Featured Blogs

ICANN 48 in Buenos Aires: What Happened and What’s Next?

Last month, some of my colleagues at MarkMonitor and I traveled to Buenos Aires, Argentina for ICANN 48. With the recent delegation and launch of the first new gTLDs, the atmosphere had an air of both excitement and anxiety. In my opinion, there is much to be done before brand owners should begin to feel comfortable in the post-new gTLD Internet environment, which brings a host of new challenges, as companies attempt to scale monitoring and enforcement to the new (huge) domain name space. more

Identify DDoS Attacks with Monitoring of Internal Applications (Part 1 of 3)

Most cloud DDoS mitigation services are offered on demand meaning that customers can enable the service when they are the victim of a DDoS attack. But how can a company find out -- quickly -- that it is under attack? Sometimes it is difficult to know. In this three part series, we will examine multiple monitoring tools companies can use to capture DDoS, which can help determine whether you are under a DDoS attack. more

How to .DOWNLOAD Banging Tunes, Sick Movies and Nasty Apps

TeenSpeak is being rivalled by GeekSpeak: most Internet Geeks know what "the cloud" is. They know because they are "Internet Geeks", most Internet users don't profess to the same level of 'Geekdom'. Now while I don't claim to be an Internet Geek, I do like to think of myself as an educated Internet user; and the way I think of "the Cloud" is of a computer, plugged in somewhere, and holding lots of "computer things" for the use of anyone, anywhere. You may have heard the expression: "it is hosted in the cloud". more

Brand TLDs Become Official

It seems that pigs can, after all, fly. From the start of its new gTLD program, ICANN ignored what was obvious to pretty much everyone else: corporations might wish to apply for their brands and run them as closed ecosystem TLDs servicing only the brands in question. No longer. By releasing a proposed addendum to its registry contract, called Specification 13, ICANN has done two things it has always said it would never do: acknowledged that "brand TLDs" should be considered in the new gTLD program, and created a new category of TLD for this specific class of application. more

Rewiring Internet Governance: Choice and Control (Part 2)

It is tempting to write off ICANN as a U.S. foreign policy lackey and that's all there is to say about ICANN. However, if the mantra for rewiring governance means "lets get ICANN" we risk missing forest for trees. ICANN is merely the symptom of a dysfunctional governance predicament that somehow (despite best efforts) skews oversight. Shapiro, for example, regards oversight as a "game" (1994). His "delegation dilemma" or "agency problem" stems from two options, neither of which are attractive vis-á-vis governance. more

Internet Is Transforming Governments and Politics

All round the world we are seeing massive social changes in the way people interact with their leaders and with their political elite. In many cases governments and politicians seem to be behaving as though they are immune to the changes that are following on from these new grassroots-based democratic processes. They often do mention reforms and recommend reforms, but there is an equal need for them to transform their own sector and their own way of conducting politics and government. This applies to both the political leaders in developed and the developing economies. more

The Grapes of Wrath? An Insight Into .WINE, the Most Hotly Debated TLD in Government Circles

Everybody agrees, all .WINE applicants want to find where the buck is going to stop, as far as the strange stalemate we have been in for so many months. Situation? "What situation?" I hear you asking. In July 2012, when applications and the name of their applicants were released to the public, it appeared that 3 applicants had the same idea, when they applied for a .WINE Top-Level Domain. more

Canada’s Anti-Spam Law Coming Into Force July 01, 2014

Canada's Anti-Spam Law, CASL, is now a done deal. Last Thursday, Treasury Board of Canada President (and champion of CASL) Tony Clement approved Industry Canada regulations in their final form. Today, Minister of Industry the Honourable James Moore announced CASL will come into force in July 1, 2014. more

A Framework for Recent Internet Governance Discussions - From Montevideo Statement to 1net

There have been many significant Internet Governance developments in the last several weeks, and so I'd like to take this moment to provide a framework in which to consider these recent events. For the last several years, the leadership of several recognized Internet organizations (ISOC, ICANN, IAB/IETF, IANA, the 5 Regional Internet Registries (RIRs), and W3C; sometimes referred to as the "Internet technical organizations") have met periodically to promote better coordination between these groups. more

Those Who Remember History…

Tom Wheeler, the new Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, gave a speech today at Ohio State University. It was a good speech on his regulatory philosophy. But that's not so interesting. There's nothing out of the ordinary about a government official giving a speech. The unusual development was that the Chairman also released an ebook, called Net Effects. Even more unusual, it's not a bland ghostwritten policy whitepaper; it's a deeply researched work of history. more

Don’t Let Patent Wars Widen Digital Divide

For generations, large pockets of Africa were isolated from things many of us take for granted: access to medical treatment and advances that can make the difference between a healthy, productive life or debilitating illness -- or even an early death. These problems still persist, but over the last two decades technology has helped break through and enable medical professionals to reach the poorest and most remote populations and offer some hope. more

Learning to Love the WTO: How Trade Policy Can Save Open Internet - and Bridge the Digital Divide

From the dawn of the mainstream commercial Internet in the late 1990s until quite recently, the world trade and Internet communities have been almost entirely disconnected from one another. This isn't surprising, given that trade policy historically follows technological developments with a considerable 'lag.' As the senior-most 'permanent representative' on the ground in Geneva from the for-profit tech sector, a big part of my job is to try and translate the Internet for the Diplomatic Corps across many different policy subjects. more

Global Technical Internet Related Issues That Need Fixing

Given its engineering background, many positive contributions can be made by the engineering community in the broader ICT world to assist in addressing some of the broader internet issues, often addressed within the more limited telecoms environment.. Of course some of this is already happening; however much more work would be needed to strengthen the technical foundations of the internet. Just as an example, the type of issues that could be addressed by a broader ICT engineering foundation could include... more

What Is “1net” to Me

APNIC is a signatory to the Montevideo Statement, a declaration from members of the Internet technical community about the current state of Internet technical coordination, cooperation and governance. The statement conveys in particular an agreement on "the need for ongoing effort to address Internet Governance challenges", and a commitment to "catalyze community-wide efforts towards the evolution of global multi-stakeholder Internet cooperation". Last week during ICANN 48 in Buenos Aires, there were numerous discussions about the Montevideo Statement... more

The Rapidly Changing Governance Environment of International Telecoms

Late last year I participated in the World Conference on International Telecommunications (WCIT-2012) in Dubai, organised by the UN agency the ITU. I reported extensively on that event, which was aimed at updating the International Telecommunications Regulations... From the outset there were several reasons WCIT might fail, not the least of which was the fact that the various technological, political and regulatory issues facing the new much broader telecoms environment were not sufficiently separated and so could not be addressed in a rational and systematic manner. more