[Poll] reminder: Topics for discussion: NCSG - ICANN Board meeting Tuesday 9th February

[Edward Morris]

Hi Rafik,



I’d like to suggest a topic that has not had high visibility in our
stakeholder group in recent years, yet is a big part of the NCSG DNA: the
belief that ICANN should not be involved in content control. It’s part of
our belief in free expression and it’s something that very slowly ICANN is
getting involved in fairly blatantly. I think it would be productive for us
to raise the flag in this area to get word to the Board that we’re noticing
this and that we do not approve of this mission creep.



ICANN has always been involved in content to some degree. The most visible
activity in this area came during the .XXX battles where contractual
language specified forms of prohibited content. Obviously the new gTLD
programme involves, in many ways, content classification. But recently…



This autumn we learned that ICANN had employees going through corporate
records of firms in Panama to help law enforcement track down an alleged
child pornography ring. (
http://domainincite.com/14842-icann-helps-bust-russian-child-porn-ring ).
Now Fadi tells us they are attempting to figure out what to do with the
case of a Bulgarian man with servers in Costa Rica who is allegedly putting
i.p. ingringing content online ( NCSG – CEO meeting, NCPH intersessional
transcript, p. 19-20). This is certainly a long way from names and numbers.



We know Fadi’s perspective. According to Mr. Chehade, ICANN is under
pressure. It’s one of the reasons ICANN is supposedly getting involved in
the NMI. Yet during the interessional meeting Fadi also stated several
times that ICANN needed community input to help determine “how far does
ICANN want to go?” on matters like these (intersessional transcript, p.
10). We need to tell him that ICANN has no role to play in policing content
online.



Although we know Fadi’s position (both revelations mentioned above came as
a result of Fadi speaking extemporaneously) and expressed confusion on
these matters  we haven’t really heard from the Board about situations like
these. On the one hand we’re told during the transition that ICANN has a
limited remit and is going to stick to it. On the other hand we have ICANN
employees searching through Central American corporate records to assist
authorities in policing content. I think it would be appropriate for us to
express concern about ICANN’s incursions, both actual and contemplated,
into content and to try to get clarification as to the Board’s views and
intentions on the matter.



Ed
ᐧ

On Sun, Jan 25, 2015 at 10:23 PM, Rafik Dammak <rafik.dammak at gmail.com>
wrote:

> Hi everyone,
>
> We need to get 3 topics to discuss with the ICANN board at singapore
> meeting.
>
> Best,
>
> Rafik
> On Jan 20, 2015 10:32 AM, "Rafik Dammak" <rafik.dammak at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Hi everyone,
>>
>> like every time in preparation for ICANN meeting, we have to discuss what
>> kind of topics/issues we want to raise with ICANN board members when we
>>  meet them.
>>
>> we will try to get 3 topics and send them 1 week prior to the session.
>> please propose  topics and suggest short descriptions . we will conduct
>> later a polling to pick-up the 3 topics among the proposals.
>>
>> Best Regards,
>>
>> Rafik
>>
>
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