Welcome to the ICANN57 schedule! This seven-day, Annual General Meeting is focused on outreach, capacity building, and showcasing ICANN’s work to a broader global audience. For more details about the meeting, click here.
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DNS and Content Regulation Group: NCUC Background/ Importance: ICANN and its domain name registries and registrars are steadily increasing pressure to assume responsibility for enforcement of rules about content on the Internet. We see this in calls for the cancellation or suspension of domain names associated with allegedly illegal or objectionable content hosted on a website to which the name resolves. This includes content that is alleged to be in breach of intellectual property rights, or that might contravenes national licensing or regulatory requirements, or might be in breach of some other law or social standard. The attraction of enforcing content rules through ICANN and its contracted parties is that they are a convenient gateway for access to most content that is hosted online, and if they can be induced to act, the complainant will be able to save much time and money in comparison to pursuing legal avenues. This applies especially to cases of cross-border disputes, where one or more of the the locations of the complainant, the website host, the website owner, the registry, and the registrar, may be different. But the negative side of this method of enforcement is that it tends to lack the due process and accountability of domestic legal processes. If private parties are held responsible for enforcing content rules, they are likely to enforce them in the way that poses the least cost and risk to themselves, rather than in a way that upholds users’ rights to freedom of expression and privacy. This is especially so if ICANN or its contracted parties are held legally responsible for the registrants’ content in case of their failure to act. Session Goals/Expected Outcomes: The issues surrounding this debate are highly pertinent to ongoing debates within the ICANN community including: Enforcement of the 2013 Registrar Accreditation Agreement Application of intermediary liability rules and safe harbours to contracted parties Self-regulatory measures such as the Domain Name Association Healthy Domains Initiative The session will bring together all relevant stakeholders and constituencies including GAC and law enforcement representatives, the Intellectual Property Constituency, the Non-Commercial Users Constituency, and the registrars and registries, to discuss and debate the appropriate role of ICANN and its contracted parties in relation to Internet content hosted at a domain. Although it is not expected that a full consensus will be achieved, the outcomes of the session will be a greater awareness amongst all stakeholders of the complex issues surrounding Internet content regulation through participants in the domain name system, which will feed into ongoing policy discussions throughout the ICANN community and enable more inclusive and informed outcomes to be reached. Relevant Documentation: • Manila Principles on Intermediary Liability https://www.manilaprinciples.org • Healthy Domains Initiative http://www.thedna.org/the-dna-launches-hdi-press-release-2-16-2016/ • MPAA Trusted Notifier program (Radix http://www.mpaa.org/new-mpaaradix-partnership-highlights-the-continuing-... and Donuts http://www.donuts.domains/donuts-media/blog/donuts-and-the-mpaa-striking...) • EDRi on self-regulation https://edri.org/theme/self-regulation-2/ • ICANN is Not the Internet Content Police https://www.icann.org/news/blog/icann-is-not-the-internet-content-police Agenda: https://community.icann.org/x/eiS4Aw
