On April 24th the NETmundial “Global Multistakeholder Meeting on the Future of Internet Governance” concluded with the issuance of an eight-page statement. This non-binding document is hardly the “Magna Carta for the Internet” called for in an opening statement delivered by Tim Berners Lee, but it does set the stage for the other two major 2014 events that will affect …
The NETmundial meeting in Sao Paulo kicked off on the morning of April 23rd and one of the speakers at its Opening Ceremony proclaimed that the Internet was a curious type of “Public Commons” in which private domain registrants should be obligated to pay a fee to fund access, capacity-building, and general bridging of the Internet gap between the developing …
For the third time in six months, ICA has told ICANN that the legally questionable and largely unnecessary attempts of International Governmental Agencies (IGOs) and International Nongovernmental Agencies (INGOs) to secure extraordinary protections for their organizational acronyms at second level domains should be met with a firm and resounding “no”. (Letter available below and at http://forum.icann.org/lists/comments-igo-ingo-crp-prelim-10mar14/msg00006.html )
Early on it looked like concern over the Obama Administration’s proposal to terminate the U.S. counterparty role on the IANA functions contract might be a one-sided partisan affair. That would be very unfortunate, as Internet freedom as well as its security and stability should raise bipartisan questions. But that is changing. Senator Mark Warner, Democrat of Virginia, last week noted …
The calm is over, and the storm may be about to begin. Congress is back from recess and not one but two Congressional Committees are about to hone in on the implications of the NTIA’s March 14th announcement of its intention to surrender its IANA functions contract counterparty status with ICANN by September 2015. Meantime, an exhausting ICANN …
The NTIA has just announced that it plans to turn its IANA functions contract counterparty role over to “the global multistakeholder community” when the current contract expires at the end of September 2015.
ICA Counsel Philip Corwin has been asked to speak at “ICANN and Global Internet Governance: The Road to São Paulo, and Beyond”, a program being held on Friday, March 21st in Singapore just before the start of the first ICANN meeting of the year. The full day program is being sponsored by ICANN’s Non-Commercial Users Constituency (NCUC). Corwin will be a …
Number one domain name registrar GoDaddy has been hit by another trademark infringement lawsuit. Earlier this month GoDaddy failed in its efforts to recuse U.S. District Court Judge Audrey Collins from presiding over a case brought against it by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.[i] The litigation alleges that GoDaddy committed cybersquatting trademark infringement when it “parked” more …
Controversy continues to build in Washington, DC regarding an online campaign against Democratic candidates for the House being conducted by the National Republican Campaign Committee. As just reported by National Journal, the NRCC recently adjusted the arguably misleading series of websites and “changed the donation page to make clearer to potential contributors that their money wasn’t going to the smiling …
A German court has reached the rather startling conclusion that a domain registrar can be held responsible for alleged copyright infringement at a website even though its only contact with it was to perform the original domain registration. As reported by PC Advisor on February 7th, “A domain name registrar can be held liable for the copyright infringements of a …
