In Victory for Free Expression Online, ICANN Refuses to Enforce “Registry Voluntary Commitments”

At ICANN's 80th meeting, underway this week in Kigali, Rwanda, the board finally killed off an attempt by a few applicants for new Top Level Domains to use domain name registry contracts to regulate website content. Board director Becky Burr said that after consulting its lawyers, the ICANN board has...

The Power to Govern Ourselves: (Multi)Stakeholders, States and Collective Action

The following is the text of the Keynote speech delivered at the GigArts 2024 conference, The Hague, Netherlands, June 4, 2024.  We now have almost 30 years of experience with so-called multistakeholder governance. Sometimes it’s called the multistakeholder model. Sometimes it’s the “multistakeholder approach.” Sometimes, it’s an “ism,” like communism...

Public and Private Power in Internet Content Regulation: ICANN and Registry “Voluntary” Commitments

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...

The Dutch in the grip of Internet nationalism

The Netherlands has a reputation for being a liberal, broad-minded place that is open to the world. Its scholars in Internet governance have emphasized the need for a globally recognized “public core” of the Internet. But apparently the virus of digital sovereignty has affected a significant portion of the Internet...

Fragmenting the Web: The EU’s Identity Power Play

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...

The Technical Community and Internet Governance: A Response to the Costerton-Curran-Wilson letter

As participants in – and long-time supporters of – the governance model of ICANN and the regional Internet registries, we were puzzled by a recent blog post by three leaders of these important institutions. Sally Costerton is the interim CEO of ICANN, the organization that operates the IANA and develops...

The Narrative: VLOPs and VLOSErs; .NET Renewal; Stablecoins

1 May, 2023 Who’s a VLOP and who’s a VLOSER? Alibaba, Amazon, LinkedIn, YouTube, TikTok, Twitter and Wikipedia are among the entities that have been designated "Very Large Online Platforms'' (VLOPs) by the European Commission. Google search and Bing have been designated Very Large Online Search Engines (VLOSErs). All will...