\"Public Interest Commitments\" Amount to Illegitimate Usurpation of Bottom-Up Policy <\/p>\n
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. ICANN's decision to exclude numerous lawful users of the word, including a broad range of individuals who are in fact doctors, comes at a time when the world is watching ICANN to see if it can adequately protect Internet users' rights in the absence of US Government supervision. If ICANN's treatment of free expression in the implementation of its new gTLD program is any indication, ICANN has not yet sufficiently developed to be trusted with protecting Internet users' rights in the domain name system. <\/p>\n
Often overlooked is that ICANN's community sought to protect freedom of expression rights in the new gTLD program by including free expression principles and recommendations in the GNSO's final approved new gTLD policy. However, those protections were quietly violated in the staff's subsequent implementation of the GNSO's policy, which afforded no protection to Internet users' free expression rights. <\/p>\n
Specifically, after the GNSO approved the community's policy for new gTLDs, ICANN staff added a new requirement to the policy, called \"Public Interest Commitments\" or \"PICs\", which are contractual terms ICANN imposed on new gTLD registries that add policy requirements and restrictions that were never approved by the community or subject to a bottom-up process. Some PICs actually violate the community's consensus policy on issues, most notably freedom of expression. <\/p>\n
The new gTLD policy approved by the GNSO Council in 2007 and subsequently ICANN's board included Principle G: \"The string evaluation process must not infringe the applicant's freedom of expression rights that are protected under internationally recognized principles of law.\"1 <\/p>\n
Additionally, Recommendation 3 of the GNSO's final new gTLD policy states: <\/p>\n
\"Strings must not infringe the existing legal rights of others that are recognized or enforceable under generally accepted and internationally recognized principles of law Examples of these legal rights include ... the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) (in particular freedom of expression rights).\" <\/p>\n
Furthermore, Recommendation 6 of the GNSO's New GTLD Policy states: <\/p>\n
\"Strings must not be contrary to generally accepted legal norms relating to morality and public order that are recognized under international principles of law.\" <\/p>\n
Recommendation 6 goes on to cite as examples of these legal norms, rights provided by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, both of which guarantee freedom of expression in any media and regardless of frontiers. <\/p>\n
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Here is the original post:<\/p>\n
Freedom of Expression Chilled by ICANN's Addition of Speech Restrictions in DNS<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \"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. ICANN's decision to exclude numerous lawful users of the word, including a broad range of individuals who are in fact doctors, comes at a time when the world is watching ICANN to see if it can adequately protect Internet users' rights in the absence of US Government supervision Continue reading