IP Justice Publications
Quelle Suprise! ICANN’s Accountability Plan Gives ICANN Board Total Control: ICANN Limits Accountability Improvement Measures to Toothless Self-Policing
1. ICANN’s So-Called “Enhancing Accountability” Process After a long wait, ICANN’s senior management finally released its plan for “Enhancing Accountability” at the private California corporation that makes global Internet domain name policy. Unfortunately, the accountability deficit crisis created by ICANN’s longstanding policy of purely “self-policing” with no meaningful external accountability mechanisms will not be solved by this weak plan for more self-policing. Perhaps telling was the organization’s initial and consistent framing of the issue as “maintaining” accountability beyond the end of the US Government’s stewardship role, rather than acknowledging that this effort was in response to widespread community outcry expressing major dissatisfaction with ICANN’s inadequate existing accountability measures. Conflict of Interest Disregarded by ICANN in Formulation of Plan Many organizations and individuals commented online and during the London ICANN #50 meeting about the inherent conflict of interest with respect to an organization that proposes to manage the process that could reveal the organization’s accountability shortcomings and thus not always show the organization in its best light if the process is rigorously pursued. Rather than heed the numerous cautions from the community regarding ICANN’s conflict of interest in attempting to design the process to hold itself accountable, ICANN plans to be in charge of every key element of the process. Irregular Process Employed in Development of ICANN Plan From the beginning, ICANN’s senior management has [...]
Enhancing ICANN Accountability – IP Justice Comments
Strengthen Protection for Human Rights, Independent Checks on Board, Greater Transparency, Adherence to Bottom-Up Decision Making
A Civil Society Perspective on NETmundial 2014 Final Outcome Document: A Remarkable Achievement, Despite Losses to Hollywood & Govts Over Specific Language on Most Controversial Issues
What follows are a few 'big picture' thoughts on the Netmundial meeting in Brazil this week and its final outcome document, adopted by its high level committee. Overall, there are some truly amazing and forward-looking principles supported in the "Netmundial Multi-Stakeholder Statement" that we as civil society should be proud of, and especially our civil society representatives who worked tirelessly for this achievement. Specifically, the Internet governance principles of human rights, democracy, equality, openness, transparency, accountability, decentralization, rights to access, share, distribute information on the Internet, and the Internet as a global resource to be managed in the public interest are all supported in the final outcome document. These principles are all wonderful achievements for social justice and an important pivot point in the evolution of global governance principles and mechanisms. Civil society lost ground in the final moments on the specific wording over the most contentious issues, such as surveillance, copyright, permissionless innovation, intermediary protections, net neutrality, and separation of policy and operations in IANA, but the fact that these controversial issues were mentioned at all in the statement is a significant advancement (except for the ode to copyright). So on some key substantive policy issues, the statement reflects a remarkable positive achievement, despite critical losses on the specific wording where civil society got out-lobbied, out-muscled, and out-manuevered in the last [...]
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
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 adoption of a policy that expressly contradicts the clearly enunciated GNSO policy preference on that issue.[1] The specific policy at issue in this CEP is ICANN staff’s unilateral decision to grant trademark holders significantly greater rights via its “trademark plus 50” (“TM+50”) policy in contradiction to the GNSO Council’s policy recommendations and implementation guidance and the process described in ICANN’s Bylaws that govern its adoption of policy. NCSG contends that the manner by which ICANN’s Board-staff adopted the TM+50 policy without following the proper policy modification process violates the organization’s Bylaws. I. ICANN Bylaws Annex A Mandates Bottom-Up Policy Development Process ICANN’s Corporate Bylaws require the organization to develop and adopt policy via its Generic Name Supporting Organization (GNSO) in a “bottom up” fashion through the Policy Development Process (PDP) outlined in Annex A of the Bylaws: “The following process shall govern the GNSO policy development process ("PDP") until such time as modifications are recommended to and approved by [...]
Noncommercial Users Ask ICANN Board to Review Decision to Expand Trademark Rights in New Domains
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.
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...