Featured Blogs

Interview: Antony Van Couvering on the New TLD Opportunity

I recently caught up with a former colleague Antony Van Couvering. Many here on CircleID probably know him, he's been active in the domain name business since the late 1990's. With the new Top-Level Domain (TLD) issue so white hot and with Antony's firm right in the mix, I thought it was time to get his take via an interview. If anyone has questions (or challenges perhaps?) to anything below, I'm happy to forward to Antony for a response. more

New gTLDs: Is Internationalism the Solution?

Are international strings such as "club" and "rugby" the key to launch a successful TLD in Round 2 of the ICANN new gTLD program? Are "International TLDs" the key to a successful Registry? That is quite possible as the results of the recent .CLUB launching show that it generated lots of interest in a short period of time. The .CLUB registry is now number 3 on the list of most registered domain names with 37,806 domains registered and .EMAIL is in position 6. more

Stopping SOPA’s Anti-Circumvention

The House's Stop Online Piracy Act is in Judiciary Committee Markup today. As numerous protests, open letters, and advocacy campaigns across the Web, this is a seriously flawed bill. Sen. Ron Wyden and Rep. Darrell Issa's proposed OPEN Act points out, by contrast, some of the procedural problems. Here, I analyze just one of the problematic provisions of SOPA: a new"anticircumvention" provision more

CENTR Statement on IDN Homograph Attacks

Recently a proof of concept attack was announced on the Internet that demonstrated how a web address could be constructed that looked in some web browsers identical to that of a well known website. This technique could be used to trick a user into going to a website that they did not plan on visiting, and possibly provide sensitive information to a third party. As a result of this demonstration, there has been a number of voices calling for web browsers to disable or remove support for IDNs by default. ...CENTR, a group of many of the world's domain registries - representing over 98% of domain registrations worldwide - believes such strong reactions are heavily detrimental... more

Who Really Cares About New gTLDs?

ICANN's recent announcement of what it called "an exciting milestone in the evolution of the domain name system" - the delegation of the 1,000th new generic top-level domain (gTLD) - went largely unnoticed. While that's consistent with the new gTLD program in general (at least from the perspective of the general public), that doesn't mean trademark owners should forget about them. more

Guowang Finally Launches Ten Large Production Satellites

In April 2020, The Chinese State Council's executive meeting declared information technology, including satellite Internet, an important part of the "new technology," and in October, China applied for Guowang, a 12,992-satellite Internet service constellation. Subsequently, a few Guowang test satellites were launched, and two other large Chinese constellations were announced, and one, Thousand Sails, already has 54 satellites in orbit. (Thousand Sails launches have had problems with debris and orbit raising, which attests to the immaturity of the Chinese space industry). Finally, Guowang has launched its first production satellites. more

Over 75% of All Top-Level Domains (TLDs) Now Signed With DNSSEC

As I was entering in data for the weekly DNSSEC Deployment Maps, I was struck by the fact that we are now at the point where 617 of the 795 top-level domains (TLDs) are now signed with DNSSEC. You can see this easily at Rick Lamb's DNSSEC statistics site...Now, granted, most of that amazing growth in the chart is because all of the "new generic TLDs" (newgTLDs) are required to be signed with DNSSEC, but we are still seeing solid growth around the world. more

Yet Another Unfortunate CAN SPAM Case

The case Melaleuca v. Hansen has been moving slowly through Idaho federal court since 2007. On Sept 30 the court decided in favor of the defendants. Although the outcome is probably correct, the court's decision perpetuates the misreading of CAN SPAM from the infamous Gordon case that makes it in practice impossible to win a CAN SPAM case in the 9th Circuit. more

Selling DONA Snake Oil at the ITU

A venerable old ITU tradition got underway today. Its Telecommunication Standardization body, known as the ITU-T, gathered, as it has done every four years for much of the past 100 years in a conclave of nations, to contemplate what they should be doing at their Geneva intergovernmental standards meetings for the next four years. The gathering is called the WTSA... Old intergovernmental institutional habits still continue, so the participants are gathered in a remote location in Tunisia called Hammamet. more

Weaponizing the Internet Using the “End-to-end Principle” Myth

At the outset of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) 100th meeting, a decidedly non-technical initial "Guide for human rights protocol considerations" was just published. Although the IETF has always remained true to its DARPA origins as a tool for developing disruptive new technical ideas, it launches into bizarre territory when dealing with non-technical matters. more

ICANN and the Data Quality Act: Part V

This is the fifth part of a multi-part series reported by ICANNfocus. This part focuses on Securing the Quality of WHOIS Data. "Information for which ICANN has responsibility includes the WHOIS databases. ICANN has been given specific responsibilities for these databases under: 1) their contract with the U.S. government's Department of Commerce to perform the technical management of the Internet; and 2) their Memorandum of Understanding with the Department of Commerce." more

Australian Government Issues New Guidelines to Address 5G Security Concerns in Smart Cities

The Australian Signals Directorate (ASD) has issued a new set of guidelines warning about the security risks posed by the use of 5G technology in so-called Smart Cities. The ASD's concerns align with those of the Five Eyes security alliance, which has warned that the interconnected nature of a fully connected city makes it vulnerable to cyberattacks. more

Anticompetitive and Predatory Misconduct by ICANN and Contracted Parties Must End

On May 26, 2021, I submitted a complaint to ICANN's Complaints Officer, Krista Papac. In a nutshell, my complaint centers on ICANN's blatant violation of its Bylaws, specifically Section 2.2, named Restrictions, which expressly prohibits ICANN from acting as a registrar. However, despite the absence of any exceptions to this unambiguous prohibition, ICANN is acting improperly as a registrar for the purposes of warehousing and cybersquatting on certain domain names in the .com and .net registries. more

Domain Enforcement in a Post-GDPR World

The implementation of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), and ICANN's conservative temporary policy, which favors privacy and limits registrar liability, has made domain enforcement against cybersquatters, cyber criminals and infringement more difficult, expensive and slow. With heightened concerns over privacy following high-profile breaches of consumer data and its subsequent illicit use and distribution, there is no question that consumer data protection practices would come under scrutiny. more

Addressing 2012: Another One Bites the Dust

Time for another annual roundup from the world of IP addresses. What happened in 2012 and what is likely to happen in 2013? This is an update to the reports prepared at the same time in previous years, so lets see what has changed in the past 12 months in addressing the Internet, and look at how IP address allocation information can inform us of the changing nature of the network itself. more