Featured Blogs

Generic Top Level Domain Insights for Q3 2015

Participants in the recently released Global Consumer described new generic Top Level Domains (gTLDs) as being "innovative", "trustworthy", "interesting", "informative", and "cutting edge". With such impressive descriptions, it appears that the industry has made significant progress in reaching the tipping point. Although Q3 reflects growth, it also highlights the varying degrees of performance and need for further advancement in developing consumer awareness and in turn, the health of the industry. more

Emergence, Rise and Fall of Surveillance Capitalism, Part 1: Emergence

One of the consequences of the Jan 6th events is a renewed attention towards Surveillance Capitalism as a key doctrine undermining democracy. This 2-part series of articles discusses the emergence, rise, and fall of Surveillance Capitalism under the premise that the better we understand the danger at the door, the better we are able to confront it. more

An Attack on WiFi Spectrum

A little over a year ago, the FCC approved the use of 1,200 MHz of spectrum in the 6 GHz band for public use -- for new WiFi. WiFi is already the most successful deployment of spectrum ever. A year ago, Cisco predicted that by 2022 that WiFi will be carrying more than 50% of global IP traffic. These are amazing statistics when you consider that WiFi has been limited to using 70 MHz of spectrum in the 2.4 GHz spectrum band and 500 MHz in the 5 GHz spectrum band. more

ICANN Terminates AlpNames

AlpNames has been sent a notice of termination by ICANN. Unlike many termination notices that specify a future date, the one they were sent has an immediate effect. As reported in multiple fora over the last few days AlpNames had gone offline, and at time of writing still is. They've also become unresponsive. It's on the basis of this that ICANN decided to terminate their contract straight away. more

2017: The Year of dotBrand

With over 600 "dot Brands" applied for in 2012, and hundreds now launched, 2017 seems poised to be the Year of dotBrand! "dotBrands" are top level domains (TLDs) that use the brand name to the right of the dot, as in www.mabanque.bnpparibas or www.home.cern. Many large companies across nearly every industry applied, including Google, Amazon, Citibank, VISA, McDonalds, Sony, HBO, Alibaba, and Hermes. 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

Everything You Should Know About a TLD Business Case, But Didn’t Know to Ask

Applying for a new Top-Level Domain (TLD) is an expensive and lengthy process, costing an estimated $500K for application and various legal and professional services. Central to the application is the business case. Even though ICANN requires an albeit simple version, most applicants must have a credible business case, especially if they need to secure internal approval, or more importantly attract and secure outside investment. Given the truth to the maxim "if you fail to plan, you plan to fail," some closer scrutiny of your business plan will pay dividends in the long-term... more

Defending the Core: Why Internet Values Matter More Than Ever

In today's rapidly shifting digital landscape, the question of whether the Internet can retain its foundational values has never been more urgent. As it increasingly permeates every aspect of human activity - from communication and commerce to governance and geopolitics - the Internet has evolved into both a shared global commons and a contested arena of power. At stake are its core values: global connectivity, openness, interoperability, decentralization, the end-to-end principle, robustness and reliability, and freedom from harm. more

Good Faith and Abusive Registration of Domain Names

Not all domain names identical or confusingly similar to trademarks are actionable. Exhibit 1 are complainants whose trademarks postdate domain name registration. The latest example of this is Insight Energy Ventures LLC v. Alois Muehlberger, L.M.Berger Co.Ltd., D2016-2010 (WIPO December 12, 2016) (<powerly.com>) but there are other, more esoteric examples such as loss by genericide, Shop Vac Corporation v. Md Oliul Alam / Quick Rank, FA1611001701026 (Forum December 10, 2016). more

The Framing of “IP Transition” Fails to Come to Terms With Real Impact of the Internet

I keep seeing so many articles about the Internet and related policy issues that it's hard to know how to respond. The term "IP Transition" may be a good starting point since the term is an attempt to treat the Internet as a smooth transition rather accepting the idea that we are in the midst of a disruptive change. It seems that the FCC's approach is to simply substitute IP for old protocols and to preserve policies tied to the accidental properties of a copper infrastructure. This shows a failure to come to terms with the new reality. more

Numerous Lessons We Can Learn From the Facebook Outage and Its Mistakes

It was only a few weeks back, in July of this year, where I remarked that an Akamai report of an outage was unusual for this industry. It was unusual in that it was informative in detailing their understanding of the root cause of the problem, describing the response that they performed to rectify the immediate problem, the measures being undertaken to prevent a recurrence of this issue, and the longer-term measures to improve the monitoring and alerting processes used within their platform. more

A Closer Look at Postponing of the Root Zone KSK Rollover Decision

On Sept. 27, Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) announced that the first root zone Key Signing Key (KSK) rollover - originally scheduled to take place on Oct. 11 - will be postponed. Although this was certainly a difficult decision, we fully agree that erring on the side of caution is the best approach to take. In this blog post, I want to explain some of the involvement Verisign has had in KSK rollover preparations, as well as some of the recently available research opportunities which generated data that we shared with ICANN related to this decision. more

What is Good Policy for a Domain Name Registry?

Back from the holidays I must admit I was thinking quite a bit on what is good policy for a registry? Of course I have my own personal favorites that I can not walk away from easily, but instead of thinking for too long, I decided to write down now immediately what is in my head. The main reasons for this are two: the decision by ICANN to change the rules for change in policy regarding the Add Grace Periods. more

Do I need DDoS protection? A Realistic Look at the Decision Process

There has been a recent spate of well publicised Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks that bring websites down and render them useless, including Evernote and most recently Feedly. In light of this, here are some comments and tips to help companies evaluate and prepare not to be held for ransom or suffer lost reputation and sales as a result. more

The Burr Proposal: Beginning of the End of Unilateral Control of the DNS Root?

The results of the recent NTIA consultation made it clear that there is no real public or industry support for unilateral control of the DNS root by the U.S. government. The latest and most interesting sign of collapsing support for US unilateral control of the DNS root, which the Internet Governance Project learned of today, is a proposal being circulated by G. Beckwith Burr... more