Organization

Dear Mr Secretary-General,

We are writing to you to express our deep concern about a potentially very damaging change to the governance of the Internet. As I am sure you will agree, the Internet represents one of the greatest engines for economic growth, development and transparency of information the world has ever seen. We have all come to rely upon free and unfettered access to its global reach. It has also become an indispensable tool for civil society in general, and international labour and environmental movements in particular.

Proving yet again that 23 speakers say no more than five speakers but take two hours longer to do it, the Internet Governance Forum held its seventh opening ceremony in Baku, Azerbaijan earlier today. Not much came out of it.

It was a government dominated morning, with 14 of the 23 speakers representing countries and the vast majority of them simply reiterating long-held positions. If the 1,500 attendees were looking for insights into governance of the Internet they were sadly disappointed.

There were a few notable exceptions. Head of the ITU, Hamadoun Toure, exploited his position to get 10 minutes of airtime instead of five, and used it to reiterate the message that the WCIT conference next month is not about the ITU or United Nations taking over the Internet.

The Internet Governance Forum is taking place this week in Azerbaijan. This annual get together of governments, the technical community, academics and others is in its seventh year and the overall theme this year is: "Internet Governance for Sustainable Human, Economic and Social Development."

As ever, there are a huge number of sessions and workshops - often 12 going on at the same time - which can make navigating the conference pretty difficult. But do no fear: .Nxt has been through the agenda and picked out what we think will be the sessions most worth following.

We have done our best to only pick one session per timeslot and it is worth noting that nearly all sessions will be webcast and transcribed so you can catch up on the ones you miss at a later date.

You can view all sessions live through the Baku webcast channel. Note: the time in Azerbaijan is UTC+4. Find the time there now.

Jump to particular days:

One day after ICANN's crucial nominating committee was faced with serious accusations of misconduct, its leadership has responded… by refusing to discuss any of the allegations made against them.

Councillors of ICANN's main policy body, the GNSO, were surprised yesterday when chair Vanda Scartezini and chair-elect Yrjo Lansipuro refused to respond to allegations made by former chair-elect Rob Hall.

Hall resigned after he said he was "sickened" by the committee's behavior as it chose three members of the ICANN Board earlier this year. He claims that committee members had engaged in serious lobbying; ignored formal advice from the ICANN Board; promoted colleagues ahead of better qualified candidates; and used the committee as a source of free travel and accommodation to ICANN meetings.

"These are some very serious allegations," a GNSO councilor told Scartezini and Lansipuro, "what measures will you take to ensure they are precluded next year?" Lansipuro responded that he "did not recognize" the committee as described by Hall, nor the "person who was quoted".

Rob Hall decries lobbying, inexperience and damaging insider nature of crucial ICANN body

The ex-chair of ICANN's Nominating Committee has called for an "open and frank" discussion to reform what he says is a fatally flawed, even corrupt, process that selects half of the organization's Board members.

"I am deeply concerned about how the NomCom functions," Rob Hall told .Nxt, "and I could not change it from within."

Among the extraordinary accusations Hall levels at the committee are: determined lobbying reflecting politics in other parts of the organization; use of the Committee to provide free travel support to ICANN meetings; an insider culture that promotes friends and colleagues ahead of more qualified candidates; and a refusal to listen to formal advice from ICANN's own Board of Directors.

GAC chair Heather Dryden discusses how government objections to new gTLD applications are going to work, and possible advice about further protections in the domain name system.

The governments of the world won the right to object to any of the 1,927 applications for new Internet extensions - and they are going to use that right.

We spoke to GAC chair Heather Dryden who explained how the "early warning" process is going to work and when the governmental "No" will be delivered.

The whole process of precise comments on particular applications is "a real change for the Committee", Heather notes. It is also "a test for GAC to deliver advice and early warning in the near term".

There will be a two-tier system with "early warnings" able to come from any single government, and then the much stronger "GAC advice" representing the consensus view of governments as a whole. The later is "much harder to accomplish - and that's by design".

IPRota CEO Jonathan Robinson walks us through the new gTLD rights protection mechanisms, in particular the Trademark Clearinghouse.

With an explosion in Internet extensions starting in just six months, the protection of trademarks has become a "cornerstone" of the program and vital to the success of the program, argues Jonathan Robinson, the CEO of a company that specializes in making it work.

We talked to Jonathan about the various rights protection mechanisms in place, why they were crucial, and what still need to be completed before they could go live.

The biggest focus of recent attention has been the "trademark clearinghouse" that will let trademark holders register their details once and have them picked up across all new Internet registries. There are "some real issues in implementing this" explains Robinson. The "devil is in the detail" and in some cases actual efforts to put systems in place is raising questions about the original policy decisions.