Mitch Stoltz

Mitch Stoltz

Senior Staff Attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation
Joined on February 10, 2017
Total Post Views: 31,124

About

Mitch Stoltz is a Senior Staff Attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation. Mitch focuses on copyright, trademark, antitrust, telecommunications, and free speech. He has worked for years to fight the use of copyright as a tool for censorship, and to keep the Internet open for creativity and innovation from far and wide. His recent projects include formulating new approaches to antitrust and competition policy in Internet industries, litigation on the copyright status of mandatory safety codes, and cases on streaming video. Mitch also counsels clients on the use of open licenses for software and media.

Before joining EFF, Mitch was an associate at Constantine Cannon LLP in Washington DC. Long ago, in an Internet far far away, Mitch was a security engineer at Netscape Communications, where he worked to secure Web browsers against malware and coordinated the security research efforts of hackers on three continents. Mitch has a JD from Boston University School of Law and a BA in Public Policy Analysis and Computer Science from Pomona College.

Except where otherwise noted, all postings by Mitch Stoltz on CircleID are licensed under a Creative Commons License.

Featured Blogs

ICANN Should Keep Content Regulation and Other Arbitrary Rules Out of Registry Contracts

The domain name system is not the place to police speech. ICANN is legally bound not to act as the Internet's speech police, but its legal commitments are riddled with exceptions, and aspiring censors have already used those exceptions in harmful ways. This was one factor that made the failed takeover of the .ORG registry such a dangerous situation. But now, ICANN has an opportunity to curb this abuse and recommit to its narrow mission of keeping the DNS running... more

Preserving ICANN’s Independence Through Bold Action – Not Inaction

This week, the ICANN Board will vote on whether to approve the transfer of control of the .ORG domain to a private equity firm called Ethos Capital. This is a weighty decision for ICANN, since in order to approve the sale, it will have to convince itself that this is the right choice in the face of tremendous and widespread opposition, including from those who will be most affected by the sale. more

NGO Community Urges ICANN to Exercise Independent Judgment as It Reviews the .ORG Sale

ICANN is reviewing the Internet Society's proposed sale of Public Interest Registry, the .ORG registry operator, to private equity firm Ethos Capital. ICANN effectively has the power to stop the sale by terminating PIR's Registry Agreement. The Electronic Frontier Foundation, NTEN, Consumer Reports, Americans for Financial Reform and several other organizations joined Monday's Public Forum at ICANN67 to ask questions about how ICANN plans to review the change of control of the .ORG registry... more

Healthy Domains Initiative Isn’t Healthy for the Internet

We had high hopes that the Domain Name Association's Healthy Domains Initiative (HDI) wouldn't be just another secretive industry deal between rightsholders and domain name intermediaries. Toward that end, we and other civil society organizations worked in good faith on many fronts to make sure HDI protected Internet users as well. Those efforts seem to have failed. more