Digital Rights + Internet Governance + Innovation Policy

Freedom of Expression Chilled By ICANN’s Addition of Speech Restrictions in DNS: ‘Public Interest Commitments’ Amount to Illegitimate Usurpation of Bottom-Up Policy

Freedom of expression on the Internet is at risk from ICANN’s recent decision to prohibit anyone but one specific type of doctor from using the word within the .doctor new gTLD space.   Last month, ICANN’s New GTLD Program Committee decided that only “medical practitioners” would be allowed to register a domain in the .doctor name space. [...]

Civil Society Cautions Against ICANN Proposal to Give Governments a Veto Over New Domains Using “Geographic Names”

A group of twenty-four civil society organizations and individuals today submitted a joint statement regarding a proposal from an ICANN Governmental Advisory Committee (GAC) sub-group on the use of geographic names in top-level domains. The joint civil society statement cautioned against the adoption of the GAC proposal that would give governments veto power on domains that use geographic names. The submission stated that the proposal would threaten to chill freedom of expression and other lawful rights to use words in domain names, stifle innovation, and undermine the multi-stakeholder model for Internet governance. The group also stated that the proposal is based on flawed presumptions of law and 'the public interest' and is entirely unworkable from a practical standpoint.

ICANN Accountability In A Multi-Stakeholder Governance Regime – IGF 2014 Transcript & Video

Ninth Annual Meeting of the Internet Governance Forum - Istanbul, Turkey "Connecting Continents for Enhanced Multi-Stakeholder Governance" September 3, 2014 ICANN Accountability In A Multi-Stakeholder Governance Regime   >> ROBIN GROSS: Hello everyone and welcome. My name is Robin Gross with IP Justice. I'm the organizer of this panel on ICANN accountability. ICANN's bylaws state [...]

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.

Top Civil Society Leaders Converge in Toronto for “ICANN & Internet Governance: Security and Freedom in a Connected World”

Cyber-Security Expert Ron Deibert and new ICANN CEO Fadi Chehade Address Non-Commercial Users Policy Conference on Eve of ICANN #45 - Public interest groups involved in ICANN will gather for the event, "ICANN & Internet Governance: Security & Freedom in a Connected World" on Friday 12 October at the Fairmont Royal York Hotel in Toronto, Canada. Sponsored by the Noncommercial Users Constituency (NCUC), the voice of civil society in ICANN, the policy conference will focus on key ICANN policy issues like the need to promote both cyber-security and human rights in the development of global Internet policies. The event kicks-off with a morning address from cyber-security expert Ron Deibert, Director of the Canada Centre for Global Security Studies and The Citizen Lab, an inter-disciplinary research and development hothouse at the University of Toronto. Deibert will address the need to establish a cyber-security strategy for global civil society.

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 [...]

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