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On November 14th, during the 2023 Annual CENTR Meeting (GA70), CENTR members adopted "Towards a Stronger Internet, Principles for the Next Digital Decade". In the context of the 2024 EU elections and the new mandate of European policymakers taking office, CENTR's Principles outline the European ccTLDs' proposed approach to safeguarding Europe’s digital future in the upcoming decade.

Brussels, 15 November 2023 – CENTR, the association of European country code top-level domain registries (ccTLDs), such as .be for Belgium and .it for Italy, launches ‘Towards a Stronger Internet: Principles for the Next Digital Decade’, following its general meeting on 14 November 2023. The Principles outline the European ccTLDs' proposed approach to safeguarding Europe’s digital future in the upcoming decade, particularly in the context of the 2024 EU elections and potential shifts in strategic focus during the next legislative mandate.

In a nutshell: The European Commission adopted its Work Programme for 2024, is planning to reform the EU telecom law and boosting investments into connectivity infrastructure, and issued a recommendation on coordinating incident response for the dissemination of illegal content. The EU formally approved the Regulation on geographical indication protection for craft and industrial products. The EU co-legislators reached a deal on the proposal for a Regulation on geographical indication protection for agricultural products. ENISA published its threat landscape report for 2023. The European Court of Auditors issued an opinion on the Cyber Solidarity Act. JURI issued a Draft Report on policy implications of virtual worlds.

Only a few years ago, it would have been hard to imagine an ICANN meeting agenda where the topic of DNS Abuse was so omnipresent. However, in Hamburg, not only the ccNSO and the gNSO, but also the GAC spent time on this topic which was until recently ‘off limits’ for ICANN. These discussions will have major ramifications, not only for the DNS industry, but also for the broader Internet Governance discussions. 

The ICANN community is in the middle of implementing its EPDP Phase 1 recommendations, culminating in a Registration Data Policy that is supposed to take into account the effects of the EU GDPR on the collection and disclosure of domain name registration data. The Registration Data Policy is an ICANN-community consensus policy that once implemented will be applicable for all gTLDs and ICANN-accredited registrars. Its estimated date of effect is 11 February 2025. However, its publication has been put on hold due to the letters to the ICANN Board from the Governmental Advisory Committee (GAC) and Registrars Stakeholder Group (RrSG) concerning the “urgent requests” response timelines outlined in the draft policy. In addition, the response timelines are also criticised by the ICANN Security and Stability Advisory Committee (SSAC).

We are looking for a dedicated, experienced and highly motivated Policy Advisor to join our small team and serve our international and multilingual membership which is at the core of the internet infrastructure. Starting date is between February and March 2024. 

In a nutshell: The President of the European Commission delivered the State of the Union 2023 speech. The European Commission published its 2023 Report on the state of the Digital Decade, and issued guidelines on the NIS 2 Directive. The European Parliament adopted the Regulation for the geographical indication protection of craft and industrial products. Europol published the first “spotlight” report, focusing on cyberattacks and crime-as-a-service. The EDPB and EDPS delivered a joint opinion on the proposal for GDPR review.

The latest CENTRstats TLD Market Report has been published. It covers the global status and registration trends in all top-level domains (legacy gTLDs, new gTLDs and ccTLDs), with a specific focus on the European ccTLD market.

Brussels, 13 September 2023 – CENTR, the association of European national top-level domain name registries (ccTLDs), publishes a set of recommendations to amend the EU insolvency proposal, noting the high burden it places on ccTLDs in requests regarding domain name holders’ data.

In a nutshell: The European Commission has published its strategy on Web 4.0 and virtual worlds, complemented by an own-initiative Draft Report from the European Parliament’s IMCO Committee. Trilogues on the agricultural geographical indication proposal continue after the summer break. The Commission published Key Performance Indicators under its Live Piracy Recommendation. A Proposal on Financial Data Access implicates domains. The European Commission adopted an adequacy decision on the EU-US Data Privacy Framework, which the EDPB confirmed in a note. The ENISA mandate and EU cybersecurity certification framework are up for evaluation. The path toward trilogues on the Cyber Resilience Act is cleared by the European Parliament’s ITRE Committee and the Council of the European Union. The Spanish Presidency issued a compromise text on the Proposal to combat child sexual abuse online. For some very large actors, the Digital Services Act has started taking effect. The European Parliament and Council have approved a trilogue compromise on the Energy Efficiency Directive.