Global Exclusive Licensing Rights to Words in the DNS

The comment was filed in response to requests from the International Olympic Committee and Red Cross groups who have asked ICANN to grant them the exclusive right to use in domain names several hundred words that these groups claim are their "exclusive property". Despite their grossly exaggerated legal claims and overblown fears, these groups lobbied the Governmental Advisory Committee (GAC) at ICANN to put pressure upon the ICANN Board and GNSO Policy Council to create such unprecedented rights over the use of words in domain names...

Non-Commercial Users Send Letter to Privacy Commissioners on Proposed Changes to ICANN Registrar Agreement

ICANN's Non-Commercial Users Constituency (NCUC) sent a letter to a number of Privacy Commissioners and Data Retention Officers regarding proposed changes to ICANN's Accreditation Agreement with registrars that impact the privacy rights of Internet users everywhere. According to the letter, ICANN's contract exacerbates privacy harms, in particular, "the current requirements in the new draft contracts [...]

IP Justice Comment on Request to ICANN from Red Cross & Olympic Committee to Ban Others’ Use of Words in Domain Names

Today I write to express my personal disappointment with the way ICANN has mis-handled this request for special rights to prohibit the use of certain words in domain names which are desired by politically powerful, but ultimately arbitrary, interests. Unfortunately, this case represents another clear example of ICANN departing from its own established policies and stated principles of bottom-up governance to demonstrate that it is not quite ready to be a legitimate global governance institution that can be trusted to manage the security and stability of the domain name system in the public interest...

IP Justice Comments on ICANN Policy Proposal for Trademarks & New GTLDs

Statement in public forum regarding ICANN Board response to "scorecard" of the Governmental Advisory Committee (GAC) on trademark protections for new generic top-level Internet domain names. The GAC is pressuring the ICANN Board to dramatically expand the rights of trademark owners after heavy lobbying by trademark industry of governmental representatives who participate at ICANN.

IP Justice Statement on ICANN’s Responsibility to Respect Human Rights

IP Justice submitted a statement today in response to the U.S. Department of Commerce National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) regarding its relationship with the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN). In its submission, IP Justice argued that ICANN needs a better legal framework that will obligate the organization to respect internationally recognized [...]

IP Justice Comments on ICANN Plans for New Top-Level Domains: Keep the Core Neutral – ICANN Should Avoid Expanding Scope of Mission to Include Enforcing “Morality” and Fighting “Terrorism”

IP Justice submitted brief comments today to ICANN regarding its plan for introducing new Top-Level Domains (TLDs). Specifically, IP Justice raised concerns about policy proposals that threaten freedom of expression on the Internet and seek to expand ICANN's mission to include ensuring "Morality and Public Order" (MAPO) and preventing "terrorism" through personal background checks. IP Justice believes both of these ICANN proposals are mis-guided and will harm the healthy development of the Internet and the global public interest.

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