[Comment-Ip] Support Grows for Petition to Slow WIPO Recommendations

[Milton Mueller <mueller@syr.edu>]

MAY 16
Support Grows for Petition to Slow Down ICANN Ruling on
WIPO Recommendations
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Since its release on May 10, the number of signatories has
doubled on the petition asking ICANN to let the Domain Name
Supporting Organization and the fully constituted ICANN board
rule on the WIPO recommendations.

The petition asks ICANN not to make a decision at its Berlin
meeting next week so that people have enough time to study the
complex WIPO proposals, and also so that a representative board,
rather than a caretaker board, can decide the issues.

Among the new signatories: another member of the WIPO expert
panel, Roger Hicks of New Zealand; Shumpei Kumon, Director of
the Center for Global Communications (Glocom) at the
International University of Japan; James Love, of Ralph Nader's
Consumer Project on Technology, The Computer Professionals for
Social Responsibility. Additional signatories include Internet
service providers and web designers in Germany, the Netherlands,
Hong Kong, and Stanford University. New signatories are coming
in every day.

The petition with a current list of signatories can be viewed at
http://www.domainhandbook.com/petition-0599.html

The authors of the petition believe that it constitutes a
serious and constructive attempt to defend ICANN's constitution
as a platform for consensual, bottom-up decision making. Any
attempt to rush through a decision on the WIPO recommendations
now, before the apparatus for gaining the consent and support of
the Internet community is in place, will adversely affect
ICANN's legitimacy.