NGOs use Davos World Economic Forum Stage to Protest Sale of .org Domain Registry

[Mitch Stoltz]

I agree that government interference in ICANN is problematic, but it's 
inevitable when an issue has generated so much public concern while 
ICANN remains silent. In a positive step, the ICANN Board came out and 
met with protestors this morning who were calling for ICANN to weigh in 
on the sale of PIR. That strongly suggests the issue won't be disposed 
of by staff without responding to the concerns that have been raised. 
Transparent, participatory engagement on this issue is the way to head 
off government interference.

Many comments on this list have been forthcoming about what solutions 
people don't want to see, but I hope we can turn our attention towards 
helping make changes that we do want, and to do it in a meaningful 
timeframe. We have less than a month to convince the ICANN Board to 
either hold an open, competitive bidding for the .ORG registry operator, 
or at a minimum, renegotiate the registry agreement to include greater 
protections for registrants. After 17 February, ICANN will lose its 
ability to terminate or renegotiate the registry agreement until 2029.

We have an opportunity to show leadership from within the ICANN 
community, head off interference by the US government, and achieve 
greater protections for noncommercial registrants. That would be far 
better than being the wise guys sitting at the back of the classroom 
throwing spitballs at every good-faith proposal to fix this mess.

Mitch Stoltz
Senior Staff Attorney, EFF | 415-436-9333 x142
https://www.eff.org/donate | https://act.eff.org/

On 1/24/20 11:35 AM, Bruna Martins dos Santos wrote:
> I honestly just hope we do not end up regretting the amount of 
> attention from Legislators and Government officials that this campaign 
> is bringing to ICANN.
>
> Bringing our subjects to the communities outside of ICANN is 
> definitely important if and when we manage to properly explain the 
> issues and things that are being advocated for within this community, 
> but the way this is being done might truly be harmful to our model. 
> (Hope I am wrong on this one)
>
> best,
> B
>
> Le ven. 24 janv. 2020 à 17:33, Caleb Olumuyiwa Ogundele 
> <muyiwacaleb at gmail.com <mailto:muyiwacaleb at gmail.com>> a écrit :
>
>     This is another blow and absolutely a bad global press focus on ISOC.
>     Perhaps, a time for them to step back and reflect.
>
>     On Fri, Jan 24, 2020 at 8:28 PM Sam Lanfranco <lanfran at yorku.ca
>     <mailto:lanfran at yorku.ca>> wrote:
>
>         Colleagues,
>
>         https://www.devex.com/news/ngos-use-davos-stage-to-protest-sale-of-org-domain-96410
>
>
>           NGOs use Davos stage to protest sale of .org domain
>
>         /By Adva Saldinger <https://www.devex.com/news/authors/815508>
>         // 23 January 2020/
>
>         DAVOS, Switzerland — Plans to sell the .org domain to a
>         private equity firm have international NGOs worried that civil
>         society, which is already faced with a closing civic space,
>         will lose its digital commons.
>
>         The executive directors of 11 international NGOs released an
>         open letter Wednesday calling on the leaders of two nonprofits
>         — the Internet Society and the Internet Corporation for
>         Assigned Names and Numbers — to stop the sale of the .org domain.
>
>         For the rest of the Davos World Economic Forum coverage see:
>         https://www.devex.com/news/ngos-use-davos-stage-to-protest-sale-of-org-domain-96410
>
>
>
>
>
>     -- 
>     *Ogundele Olumuyiwa Caleb*
>     /*muyiwacaleb at gmail.com <mailto:muyiwacaleb at gmail.com>*/
>     /*234 - 8077377378*/
>     /*234 - 07030777969*/
>
>
>
> -- 
> */Bruna Martins dos Santos /*
>
> Skype ID: bruna.martinsantos
> @boomartins

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