More on USG and ICANN (also: GAC meeting in Brussels)

Thu Feb 10 00:47:00 CET 2011

I have forward to the NPOC list for consideration.  Thanks for taking the time to formulate a response Mary and Milton.

Amber Sterling

Senior Intellectual Property Specialist

Association of American Medical Colleges

From: NCSG-NCUC [mailto:NCSG-NCUC-DISCUSS at LISTSERV.SYR.EDU] On Behalf Of Mary Wong
Sent: Tuesday, February 08, 2011 5:37 PM
To: NCSG-NCUC-DISCUSS at LISTSERV.SYR.EDU
Subject: Re: More on USG and ICANN (also: GAC meeting in Brussels)

Hi everyone

Attached is a revised version of the proposed NCSG statement on the US Government proposal that will no doubt be discussed in Brussels. I've incorporated all Milton's edits except for a couple of minor language tweaks and edits. 

Who and what should we send it to? The story's been picked up by quite a few blogs and other publications (such as Milton's piece on CBS, Declan McCullagh's and Kieran McCarthy's write ups etc.) so it seems to me that NCSG can use the opportunity to support the Board doing the right thing.

I guess we could send to the "usual suspects" like Circle ID, Managing IP, the folks mentioned here and perhaps the Internet Governance Caucus list, besides individuals and individual lists we may belong to. Any other ideas? Or would members prefer a less public approach?

Cheers

Mary

Mary W S Wong

Professor of Law

Chair, Graduate IP Programs

UNIVERSITY OF NEW HAMPSHIRE SCHOOL OF LAW
Two White Street
Concord, NH 03301
USA
Email: mary.wong at law.unh.edu
Phone: 1-603-513-5143
Webpage: http://www.law.unh.edu/marywong/index.php
Selected writings available on the Social Science Research Network (SSRN) at: http://ssrn.com/author=437584

>>> 

From: 

Milton L Mueller <mueller at SYR.EDU>

To:

<NCSG-NCUC-DISCUSS at listserv.syr.edu>

Date: 

2/7/2011 2:26 PM

Subject: 

Re: More on USG and ICANN

Mary

Thanks for the initial good work. I’ve gone over it, deleted some things, modified wording mainly on the GAC censorship issue, and added a short section on Vertical integration. 

As I understand it, you are addressing this statement to the GAC members. For this to be worthwhile, we must have a means of distributing this to GAC members. What is your proposed method? I don’t know for sure how to do it. 

On the GAC veto, I have strengthened the language considerably. Please do not fall into the trap of voicing support for “universal resolvability,” as if a GAC veto were actually some kind of a remedy for national-level blocking. Here is my substitute language:

“We wish to emphasize that an appeal to “universal resolvability of DNS” cannot possibly justify giving any individual government the power to block the creation of a TLD “for any reason.” One does not advance the cause of a globally interconnected internet by encouraging any individual government to exercise a global authority to block the creation of top level domain applications. The only effect of such a policy would be to multiply one country’s controls and regulations to all countries. There are in fact no technical harms to the Internet as a whole caused by the blocking of a single TLD by one or a few countries.” 

I also deleted your list of “misapprehensions” – first, what you are doing there is re-stating USG’s arguments and anyone reading it hurriedly (as almost all will) can easily come away with the misapprehension that you are supporting those arguments. Second, it’s too wordy and assumes too careful a reading  - you are telling the reader what arguments you will reject hundreds of words later, and it’s unlikely people will read the doc with that level of care, best to just attack the arguments when you attack them. 

Edited file is attached 

From: Mary Wong [mailto:Mary.Wong at law.unh.edu] 
Sent: Monday, February 07, 2011 12:30 PM
To: NCSG-NCUC-DISCUSS at listserv.syr.edu; Milton L Mueller
Subject: Re: More on USG and ICANN

Thanks to Milton and Marc for the links. I decided to sit down and read the US Government proposal in greater detail than I have, and as a result produced a draft statement for NCSG that I hope you will all sign on to and that we can circulate widely to facilitate the ICANN Board sticking to only narrow changes/revisions to the draft Applicant Guidebook by San Francisco. I'm thinking, in particular, of Board members, GAC friendlies, and influential publications/blogs/journalists).

Please note that I've only had time (and background) to write about the proposals relating to the MAPO and Community Objections Procedure, and briefly on the trademark stuff. If anybody wants to add comments on the other proposals (e.g. VI, economic analysis), please feel free do so but - hopefully - soon.

In the same vein, and assuming this makes it as an NCSG comment, I think it'd be good to circulate it sooner rather than later. As such - and mind you, I'm not possessive about my language! - please limit your comments to substantive ones as far as possible. I know my phrasing is likely to be viewed as too tame by some members, but I won't have time to do a re-write (nor would I necessarily support a much more impassioned document :)

Finally, I wanted to note that I don't mention one issue of significance to NCSG - support for developing country applicants (which is what the JAS working group headed by Rafik is working on in the face of massive difficulties and opposition within the ICANN community). It may be that this issue is major enough for some NCSG members to support a delayed launch of new gTLDs, but I felt it would not be opportune or strategic to include it in the document (I do, however, sneak in a footnote linking to Milton's blog post about the topic :)

Please let the list know if you have substantive comments, position corrections or are working on a draft or re-draft (so we can keep track of who's doing what). I also apologize if there are members other than Milton and Avri who have blogged about the issue who I didn't know about and so didn't use to help draft this document.

Thanks and cheers

Mary

Mary W S Wong

Professor of Law

Chair, Graduate IP Programs

UNIVERSITY OF NEW HAMPSHIRE SCHOOL OF LAW
Two White Street
Concord, NH 03301
USA
Email: mary.wong at law.unh.edu
Phone: 1-603-513-5143
Webpage: http://www.law.unh.edu/marywong/index.php
Selected writings available on the Social Science Research Network (SSRN) at: http://ssrn.com/author=437584

>>> 

From: 

Milton L Mueller <mueller at SYR.EDU>

To:

<NCSG-NCUC-DISCUSS at listserv.syr.edu>

Date: 

2/7/2011 11:33 AM

Subject: 

Re: More on USG and ICANN

Ars Technica has also taken up the issue
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/02/if-governments-can-block-top-level-domains-is-gay-doomed.ars 

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Marc Rotenberg [mailto:rotenberg at epic.org]
> Sent: Monday, February 07, 2011 7:47 AM
> To: Milton L Mueller
> Cc: NCSG-NCUC-DISCUSS at LISTSERV.SYR.EDU
> Subject: More on USG and ICANN
> 
> http://news.cnet.com/8301-31921_3-20030809-281.html
> 
> Marc.

As of August 30, 2010, Franklin Pierce Law Center has affiliated with the University of New Hampshire and is now known as the University of New Hampshire School of Law. Please note that all email addresses have changed and now follow the convention: firstname.lastname at law.unh.edu. For more information on the University of New Hampshire School of Law, please visit law.unh.edu <http://law.unh.edu>  

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