Outsourcing censorship

In an entry on the Internet Governance Project blog entitled "Outsourcing censorship: ICANN, Inc. insists on it", Milton Mueller writes: 

"In a rather shocking development, ICANN’s staff is trying to reject key consensus recommendations regarding the censorship of new top level domains. The staff's "explanatory memo" on why it is trying to discard the decisions of a Cross-community Working Group show a complete lack of interest in the freedom of expression implications of the new gTLD objection process. The focus is, instead, on lowering legal and financial risks to the Corporation. 

The staff report makes it clear exactly why this is happening:  it is considered by them to be a very important part of a “risk mitigation strategy” for ICANN, Inc. “Without outside dispute resolution,” the staff wrote, “ICANN would have to re-evaluate risks and program costs overall.”

What a startling admission! ICANN’s lawyers are telling the board that if it makes the decision directly and by themselves, they might be held accountable legally. And indeed, isn’t that how things are supposed to work? 

The staff has also refused to implement changes proposed to the role of the Independent Objector. There was broad consensus in the CWG that it was a bad idea to give an essentially unaccountable individual an untrammeled right to initiate censorship requests on his or her own. The staff insists on creating this monster, however. 

As noted, a re-convening of CWG to confer with the almighty staff will be held tomorrow. Hopefully it will produce positive results."