NCUC: Please check out the civil society petition to "keep the core neutral" below. The global petition is directed to the ICANN Board of Directors, and both organizations or individuals will be welcome to sign the petition. The Keep the Core Neutral Campaign and petition will launch next week at the San Juan Board meeting, so we are looking for initial signatures to the petition, particularly from organizations. I'd like to propose that NCUC sign the petition and be an initial coalition member upon the campaign's launch next week. What do others think? The campaign website is being built by Dan at: www.keep-the-core-neutral.org Any volunteers for translations of the petition into non-English languages? Thank you! Robin ================ Global Petition to ICANN Board of Directors: “Keep the Core Neutral” Everyone has the right to seek, receive and impart information and ideas without interference through any media, including cyberspace. As the new generic top-level domain name space emerges and policy choices are made about how ideas may be expressed at the Internet’s top-level, we ask ICANN to keep the core neutral of non-technical disputes and choose policies that respect freedom of expression and permit innovation in the new domain name space. Encouraging the free flow of information is a foundational principle of public policy decisions related to information and communication technology. Freedom of expression rights, which are fundamental in an Information Society, foster democratic participation, individual empowerment, and economic development. Cyberspace remains a unique and special place that bridges ancient divisions, where diverse communities interact readily, and all views are welcome. But only if these attributes are valued by policymakers who set Internet governance rules and incorporated into policies about how ideas may be expressed in domain names. We ask that ICANN stay within its technical mandate and refrain from embedding particular national, regional, moral, or religious policy objectives into global rules over the use of language in domain names. It would be dangerous “mission-creep” for ICANN to adjudicate between conflicting policy objectives and set global standards for expression that are enforced through ICANN’s technical function. Please do not allow ICANN to become a convenient lever of global control by those seeking to censor unpopular or controversial expression on the Internet. We urge ICANN to resist any attempt to limit what ideas may be expressed at any level of the Internet hierarchy. Please keep the Internet’s technical core neutral from national or other ideological conflicts, allowing freedom and innovation to flourish in cyberspace. Signed, [Individuals or groups may sign.]