Hi Tapani,
I would like to introduce another important and timely question for our NCSG/Board meeting. It is one that comes from Mitch Stoltz and myself. Mitch is a Senior Staff Attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation. He works on cases where free speech and innovation collide with copyright and trademark law.  For the first time, he will be joining us at an ICANN meeting in India!

Currently, MItch is working on concerns about "shadow regulation."  Shadow regulation is the "secretive web of backroom agreements between companies that seek to control our behavior online." (See Fair Processes, Better Outcomes, https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/09/fair-processes-better-outcomes)

We have just such a shadow regulation here in our gTLD Community. Earlier this year, Donuts signed a deal with the MPAA to take down not just content, but entire domain names, of copyright owners accused by the MPAA of violating their copyrights. Although the concept, MPAA as a "trusted notifier" was taken from the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act, it was taken without any of its fairness, balance, protections and appeals. Basically, it's another "accuse you lose" scenario (for anyone who remembers the first version of Uniform Rapid Suspension, before we fought for huge changes). And Donuts is marketing this agreement as a "Best Practice." :-(

Mitch can be with us for the NCSG-Board meeting and we propose the following question set:
    ==>  Does the Board continue to agree with Fadi Chehade's position of Summer 2015 that ICANN does not police content, https://www.icann.org/news/blog/icann-is-not-the-internet-content-police (published by Alan Grogan, ICANN's Chief Contract Compliance Officer)?  Does the Board share our concerns that arrangements like the MPAA-Donuts agreement are deeply inappropriate for the Domain Name System?
 
Likely response:
I think we may find relief from the Board in our asking this question. As you may have seen, the IPC leadership is banging on the Board to enforce copyright laws through ICANN compliance (See ICANN Correspondence).  Steve Crocker has been writing back forcefully to say this is not within ICANN's scope and purview.

I think our questions will a) support the effort of the ICANN Board to push back on the IPC on its push, b) and share the horrors of the Donuts-MPAA private agreement with those members of the Board who have not yet heard about it. 

Best,
Kathy

[log in to unmask]" type="cite">

Hi

You might consider combining 1 and 3 somehow, otherwise 2 of our 3 topics are focused on nailing the same person, who they’re doubling down on. Could be awkward and set teeth on edge. 

Another option would be to ask about Goran’s “new narrative” that he’ll have rolled out by, ask about costs/benefits of a tripartite community/board/organization formulation….

Bill

On Oct 19, 2016, at 17:29, Mueller, Milton L <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

1. The new "complaint" system, which puts ICANN's lawyer (whose job is to protect the corporation from complainers whether they are right or wrong) in charge of managing complaints. Also affects the independence of the Ombudsman in unclear ways

2. The "small group" that is trying to develop policy for IGO names outside of ICANN's bottom up and representative policy processes. 

3. Why there were no repercussions for the abuses of TLD evaluation procedures in the Dot Registry case. Indeed, the person responsible seems to have been promoted. 

-----Original Message-----
From: NCSG-Discuss [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf
Of Tapani Tarvainen
Sent: Wednesday, October 19, 2016 8:30 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Topics for meeting with the board in Hyderabad?

Dear all,

As usual the board wants in advance topics or questions for our meeting with
them in Hyderabad.

Suggestions?

--
Tapani Tarvainen