How far can ICANN go to escape the nation-state? ICANN 60 (held in Abu Dhabi October 28 – Nov 3rd) made important progress on what has become known as “the jurisdiction issue.” ICANN is taking steps to reduce or eliminate the effect that U.S. sanctions against foreign governments would have on ordinary Internet users and […]
ICANN is a California nonprofit headquartered in the United States. ICANN’s accountability reforms included a discussion of how U.S. jurisdiction affects ICANN’s accountability and domain name users. Not satisfied with ending U.S. control over the DNS root, a few stakeholders wanted to get ICANN out of the U.S. altogether. It is now pretty clear that […]
The impact of ICANN’s U.S. jurisdiction has been a subject of intense debate. Some say it doesn’t matter, some say it does. The time to provide evidence of domain name related problems caused by ICANN’s jurisdiction has arrived. If your domain names were confiscated because you live in a country sanctioned by the U.S., or […]
One of the outstanding accountability issues at ICANN after the IANA transition is the jurisdiction of ICANN and how that affects its ability to execute its mission. As part of Work Stream 2 of the accountability reforms, an ICANN working group focuses on the issue of jurisdiction. While the accountability reforms firmly situate ICANN’s corporate […]
India’s government is intensifying its scrutiny of foreign tech companies ahead of national elections. A recent directive from India’s Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) mandates explicit government permission for deploying “under-tested” or “unreliable” AI models and software for Indian users. The advisory requires AI systems to be labeled to acknowledge potential fallibility before […]
Is censorship something that only happens when state actors do it, or can private actors engage in it as well? That crucial Internet governance debate is taking place in two venues: The U.S. Supreme Court, which will rule on two state laws that try to regulate the way platforms moderate content, and ICANN, which is […]
The year 2023 was a notable one in digital governance. A retrograde tendency by nation-states to pursue “digital sovereignty” peaked in Europe, China and the U.S., leading to numerous governmental barriers and restrictions on data, networks, computing devices and software applications. Meanwhile, breakthroughs in natural language AI applications convinced the world that chatbots were harbingers […]
Disinformation during emergencies (DiE) can critically undermine government efforts to mitigate socioeconomic harm and damage the relationship between the state and citizens. With the production of nuclear power growing in multiple countries and widespread concern over generative-AI-fueled disinformation online, we are researching the impact of DiE on transnational nuclear emergency responses. Over the next few weeks, […]
The Internet Governance Project has signed on to a Joint statement of scientists and NGOs in opposition to Article 45 of the European Union’s eIDAS (Electronic IDentification And trust Services) regulation. Security researchers, digital rights groups and industry all oppose the regulation, as it shifts decision-making authority over whom to trust from browsers to governments. […]
Dispatches from the evolving digital political economy AI Governance: Empty Gestures? The US government released an AI Executive Order October 31. The Halloween release comes after a year-long FUD campaign, backed partly by businessmen with a vested interest in AI, that frames AI as a frightening new technology that poses existential risks to all humanity. […]
“In characteristically rigorous fashion, Mueller’s outstanding book punctures the alarmist myth of Internet fragmentation and helps us to understand what is really at stake as nations and other groups vie for power over the Internet.”
Jack Goldsmith, Harvard Law School