Author: Emily Taylor

Emily Taylor is an Internet law and governance expert, as well as independent consultant and adviser to a number of Internet registries.

She was the director of legal and policy at UK registry Nominet for nearly a decade, devising and managing the organization’s policy processes, its dispute resolution mechanisms, as well as acting as its spokesperson on the international stage.

Emily has been a member of the Internet Governance Forum’s (IGF) Advisory Group since its inception, as well as an ex-director at CENTR, an organization that represents European registries. She is currently a director of Oxford Information Labs, which specializes in website accessibility for people with visual impairment and cognitive difficulties.

Emily has an MBA, law degree from London’s College of Law, and a BA from Cambridge University. She has two children and lives in the UK.

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Column
21 April 2012
The fight for an open Internet

In 2005, I came across an article in the New York Times about a funny little battle that was going on in the Internet corner of the world that no one outside of the small circle of Internet geeks seemed to understand or care about.

This article was memorable for several reasons. First, it was cogent, humorous, it rose above the dirty, confused, detail and explained why this stuff was important for all of us. Secondly, it was written by a politician. That politician was Carl Bildt.

Fast forward to this week. I was asked to moderate a couple of sessions at the Stockholm Internet Forum, and to provide some reflections at the end of the conference. This article highlights some of the themes I picked up from the two days of discussion.


Taylor moderating one of the sessions. Credit: Swedish Internet Forum
Column
27 December 2011
On the FTC and Whois

The Federal Trade Commission’s letter to ICANN of 16 December has been ruffling feathers – and quite right too. Although its principal theme was the introduction of new generic top-level domains, the letter highlighted the need for accurate Whois data as a key element in protecting consumers against online crime.

The FTC cited the recently published draft report [pdf] of the Whois Review Team, which I chair. The Whois Review was set up to fulfill ICANN’s obligations under its Affirmation of Commitments with the United States Government. Therefore, while the Whois Review is “ICANN’s own” (as the FTC puts it), the Review Team is a group of volunteers drawn from a broad spectrum of stakeholders: from techies to governments; policemen to privacy experts. So, we were convened by ICANN, not working for ICANN.
Column
30 October 2011
Multi-stakeholderism? It’s all about teamwork...

I love despair.com. It’s just what you need after an intense ICANN meeting. Their “demotivator” on Teamwork is a calming picture of a snowball rolling down a hill. The caption: “Teamwork, A few harmless flakes working together can unleash an avalanche of destruction”.

ICANN’s self-styled “multistakeholder community” conjures inspirational images of governments, private sector, civil society all rushing in with a common purpose to sort out Internet governance through teamwork, collaboration and consensus building. Yay! One world, one Internet.

Actually, ICANN’s original moniker, “private sector management” was a more accurate, and honest, description. It’s founded on self-regulation – the unwritten contract between industry and government: we keep ourselves honest, so you don’t have to spend public money on regulating us.

Column
3 September 2011
If history teaches us anything…

…it’s that history teaches us nothing.  Reading the European Commission’s six papers on Internet governance this week was like flipping back in time to the bad old days of the World Summit on the Information Society, when it looked like the management of the domain name system would get sucked into an intergovernmental agency, and the technical coordination mired in geo-politics.
 
Eight years ago, governments decided they were worried about the Internet. It was having an ever-increasing influence over their societies, and causing a number of significant and previously unknown problems. The trouble was: they couldn’t find out which government department was in charge of it.
 
The most tangible entity that was eventually discovered was an obscure organization of 50 people located on the third floor of a building overlooking a marina in Los Angeles. That clearly wasn’t good enough, so the World Summit on the Information Society was created.
 
Column
15 June 2011
When multi-stakeholderism became Animal Farm

The last two months has seen a flurry of activity on the New gTLD Applicant Guidebook, with the publication of not one, but two, further drafts.

A 'discussion draft' was put out for public comment on 15 April, and on 30 May a further draft was published. ICANN’s Board "will consider approval" of the New gTLD Program on Monday 20 June.

So, will it finally happen?

Much progress has been made since February, when the Board and GAC began to engage together. The number of outstanding issues has reduced, and the tone of the dialogue has changed.

The good news is that over 70 percent of the issues have been resolved. The GAC scorecard published in February had 80 outstanding items on it. 39 have now been agreed; 20 are agreed in principle.

The bad news: the remaining near 30 percent have either reached stalemate (17 are marked '2' signaling disagreement), or are 'TBC', meaning still on the 'too difficult' pile.

Is there a way through?