Featured Blogs

All IP Addresses Are Not the Same

One IP address is much the same as another - right? There's hardly a difference between 192.0.2.45 and 192.0.2.46 is there? They are just encoded integer values, and aside from numerological considerations, one address value is as good or bad as any other - right? So IP addresses are much the same as each other and an after-market in IP addresses should be like many other markets in undistinguished commodity goods. Right? more

U.S. Complaint to WTO on China VPNs Is Itself Troubling

On 23 February, the U.S. Administration had the chutzpah to file a formal communication to the World Trade Organization (WTO) complaining about "measures adopted and under development by China relating to its cybersecurity law." However, it is the U.S. complaint that is most troubling. Here is why. The gist of the U.S. complaint is that China's newly promulgated directive on the use of VPN (Virtual Private Network) encrypted circuits from foreign nations runs afoul of... more

Voluntary Collective Licensing of Brand-Sharing Domain Names

The essay outlines a market-driven and value-adding solution to brand use in domain names. The solution relies heavily on the Electronic Frontier Foundation's remedy to music file sharing. I propose its adoption for new registrations and renewals. Brand sharing in domain names is here to stay; desperate attempts to stop it through legal action are ineffective and will do nothing but destroy value. more

Net Neutrality Not a Serious Issue Outside America

Most countries, don't have to fear internet quality problems in the same way as would be possible in the USA. The US competition watchdog has little power to hold telcos accountable to the nature of their broadband services. Back in 1996 broadband was classified as a content service and not a telecom service. So, for example, if a telco wants to provide preferred access to Google, it can sell them a superior broadband services which could create a two speed internet service... more

Encryption and Securing Our Digital Economy

As G20 leaders from around the world gather this week, Germany wants them to agree to a concrete plan -- one that includes affordable Internet access across the world by 2025, common technical standards and a focus on digital learning. Today, the G20 economies, like so many other economies around the world, are digital and interconnected. Digital services have opened up new avenues for sustainable economic growth. more

A Voting System for Internet by Domain Name Owners - Part II

This is the second part of a 2-part series article describing a method for voting among owners of domain names. To read the first part of this article click here.

After a ballot closes, each registrar will send the summary results to at least two vote counting entities. These organizations will tally summary results obtained from each registrar. The totals of the summary results will be cross-checked against totals from the other vote counting entities. more

UDRP and the Law: Should Cybersquatting be the Default View?

I have returned to the subject of the title on a number of occasions and it is worth revisiting. Like judicial proceedings, the substance of disputes under the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP) and Panel determinations are publicly available. The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) mandates in its Rules that all decisions must be delivered to the parties within "three business days" of their receipt of the decision and posted on providers' websites. more

.ECO Top-Level Domain in Danger?

I once wrote about about the legal right objections on Guillon.info and with all these new generic Top-Level Domain (gTLD) announcements, I find it interesting to check if an application could be blocked by paragraph 3.2.2.2 of the latest Draft Applicant Guidebook. more

Portrait of a Single-Character Domain Name

Let's take some crayons and draw a picture of the current state of affairs regarding single-character domain names (SCDNs), and specifically O.COM. During the public comment period for the current O.COM RSEP, ICANN's own Intellectual Property and Business constituencies recommended implementation of rights protections mechanisms (RPMs) for intellectual property, including Sunrise and Priority Access periods. It is curious that such hard-won protections are being so easily set aside by Verisign and ICANN. more

ICANN gTLDs: When Names Are Borrowed from an Atlas

When names are borrowed from an Atlas, things happen. Use of Geographic names have always caused some problems for two reasons; one they are in the public domain so anyone else can use them and two they connote that business is confined to just that geographic area. Like Paris Bakery, Waterloo Furniture or London Bank. Geographic naming was the biggest thing during last couple of centuries, as using name of a village or a city as a moniker was considered being on top of the hill. more

Stopping Illegal Activity Online - It’s More Complicated Than It Seems

There was a compelling article in the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) the other day about ICANN and illegal online pharmacies. The result of a six-month investigation, the reporter, Jeff Elder, calls into question ICANN's effectiveness in investigating complaints of suspected illegal activity on domain names it has a contractual relationship with. Elder cites a recent incident where Interpol and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration tried to have 1,300 websites shut down because they were suspected of selling drugs without a prescription. more

The Association of National Advertisers Blinders on New TLDs

I read with interest the piece by the Chairman of the Association of National Advertisers (ANA), Garry Elliot, in Advertising Age, which was partly prompted by my commentary in the same publication describing why new generic Top-Level Domains (gTLDs) could be an opportunity for some brands. He says: "From all I've seen, no matter how one tries to justify ICANN's process or the benefits it speculates will occur, it is simply impossible to defend the economics of the ICANN proposal. That is the Achilles' heel of this entire exercise. To paraphrase an old saying, 'It's the economics, stupid.'" more

Starlink Service Is Great on (Some) Cruise Ships

I recently used Starlink on a cruise along the coast of Northwest Africa, and I'll summarize my experience below, but first let me explain why I put some in the title of this post. I posted the following request on the Reddit Cruise group: "What has been your experience of Starlink Internet service on Seabourn or other cruise lines? How was latency? Do video chats work smoothly? Games? etc." more

Is the Defense Innovation Unit’s Hybrid Space Architecture the “ARPANET” of Space and Will It Run on Aalyria Spacetime?

The goal of the Defense Innovation Unit (DIU) of the Department of Defense is to strengthen our national security by accelerating the adoption of commercial technology throughout the military and strengthening our allied and national security innovation bases. Space is one of its areas of focus and two of the space "lines of effort" are multi-orbit operations and logistics and hardware-to-software transformation modernization. more

Silly Bing

Bing is Microsoft's newish search engine, whose name I am reliably informed stands for Bing Is Not Google. A couple of months ago, as an experiment, I put up a one page link farm at wild.web.sp.am. As should be apparent after about three seconds of clicking on the links there, each page has links to 12 other pages, with the page's host name made of three names, like http://aaron.louise.celia.web.sp.am. The pages are generated by a small perl script and a database of a thousand first names. more