[NCUC-DISCUSS] Fwd: [call for comment] NCUC Statement on Domain Abuse and the Avoidance of Content Regulation

[Mueller, Milton L]

Hi, Sala. Thanks for your comments.

In summary, noting that within ICANN, there has been debate on what constitutes domain abuse and where there are two sides of the fence where on one hand you have people advocating for taking down a domain that has any hint of misbehavior and the other side who feel that Registries and Registrars have no responsibility towards a clean domain space.
Most constituencies, registries and registrars want a clean domain space, the problem is that a lot of the problems being dumped at ICANN’s doorstep have nothing to do with the domain name space.  They are things like copyright enforcement, etc.
There have been other internet stakeholders that consider other types of domain misuse just as abusive and illegal. Some examples include intellectual property infringement, copyright, trademark violations and certain types of what people may perceive to be objectionable content.
Right, in this view almost every conceivable form of illegal activity on the internet gets thrown into the category “domain abuse.” But that’s unclear and inaccurate. It happens because it serves the interests of IPR folks who want the DNS industry to take on the burdens of enforcing their rights. But it’s harmful to the rights of internet users and leads to mission creep for icann. Of course, almost all forms of internet crime in some way are connected to a domain name at some point or another. But that connection does not mean that, for example, “objectionable content” is a form of domain abuse. Objectionable content is about the content, not the domain, and action against it is a form of regulating expression, not regulating domains.  ICANN is not in any position to regulate content globally, and we need to clearly separate its responsibilities from broader mandates.
In my personal opinion, abuse causes well defined harm to many organizations and individuals including Registries and Registrars. Consider the abuse of domain names to commit fraud during times of escalated crisis, where fake red cross domains soliciting donations aside from the spam that exploits one of the Pacific ccTLDs, ".pw" and a host of other "abuse examples"
Those are clear examples of how the domain itself is the problem. We need to draw a bright clean line between that and things like “objectionable content.”
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