Earlier this month over 2,500 members of the ICANN community gathered in Montreal to advance policy work related to the online world. Brian J Winterfeldt (principal of the Winterfeldt IP Group and president of ICANN’s Intellectual Property Constituency), Griffin Barnett (associate at the Winterfeldt IP Group) and Jennifer Gore (internet policy specialist at the Winterfeldt IP Group) were on the ground in Canada and, in this guest post, present an update on the aspects that brand owners need to know about – from efforts to access to non-public registrant information to the rights protection mechanisms review. Crucially, the authors note that there will be issues that the trademark community should maintain pressure on.
Registries and registrars are contractually required to address and mitigate various forms of DNS abuse. Prior to ICANN 66, a group of registries and registrars published a Framework to Address Domain Name System Abuse focusing on five key areas of abuse, namely: malware, botnets, pharming, phishing, and spam. The framework also identifies several forms of website content abuse that the signatories to the framework would find actionable, namely child sexual abuse materials (CSAM), illegal distribution of opioids, human trafficking, and credible incitements of violence.
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