Featured Blogs

New gTLDs and Universal Acceptance

Universal Acceptance is the topic of the moment, explained in one simple sentence: in the new gTLD world, it means that various groups (the DNS, ICANN and a few others) are working hard to make new domain names better accepted by the existing technical Internet infrastructure. A video extracted from the "ICANN 52" meeting explains it in 50 slides but I suggest a pause on slide 17, because it shows where the issues are and what remains to be fixed to give the ultimate answer to that question. more

New Map Illustrates All 245 Country Code Top-Level Domains

Byte Level Research has published a map that illustrates not only all 245 country codes but the size of each country and territory. The map is quite up to date and comprehensive including country codes for such places as Svalbard (.sj), Southern Georgia (.gs), and Bouvet Island (.bv), which is uninhabited. "Today, companies must register as many as a hundred country codes to be competitive globally -- and protect their intellectual property. This map helps professionals keep track of all these country codes -- and see where the Internet is headed. For example, China is on pace to have the most popular country code on the planet by 2012," said Yunker," said John Yunker, president of Byte Level Research and developer of the map. more

Domain Name Theft Part II: Did ICANN Leave Foxes Guarding the Chicken COOP?

When it comes to stealing domain names, I suspect that there are two reasons why so many web bandits appear to be immune from ICANN (the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers uses the acronym ICANN): the first reason I discussed in my last column on domain name theft (where I described a substantive void in domain name "regulation" as a primary factor for the increasing incidence of domain name theft), the second reason, which is the focus of this column, is the procedural anomaly that currently infuses ICANN's uniform dispute resolution process (UDRP) by providing no administrative forum for domain name registrants who become victims of domain name theft carried out by ICANN's registrars. more

Update on China SatNet’s GuoWang Broadband Constellation – Can They Do It?

In 2020, China applied to operate GuoWang, a constellation of 12,992 low-Earth orbit (LEO) broadband Internet satellites, and in 2021, it became clear that it was intended to become China’s global LEO broadband constellation. Can they do it? Maybe, but it will take a long time. China does not have the capacity to launch 12,992 satellites today. I don’t know the mass of their planned satellites, but GuoWang is informally referred to as China’s answer to Starlink. more

Friction-Free Commerce, Spam-Free Future

I'm sitting here at the Inbox conference on e-mail, and listening to an encouraging, plays-nicely-with-other-children talk from Ryan Hamlin, GM of anti-spam technology and strategy at Microsoft. Over the past couple of months, with evidence abounding at this conference, a number of big industry players have been getting together to fight spam. Most significantly, Microsoft, Yahoo! and AOL - plus a bunch of (other) ISPs are getting together behind a single standard for "Sender ID " - (actually, server authentication) name not yet determined... more

Wall Street and Virtual Space Data: Internet Domain Name Index (IDNX) Listed on Bloomberg, Reuters

The financial industry is all about pinstripe suits, excessive Excel sheets and boring data. Or is it? Financial markets are more colorful than their reputation: take a look at Bloomberg's or Reuters' sites, and you'll see that pork belly is as much an object of investment speculation as coffee, electricity, bananas, hides, or fishmeal. Recently, the universe of data available to financial analysts and investment bankers grew further, with the addition of the Internet Domain Name Index (IDNX) to leading financial data distributors Bloomberg (ticker symbol: IDNX <Index>) and Reuters (ticker symbol: .IDNX). more

Domain Ads Generating Twice the Conversion Rate of Search Ads

A case study by Efficient Frontier mentions how using the Google Adsense for Domains network doubled the conversion ratio of search ads for their clients. According to their website, "Efficient Frontier manages more than $400 million in annual PPC spend under management, counts 80 of the top 500 search advertisers as clients and manages over 30 million keywords"... "When we analyzed the results, we were shocked. We didn't expect to see that domain park sites can bring in the quality of traffic necessary..." more

A Day Which Will Live in Infamy: ICANN Board Approves VeriSign Settlement

ICANN's Board voted to accept the latest settlement proposal by a vote of 9 to 5: "Today, ICANN's Board of Directors approved, by a majority vote, a set of agreements settling a long time dispute between ICANN and VeriSign, the registry operator for the .COM registry. These settlement documents include a new registry agreement relating to the operation of the .COM registry..." more

How Domain Name Typo-Squatters are Gaming Google

In a recent article, eWeek reports on researchers at Microsoft revealing large-scale, typo-squatting schemes that use "multi-layer URL redirection to game Google's AdSense for domains program". According to this report, the Microsoft Research Systems Management Research Group succeeded in tracking a ring of typo-squatters registering misspelled domain names that generated traffic for serving advertising from Google. more

FCC’s Comcast Ruling Inconsistent and Incoherent

After voting on the Comcast order today, Kevin Martin and his Democratic Party colleagues issued press releases telling us how they saved the Internet from Comcast's discriminatory practices, but they've failed to release the actual order they adopted and subsequently re-wrote. Commissioner McDowell wasn't allowed to see the revised order until 7:00 PM the night before the meeting. Rumor has it that high-level spin doctors are still trying to remove all the rough edges, inconsistencies, and factual errors. more

IGP on Future U.S. Role in Internet Governance

On June 30, 2005, the United States Department of Commerce National Telecommunications and Information Administrtation (NTIA) released the "US Statement of Principles on the Internet's Domain Name and Addressing System." The Internet Governance Project (IGP) has issued 7 points in response to the "Statement of Principles" showing the direction believed to be in the interests of the United States and the world. more

Chinese LEO Satellite Internet Update: Guowang, Qianfan, and Honghu-3

China has pursued a strategy of competition among government-owned organizations, and it initiated two government-owned constellation projects, Hongyun and Hongyan, in 2018. In April 2020, China's National Development and Reform Commission included "satellite internet" on its "new infrastructures" list, and China applied to the ITU for a new constellation, called GW. more

Google Fiber Project: Programming Key to Success

Google has officially rolled out its long-touted Google Fiber Project showcasing what broadband should look and feel like to all users. Yes, it sets the new standard for broadband connections with a 1Gig speedster, over 100 times faster than current broadband offerings in the U.S. Not-withstanding, just speed will not be the determining success factor; the availability of competitive programming will become the deciding judgment in Google's move to tout reasonable costs to bundled broadband. more

Limitations of Carrier Grade NAT, and Some Workarounds

Qtel, the largest carrier in Qatar (and nearly the only Internet provider) appears to connect all their users (~600K) to the Internet through just one or a very few public IPv4 addresses. 82.148.97.69 was their single public address in 2006-2007. How can network address translation (NAT) put all those users through just one IP address? more

Spamming the News Cycle: Spamhaus Non-Story Goes Viral

Google News now shows more than 300 stories about Spamhaus, most about a proposed court order following a district court default judgment. To me, the most interesting is the meta-story -- why the non-event of a proposed order has the blogs scrambling with claims of constitutional crisis and even the notoriously close-lipped ICANN issuing an announcement "in response to community interest expressed on this topic." more