Featured Blogs

Fact Checking the Recent News About Google in Cuba

Google's Cuba project has been in the news lately. Mary Anastasia O'Grady wrote a Wall Street Journal article called "Google's Broken Promise to Cubans," criticising Google for being "wholly uninterested in the Cuban struggle for free speech" and assisting the Castro government. The article begins by taking a shot at President Obama who "raved" about an impending Google-Cuba deal "to start setting up more Wi-Fi access and broadband access on the island." more

After 21 Years, Actor David Duchovny Wins His Domain Name

While plenty of UDRP decisions have made clear that a trademark owner's delay in bringing an action against a cybersquatter (often referred to as "laches") is typically not a defense, actor David Duchovny's decision to file a UDRP complaint nearly 21 years after the domain name davidduchovny.com was registered may set a record for the longest wait in a domain name dispute. more

Forget TLDs, Keep Dot Suffix and Move On

I have been working on URL, Web address, ID's and Namespace since quite a long time and I have my reservations about the present set up being a complete network. generic Top-Level Domains (gTLDs), country codes (cc), .co are all complicating the network, add to that the problem of address shortage plus other problem mentioned in comments and blogs at CircleID. It's time for out of the box thinking. more

I Had a Dream: ICANN Has 2 Billion Reasons to Support Developing Countries

Last week, the 50th anniversary of Rev. Martin Luther King's famous "I have a dream" speech was marked with much fanfare. Well, I too had a dream the other day, almost two weeks ago. I dreamt I was in a conference. Which is no news. The conference was an ICANN-sponsored conference. No news there either; I've been to many ICANN meetings. And it was on food security! An ICANN-sponsored conference on food security? more

ICANN’s Governance Conundrum

After reading Steve Delbianco's recent CircleID article entitled The Tale of Two Governance Models I was torn. On one hand I agreed and supported Steve's comments about the strength of the bottom-up consensus driven model upon which ICANN was originally founded. As I am about to begin my thirty fifth ICANN regional meeting over the last eleven years, it is a model which I still believe in and fiercely fight to defend. However, on the other hand I look back over the last eleven years... more

No Virginia, You Have No Duty to Secure Your WiFi Access Point

Every now and again a report flies across the network about the police breaking down someone's door and attempting to arrest the home owner for bad things online - assuming that whatever happened from that person's Internet connection is their fault. Now there are lots of problems with this - lots of problems. But one of the big ones is that anyone can access an open access point... more

The Netizen’s Guide to Reboot the Root (Part II)

The first part of this series explained how Amendment 35 to the NTIA-Verisign cooperative agreement is highly offensive to the public interest. But the reasons for saving the Internet are more fundamental to Western interests than a bad deal made under highly questionable circumstances. One of the world's foremost experts on conducting censorship at scale, the Chinese Communist Party's experience with the Great Firewall... more

New gTLDs: What About 10 Years Ago?

In 2003 - what did we have in terms of domain names? In 2003, the .AERO, .BIZ, .COOP, .INFO and .NAME Registries were just born. The . .MUSEUM Top-Level Domain was born that very year and .ASIA, .CAT, .JOBS, .MOBI, .PRO, .TEL and .TRAVEL did not exist yet. However, .EU was on its way. Although this particular TLD was a country code Top-Level Domain targeted at the European Union, it was awaited for by many brands in its Sunrise Period. more

100 Years of Monopoly Phone Service

Today is the 100th anniversary of the Kingsbury Commitment which effectively established AT&T, a.k.a. The Bell System, as a government sanctioned monopoly. It was on December 19, 1913 that AT&T agreed to an out-of-court settlement of a US Government's anti-trust challenge. In return for the government agreeing not to pursue its case, AT&T agreed to sell its controlling interest in Western Union telegraph company... more

Internet Pharmacy Safeguards, We Salute You

As I wrote in December 2015, some Internet commerce companies - including domain name registries, registrars, advertising providers, social media platforms, payment processors and shippers - are doing right by patients in taking voluntary action against illegal online drug sellers. This is no small feat as 97% of the roughly 35,000 active online drug sellers are operating illegally. more

Who Are the Major New gTLD Applicants and… (Part Two: Uniregistry)

This, the second in a series of articles looking at portfolio gTLD applicants, is focusing on Uniregistry. At the moment, the Uniregistry press machine is buzzing, like an angry bee, about two of the 50 TLDs in its portfolio: you may have read about .TATTOO and .SEXY. Yes! .SEXY but, according to Uniregistry, it is nothing to do with sex; it is about fashion, modelling and attitude. more

Singular and Plural TLDs: A Rather Strange Decision

ICANN stated recently that it will allow similar (i.e. singular and plural) versions of the same string to co-exist for new Top-Level Domains (TLDs). This surprising decision immediately begs the question: "Will ICANN give holders of a string first refusal on the (singular or plural) version that they do not already hold during the next round of applications where only one version (singular or plural) of a string has been awarded?" more

IPv6 Momentum?

Last month, the Obama administration sponsored one of the first high-level government workshops on IPv6. At the meeting, the administration's Chief Information Officer, Vivek Kundra, announced a remarkable 2012 deadline for federal agencies to support IPv6. So with a high-level US government mandate and a recent spade of vendor and carrier IPv6 announcements (e.g. VeriSign, Hurricane Electric), is the 15 year old IPv6 migration effort finally gaining momentum? more

ICANN Issues Guidance to Domain Registrars and Registries in Light of Hurricane Maria

ICANN has issued a guidance notice to registrars and registries in relation to Hurricane Maria, which caused massive damage throughout the Caribbean. This isn't the first time that this has happened, with a previous incident in Asia triggering action from both registrars and registries to give domain name registrants impacted by the natural disaster breathing space. more

Senate Oversight Hearing Explores “Test Drive” of IANA Transition

The IANA transition still appears to be on track for consummation at the end of the September 30th expiration date of the current contract between NTIA and ICANN in the wake of the May 24th Senate Commerce Committee oversight hearing on "Examining the Multistakeholder Plan for Transitioning the Internet Assigned Number Authority". That is, while there are clearly some concerns on both sides of the aisle about terminating the remaining U.S. government ties to ICANN... more