Digital Rights + Internet Governance + Innovation Policy

IP Justice Encourages ICANN to Protect the Privacy Rights of Internet Users

By |July 1st, 2015|

1 July 2015

To: comments-whois-accuracy-14may15-en@icann.org

ICANN Public Comment Forum: https://www.icann.org/public-comments/2013-whois-accuracy-spec-review-2015-05-14-en

Dear ICANN,

Thank you for this opportunity to provide comment on the Review of the 2013 Registrar Accreditation Agreement’s Whois Accuracy Program Specification.

IP Justice is a San Francisco-based nonprofit civil liberties organization that promotes balanced intellectual property rights and Internet policy that enables freedom and innovation.(http://www.ipjustice.org)

IP Justice strongly opposes ICANN’s […]

IP Justice Advises ICANN Board to Protect Freedom of Expression Rights and Respect Community-Developed Policy in ICANN Top-Level Domain Policy

By |April 10th, 2015|

IP Justice sent a letter this week to ICANN's Board Governance Committee to express concern for ICANN's treatment of Internet user's freedom of expression rights in the organization's policy for new Generic Top-Level Domains (GTLDs). The letter, which urged the committee to reconsider it's recent decision to restrict numerous lawful of the word "doctor" in the Internet's domain name system, stated ...

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

By |April 1st, 2015|

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.

ICANN’s […]

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

By |December 31st, 2014|

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.

Aligning ICANN Policy With Privacy Rights of Internet Users – IGF 2014 Workshop Transcript & Video

By |September 14th, 2014|

ALIGNING ICANN POLICY WITH PRIVACY RIGHTS OF INTERNET USERS
September 5, 2014 – IGF Workshop from Istanbul, Turkey

>> PRANASH PRAKASH: Shall we start?
Good morning. Thank you for coming by for this panel on ICANN processes and privacy issues.
My name is Pranash Prakash with the Yale Information Society project as well as with the center for Internet […]

Aligning ICANN Policy with Privacy Rights of Internet Users – IGF 2014 Workshop Video

By |August 25th, 2014|

 IP Justice Presents IGF 2014 Workshop #149: 
“Aligning ICANN Policy with Privacy Rights of Internet Users” 
Day 5 at the 9th United Nations Internet Governance Forum (IGF) 2014 in Istanbul, Turkey
5 September 2014  ~  11:00 am – 12:30 pm in Istanbul (other time zones)
in Venue Workshop Room #6 at Lütfi Kirdar International Convention and Exhibition Center (ICEC)

Video Recording           […]

ICANN Expands Trademark Rights & Violates Bottom-Up Policy Process: NCSG Position on ICANN Board-Staff Violation of Corporate Bylaws by Imposing ‘TM+50 Policy’ on GNSO

By |November 7th, 2013|

 
NCSG Position on ICANN Board-Staff Violation of Corporate Bylaws by Imposing “TM+50 Policy” on GNSO 
7 November 2013
 
Available as .pdf
 
At the request of ICANN legal staff as per its Cooperative Engagement Process (CEP), the Non-Commercial Stakeholders Group (NCSG) provides this further explanation of our complaint regarding the ICANN Board-staff’s violation of the Corporate Bylaws in its […]

Noncommercial Users Ask ICANN Board to Review Decision to Expand Trademark Rights in New Domains

By |May 1st, 2013|

ICANN's Non-Commercial Stakeholders Group (NCSG) has filed a Request for Reconsideration with ICANN's Board of Directors regarding the staff's decision to expand the scope of the trademark claims service beyond that provided by community consensus policy and in contradiction to ICANN Bylaws.

Statement of ICANN’s Non-Commercial Stakeholders Group (NCSG) on the Trademark Clearinghouse Talks and Staff Strawman Model

By |January 14th, 2013|

At ICANN’s 45th international meeting in Toronto in October 2012, ICANN’s Intellectual Property and Business Constituencies sent a letter to ICANN to request that additional changes be made to the policies for new top-level domain names. Despite the fact that the current policy had been long finalized via a painstakingly arduous consensus process in which all stakeholders compromised and ultimately reached unanimous agreement, nonetheless the IPC and BC sent a letter to Fadi Chehade, the new CEO, and the ICANN Board of Directors with 8-points for consideration and policy modification. Many of these points were the same requests the intellectual property/ business community has made before. Unfortunately, the key aspects of most of the 8-points sought to re-open previously closed agreements. Further, most of the points proposed policy changes, rather than merely clarifying technical implementation details.

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

By |November 18th, 2012|

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...