Featured Blogs

GDPR - Territorial Scope and the Need to Avoid Absurd and Inconsistent Results

There is an urgent need to clarify the GDPR's territorial scope. Of the many changes the GDPR will usher in this May, the expansion of EU privacy law's territorial scope is one of the most important. The GDPR provides for broad application of its provisions both within the EU and globally. But the fact that the GDPR has a broad territorial scope does not mean that every company, or all data processing activities, are subject to it. more

The Future of .COM Pricing

When you've been around the domain industry for as long as I have, you start to lose track of time. I was reminded late last year that the 6-year agreement Verisign struck with ICANN in 2012 to operate .com will be up for expiration in November of this year. Now, I don't for a second believe that .com will be operated by any other party, as Verisign's contract does give them the presumptive right of renewal. But what will be interesting to watch is what happens to Verisign's ability to increase the wholesale cost of .com names. more

Why Is It So Hard to Run a Bitcoin Exchange?

One of the chronic features of the Bitcoin landscape is that Bitcoin exchanges screw up and fail, starting with Mt. Gox. There's nothing conceptually very hard about running an exchange, so what's the problem? The first problem is that Bitcoin and other blockchains are by design completely unforgiving. If there is a bug in your software which lets people steal coins, too bad, nothing to be done. more

Will 5G Trigger Smart City PPP Collaboration?

As discussed in previous analyses, the arrival of 5G will trigger a totally new development in telecommunications. Not just in relation to better broadband services on mobile phones - it will also generate opportunities for a range of IoT (internet of things) developments that among other projects are grouped together under smart cities (feel free to read 'digital' or 'connected cities'). more

Suggestions for the Cuba Internet Task Force

The Cuba Internet Task Force (CITF) held their inaugural meeting last week. Deputy Assistant Secretary for Western Hemisphere Affairs John S. Creamer will chair the CITF, and there are government representatives from the Department of State, Office of Cuba Broadcasting, Federal Communications Commission, National Telecommunications and Information Administration and Agency for International Development. Freedom House will represent NGOs and the Information Technology Industry Council will represent the IT industry. more

Automation for Physical Devices: the Holy Grail of Service Provisioning

Software-Defined Networking (SDN) and Network Functions Virtualization (NFV) are finally starting to pick up momentum. In the process, it is becoming clear that they are not the silver bullet originally advertised to be. While great for some use cases, emerging technologies like SDN and NFV have been primarily designed for virtual greenfield environments. Yet large service providers continue to run tons of physical network devices that are still managed manually. more

Software-Defined Networking: What’s New, and What’s New for Tech Policy?

The Silicon Flatirons Conference on Regulating Computing and Code is taking place in Boulder. The annual conference addresses a range of issues at the intersection of technology and policy and provides an excellent look ahead to the tech policy issues on the horizon, particularly in telecommunications. I was looking forward to yesterday's panel on "The Triumph of Software and Software-Defined Networks", which had some good discussion on the ongoing problem surrounding security and privacy of the Internet of Things (IoT)... more

What’s So Outrageous Asking High Prices for Domain Names?

Panels appointed to hear and decide disputes under the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP) have long recognized that three letter domains are valuable assets. How investors value their domains depends in part on market conditions. Ordinarily (and for good reason) Panels do not wade into pricing because it is not a factor on its own in determining bad faith. more

Foggy Bottom’s New Cyberspace Bureau “Lines of Effort”: Dumb and Dumber

The release of the Tillerson letter to the House Committee on Foreign Affairs describes the State Department's new "Cyber Bureau" together with its "primary lines of effort." The proposal is said to be designed to "lead high-level diplomatic engagements around the world." Two of those "efforts" deserve special note and provide an entirely new spin on the affectionate local term for the Department -- Foggy Bottom. more

The New State Department Cyberspace Bureau: from Multilateral Diplomacy to Bilateral Cyber-Bullying

These days in Washington, even the most absurd proposals become the new normal. The announcement yesterday of a new U.S. State Department Cyberspace Bureau is yet another example of setting the nation up as an isolated, belligerent actor on the world stage. In some ways, the reorganization almost seems like a companion to last week's proposal to take over the nation's 5G infrastructure. Most disturbingly, it transforms U.S. diplomacy assets from multilateral cooperation to becoming the world's bilateral cyber-bully nation. more

Bitcoin Domain Names Become Popular - and Attract Disputes

Cryptocurrencies (such as Bitcoin) are all the rage -- so, naturally, related domain name disputes are, too. The wild fluctuations in cryptocurrency prices (Bitcoin hit a low of close to $6,000 this week, after reaching an all-time high of more than $19,000 only two months ago, and less than $1,000 a year ago) have attracted speculators, regulators and now even cybersquatters. more

Preparing for GDPR’s Impact on WHOIS - 5 Steps to Consider

With GDPR coming into effect this May, it is almost a forgone conclusion that WHOIS as we know it today, will change. Without knowing the full details, how can companies begin to prepare? First and foremost, ensuring that brand protection, security and compliance departments are aware that a change to WHOIS access is on the horizon is an important first step. Just knowing that the ability to uncover domain ownership information is likely to change in the future will help to relieve some of the angst that is likely to occur. more

Transition of the Telecoms Industry Is Overdue

It is interesting to observe the changes in the telecommunications environment over the last few decades. Before videotex (the predecessor of the internet) arrived in the late 1970s early 1980s, 90% of telecommunications revolved around telephone calls. And at that time telephony was still a luxury for many, as making calls were expensive. I remember that in 1972 a telephone call between London and Amsterdam cost one pound per minute. Local telephone calls were timed... more

ICANN Maps Whois Models for GDPR

Earlier today ICANN held a webinar to provide an update on their data privacy activities in relation to whois and GDPR. Rather than simply talking about the various "models" they produced both a visual mapping as well as a matrix. While some attendees may not agree with how all the models are classified it is still a helpful way of showing the deviations from the current fully public whois model for gTLD domain name registrations. more

The Rise of a Secondary Market for Domain Names (Part 4/4): Facilitating the Secondary Market

The defining of rights in the UDRP process is precisely what WIPO and ICANN contemplated, but it is unlikely they foresaw the destination of the jurisprudence. Since its inception, UDRP Panels have adjudicated over 75,000 disputes, some involving multiple domain names. (These numbers, incidentally, are a tiny fraction of the number of registered domain names in legacy and new top-level domains, which exceeded 320 million in the first quarter 2017). more