Meeting notes (26 Mar 12)

Webinar summary

IFFOR Policy Council, 26 March 2012

Intro

IFFOR Executive Director Joan Irvine gave a quick update on IFFOR issues, including the office of Ombudsman, the grants program, reports on progress to ICANN, and content added to the website including Board minutes, Policy Council minutes and Frequently Asked Questions.

Website update

IFFOR manager of public participation gave a quick overview of the redesigned IFFOR website at iffor.org. He also ran through the agenda and gave an overview of the webinar software so members were able to raise questions.

Compliance

ICM Registry's compliance director Victor Pitts gave an overview of the compliance approach used by the company, whether through email, online reporting form or by post or phone.

The most common compliant to the company has been trademark infringement and ICM Registry uses the National Arbitration Forum (NAF) to deal with such issues. 

He also outlined the reporting mechanism in place for reporting online child abuse images (noting that there have not yet been any such complaints).

Ombudsman

Bruce MacAllister introduced himself to the Council and briefly outlined his role at IFFOR.

He then gave an overview of the first audit of ICM Registry's compliance system.

Censorship working group

Chair of the working group Jerry Barnett gave an update on the work carried out since the last Policy Council meeting.

The working group was originally titled the "Filtering working group" but the group decided that given the current issues worldwide, it would be better named the "Censorship working group".

The group has been reviewing ongoing censorship issues in the UK, US and Australia and is documenting the current legal situation in each, as well as identifying upcoming censorship issues. The group is considering adding France to the list.

Australia and France were recently labeled "enemies of the Internet" by Reporters Without Borders. In the UK, an obscenity case (Michael Peacock) may have set some legal precedents. Other issues in the UK include filtering and regulation of content providers.

Piracy working group

Chair of the working group Trieu Hoang gave an update on the work carried out since the last Policy Council meeting.

The group has produced a draft 'best practice' paper for dealing with piracy. It has a three-prong approach: DMCA notices; protection of content (watermarking, copyright registration); and making monetization of pirated content harder.

The paper's contents are being reviewed with a broader group and will be reviewed and edited into a more final form.

Closing

Joan Irvine summed up the webinar and gave some information on upcoming events. Trieu will be on a panel at the Phoenix Forum talking about piracy the next week; Kieren will be moderating a second discussion on the same topic. 

IFFOR's will continue to support the two working groups. On the issue of independence from ICM Registry, IFFOR is considering looking at other sponsors to support IFFOR operations. The next webinar was loosely scheduled for May with a broad topic of "The European Perspective".

An online survey showed that Policy Council members found the webinar informative and useful.