Digital Rights + Internet Governance + Innovation Policy

Dissenting Opinion of Member Robin Gross to ICANN CCWG Accountability Report on Issue of Enhancing Governmental Control Over Internet via ICANN Accountability Reform Process

Dissent of Member Robin Gross to CCWG-Accountability Report as .pdf (18 February 2016) Dissenting Opinion of Individual Member Robin Gross on the Issue of GAC Over-Empowerment, Marginalization of Supporting Organizations While the majority of recommendations included in the CCWG-Accountability Report for Work Stream 1 mark significant and laudable improvements for ICANN’s accountability processes, the proposal [...]

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

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

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 [...]

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