Featured Blogs

Where Domain Security Meets the Supply Chain Crunch

Over the last two years, we've all faced supply shortages on items we previously never thought could be in short supply. Most recently, the baby formula and semiconductor markets were hit. Before that, supply chain attacks on Colonial Pipeline and JBS Foods showed us that an attack on one company through a singular point of compromise has the potential to disrupt an entire network of connected companies, products, partners, vendors, and customers. more

Harmonizing WHOIS With NIS2 Article 28 - the Rubber Is About to Meet the Road

ICANN must act now to harmonize its domain name registration data (commonly known as WHOIS) policies with Article 28 of the European Union's Network and Information Security (NIS2) directive, first to adhere to applicable laws as it fulfills its oversight responsibilities and, second, to keep its word to the community to preserve WHOIS to the fullest extent possible under law. more

ICANN’s Economic Reports: Finding the Missing Pieces to the Puzzle

The ICANN community has been especially concerned about the economic reports used by ICANN to justify its decisions as to whether, and how, to implement applications for new gTLDs. Among the greatest sources of concern has been the failure of ICANN staff to issue a complete public response to the ICANN Board's October 2006 demand that ICANN Staff commission economic studies about gTLDs... more

Internet Bigger Than Agriculture or Energy Sectors - Importance of R&E Networks

Several months ago McKinsey did a very interesting study on the economic value of the Internet. They pointed out that Internet in the G8 countries as well as Brazil, China, India, South Korea, and Sweden is now bigger than agriculture or energy. The Internet represents 3.4% of GDP and accounted for 21 percent of GDP growth over the last five years among these developed countries and as Vint Cerf pointed out in his blog created 2.6 jobs for every one lost. more

Advancing Digital Trust: Global Innovations in Domain Registrant Verification (Highlights from the ICANN79 Community Forum)

On 6 March 2024, the ICANN At Large Advisory Committee (ALAC) held a plenary session entitled "Building Trust on the Internet Through Registrant Verification" at the ICANN79 Community Forum in San Juan, Puerto Rico, that Michael Palage and Avri Doria co-moderated. This session was inspired in part by a recent World Economic Forum report entitled "Reimagining Digital ID"... more

Thirty-Three Million and Counting

Two weeks ago I blogged about ICANN's astonishingly lucrative domain auctions. At that time, they'd raised $26.7 million. Now, two auctions later, they're up to about $33 million. Yesterday's two auctions were for .MLS and .BABY. The former, for those who aren't deep into the real estate biz, stands for Multiple Listing Service, the system that lets you list a house with one broker, and all the other brokers can sell it. more

China Won’t Repeat Protectionist Past in Digital Realm

Google may have unnecessarily provoked a fight with China, but the Middle Kingdom better keep its wits, lest it repeat a sad protectionist history. Early last millennium China was the world's richest civilization and technology leader. It famously invented gunpowder, iron casting, paper, porcelain, printing, and gigantic nine-masted sailing vessels. Between 1405 and 1433, the great Muslim Chinese explorer Zheng He led seven expeditions in the South Pacific and Indian Oceans, reaching the coast of East Africa. China's naval fleet grew to 3,500 ships... more

Are Service Providers Giving Up on Landline too Soon?

Interesting times in the carrier space, for sure. While most readers of this column are focused on the business market, it's hard to ignore what's occurring in the consumer space right now. Being based in Toronto, I happen to be struck by the similar trends shaping on both sides of the border. Over the past few days, we've seen earnings reports from major telcos and cablecos, and these businesses seem to be going in opposite directions. more

A True Final Ultimate Solution to the Spam Problem?

A common acronym in spam-fighting is FUSSP -- Final Ultimate Solution to the Spam Problem. It's used (usually derisively) to describe the latest proposed scheme to end spam once and for all. Usually these schemes are based on false assumptions or have already been tried with no results. This time - be still, my beating heart - it looks like some researchers at the University of California might really be on to something. more

Blockchain Technology Can Solve Some of Africa’s Problems

Lately, the word blockchain is gaining a lot of attention from businesses, investors and governments, especially around how it could transform how we do business today. As the world looks up to Blockchain technology for radical transformations in many industries and sectors, I want to take a look at how it could help governance in Africa.
The African continent is plagued with corruption, bad governance, mismanagement and lack of accountability. more

Current Difficulties With Displaying Internationalized Top-Level Domains

Earlier this week, we inserted eleven new top-level domains in the DNS root zone. These represent the term "test" translated into ten languages, in ten different scripts (Chinese is represented in two different scripts, and Arabic script is used by two different languages). This blog post is not about that. (If you're interested about it, read our report on the delegations.) What I would like to talk about is some of the difficulties we face today in expressing scripts in a consistent way over the Internet... more

Business Case for IPv6 - Part 2

In my previous blog on the topic, I stated that the business case supporting the IPv4 roll-out in the late 90s was the Internet. Although IP depletion will slowly become a reality, the chances are that due to mitigating technologies such as NAT and DNS64, it may take quite a while before organizations in the developed economies will get serious about IPv6. So where should we look to find a business case for IPv6? more

Rod Beckstrom’s First 100 Days at ICANN

Rod Beckstrom took over as ICANN President/CEO on July 1, 2009, so October 9th marked his 100th day in office -- and a good opportunity to examine the progress made by ICANN during his short tenure. ...to borrow an analogy from American football: when you have the ball in the Red Zone, you need to score touchdowns, not field goals. So far, under Rod's leadership, ICANN has moved down the field on a number of issues. In particular, ICANN scored a "touchdown heard round the world" by bringing the MoU/JPA to a successful conclusion. more

Smells like Cybersquatting? How the UDRP “Smell Test” Can Go Awry

The UDRP has the form of a substantive Policy, but it operates as a "smell test".1 If the evidence smells bad, the panel will likely order a transfer. If it doesn't, the panel won't. An aim of this article is to help improve UDRP panels' sense of smell when it comes to differentiating between domain name investors and cybersquatters. I will provide some insight into the business of domain name investing that I hope will be helpful to UDRP panelists in making more accurate inferences in disputes involving investors. more

Why the 1# Vulnerability for Cyber Attacks Will Be Apathy

Everyone has heard of the cyber security attacks on Target (2013), Home Depot (2014), Neiman Marcus (2014), Sony Pictures (2014), and the United States' second-largest health insurer, Anthem (reported February 2015), but have you heard of the security breaches for Aaron Brothers, Evernote (denial of service attack), P.F. Chang's China Bistro, Community Health Services, Goodwill Industries, SuperValu, Bartell Hotels, Dairy Queen, U.S. Transportation Command contractors, and more. more