Home / News

EFF Warns ICANN Not to Engage in Censorship, Says It Should Stick to Technical Role

A series of articles published by EFF, coinciding with ICANN’s 60th meeting in Abu Dhabi this week, Jeremy Malcolm warns that domain name registrars, registries and ICANN can become “free speech week leaks” for online censorship. He writes: “ICANN appears to have voluntarily taken on further responsibility for addressing ‘abuse involving’ domain names through its appointment this year of a Consumer Safeguards Director with a background in law enforcement. EFF attended and reported on the first webinar held by the new Director, in which he downplayed the significance of his role, stating that it does not carry any enforcement powers. Yet a draft report of ICANN’s Competition, Consumer Trust and Consumer Choice Review Team recommends that strict new enforcement and reporting obligations should be made compulsory for any new top-level domains that ICANN adopts in the future. ICANN’s Non-Commercial Stakeholder Group (NCSG) has explained why many of these recommendations would be unnecessary and harmful.” ICANN should maintain its current limited role in the technical administration of a secure and stable domain name system, Malcolm says. ICANN “should not pick up the censor’s pen.”

NORDVPN DISCOUNT - CircleID x NordVPN
Get NordVPN  [74% +3 extra months, from $2.99/month]
By CircleID Reporter

CircleID’s internal staff reporting on news tips and developing stories. Do you have information the professional Internet community should be aware of? Contact us.

Visit Page

Filed Under

Comments

Comment Title:

  Notify me of follow-up comments

We encourage you to post comments and engage in discussions that advance this post through relevant opinion, anecdotes, links and data. If you see a comment that you believe is irrelevant or inappropriate, you can report it using the link at the end of each comment. Views expressed in the comments do not represent those of CircleID. For more information on our comment policy, see Codes of Conduct.

CircleID Newsletter The Weekly Wrap

More and more professionals are choosing to publish critical posts on CircleID from all corners of the Internet industry. If you find it hard to keep up daily, consider subscribing to our weekly digest. We will provide you a convenient summary report once a week sent directly to your inbox. It's a quick and easy read.

Related

Topics

DNS

Sponsored byDNIB.com

Threat Intelligence

Sponsored byWhoisXML API

Domain Names

Sponsored byVerisign

New TLDs

Sponsored byRadix

IPv4 Markets

Sponsored byIPv4.Global

Cybersecurity

Sponsored byVerisign

Brand Protection

Sponsored byCSC