Featured Blogs

Email in the World’s Languages - Part II

In our last installment we discussed MIME, Unicode and UTF-8, and IDNA, three things that have brought the Internet and e-mail out of the ASCII and English only era and closer to fully handling all languages. Today we'll look at the surprisingly difficult problems involved in fixing the last bit, internationalized e-mail addresses. more

The Path Towards Centralization of Internet Governance Under UN: Part 3

This essay is the third of a three-part series, written by Anonymous, and published by the Publius Project of the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University. It focuses on the steps of a possible roadmap for centralizing Internet governance under the United Nations. more

FedRAMP: Critical to Cost-Effective Cloud Computing Cybersecurity

In September 2009, the Obama Administration announced the Federal Cloud Computing Initiative. As the government's CIO explained, cloud computing "has the potential to greatly reduce waste, increase data center efficiency and utilization rates, and lower operating costs." The Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program (FedRAMP) addresses the key elements of a cloud computing framework for federal agencies. more

How to Preserve the .org Registry’s Integrity in the ISOC Sale of PIR

This article addresses the issues around the planned sale of the PIR .org registry by ISOC. It examines the history and issues plus looks at several possible paths forward, including PIR becoming a Benefit Corporation (B-Corp) and identifying possible alternative buyers who could retain PIR's non-profit status. Before Tim Bernier-Lee brought the HTML markup language to the Internet, starting in 1989, there were few registered domain names. Access for public registration started in 1986, and by December, there were about five dozen registered .com domain names.  more

AXIS - The Fulcrum of Africa’s Internet Success

The Internet Society (ISOC) has been working with the African Union (AU) to facilitate the African Internet Exchange System (AXIS). This AXIS project funded by the EU-Africa Infrastructure Trust Fund and the Government of Luxembourg will help keep Internet traffic in Africa internal to the continent and avoid expensive international transit costs and delay latency in routing Internet traffic through other continents. more

The Future of .COM Pricing

When you've been around the domain industry for as long as I have, you start to lose track of time. I was reminded late last year that the 6-year agreement Verisign struck with ICANN in 2012 to operate .com will be up for expiration in November of this year. Now, I don't for a second believe that .com will be operated by any other party, as Verisign's contract does give them the presumptive right of renewal. But what will be interesting to watch is what happens to Verisign's ability to increase the wholesale cost of .com names. more

DDoS Attacks: What’s in Store for 2012?

According to Kaspersky Lab, 2011 has seen "numerous DDoS attacks with a variety of motives," many of which will "go down in the annals of cybercrime." As we look ahead to 2012, it's worth examining some of those motives to see what they portend. more

Letter to ICANN on Big Brands Proposed Usage of Generic Domain Extensions

We have been taking an active interest in the development of the new TLD program by ICANN and excited by the many opportunities and challenges that this "opening up" will bring to us, our customers and the internet ecosystem as a whole. However, we also have our concerns about how some entities wish to use generic domain name extensions as "walled gardens". more

I Am Not an IP Address, I Am a Free Man… and a Potential Customer

When I heard that full episodes of The Prisoner TV series were available online I immediately headed over to the AMC website to wallow in nostalgic enjoyment and remind myself just how cool Patrick McGoohan was as he stumbled around Portmeirion trying to avoid a big plastic ball... I would happily have watched online and let AMC advertise to me in return, but sadly it was not to be. When I got to The Prisoner page on its site I saw only an unfriendly message, shouting at me... more

Open Ends: Civil Society and Internet Governance - Part III

This is the final part of a three-part series interview by Geert Lovink with Jeanette Hofmann, policy expert from Germany, where she talks about her experiences as a member of the ICANN's Nominating Committee and her current involvement as a civil society member of the German delegation for the World Summit of the Information Society (WSIS). "You have been visiting WSIS as a member of the German delegation. Could you share some of your personal impressions with us? Did you primarily look at WSIS as an ICT circus for governmental officials and development experts or was there something, no matter how futile, at stake there?..." more

Measure Your Bufferbloat! New Browser-based Tool from DSLReports

All things come to those who wait, and bufferbloat measurement tools are no exception. When we hosted a workshop on reducing Internet latency way back in 2013, one of the identified outcomes was the need for better tools to help users understand when they had a bufferbloat problem, and now we have just such a tool from the awesome folks over at DSLReports. Before going any further I should probably clarify what we mean by bufferbloat. more

Another Spam Case Lost in Washington, or Gordon Strikes Again

Bennett Haselton, who runs the Peacefire anti-censorship site, is one of the more successful anti-spam litigants. He says he's filed about 140 suits, mostly in small claims court, and has won the majority of the suits that got far enough to be decided on the merits. But last month, in Federal court in Seattle, he lost a suit against Quicken Loans that he should have won, partly because of his own mistakes, but largely because of the pernicious effect of Gordon vs. Virtumundo. more

2023 Review of the Online Brand Protection Market

Having been involved in this sector for over fifteen years now, the rate of change in the market dynamics continues to surprise me - from its early years when MarkMonitor and NetNames clearly led the space for several years, then seeing well-funded startups such as Yellow Brand Protection and Incopro challenge that, followed by a period of heavy M&A, it is now extremely diverse. more

Toward a Balanced ICANN Accreditation Program for Privacy and Proxy Service Providers

For the past two years a diverse group of stakeholders from the ICANN community, including myself, has been working hard to come to a consensus on a set of recommendations related to development and implementation of an ICANN accreditation program for privacy & proxy service providers. The result of this effort will replace the interim specification defined in the 2013 Registrar Accreditation Agreement (RAA) that is due to expire at the end of 2016. more

A Perspective on Verisign’s Patent Application on Domain Name Transfers

As the battle rages over threats to the Internet architecture, a recent publication over the Patent Application for Domain Name Transfers by Verisign is disturbing for those who advocate an open and free Internet. The Application is based on an immediate and direct threat towards an open and free Internet. Just in case people are tempted to think that this was a prank given that they filed it on the 1 April 2011, searches at the United States Patents and Trademark Office (USPTO) reveals that this is a legitimate application . more