Featured Blogs

ICANN’s San Francisco Meeting

I was sitting around on a Sunday afternoon catching up with a backlog of work watching the Philadelphia Eagles beat the New York Giants in an unbelievable comeback, when I visited the ICANN website and noticed the new logo for the upcoming 40th ICANN regional. ...I personally thought the original choice of the San Francisco logo looked confusingly similar to Cisco's registered trademark. more

Has Internet Governance Become Irrelevant?

When the Internet outgrew its academic and research roots and gained some prominence and momentum in the broader telecommunications environment it found itself to be in opposition to many of the established practices of the international telecommunications arrangements and even in opposition to the principles that lie behind these arrangements. more

The East Asia Telecommunication Union

That's what Europeans are now calling the venerable old International Telecommunication Union -- EATU for short. In fact, based on current metrics, this transformation is exactly what has occurred. The shift began occurring almost a decade ago, and has dramatically accelerated in recent years. At the ITU-T's key Study Group 17 meeting on security now underway, fully 90% of the input contributions and more than half of those participating are from only three countries -- China, Japan, and Korea. Indeed, there has long been a semi-formal organization known as CJK that has been manifested here. more

Debugging Legislation: PROTECT IP

There's more than a hint of theatrics in the draft PROTECT IP bill that has emerged as son-of-COICA, starting with the ungainly acronym of a name. Given its roots in the entertainment industry, that low drama comes as no surprise. Each section name is worse than the last: "Eliminating the Financial Incentive to Steal Intellectual Property Online" (Sec. 4) gives way to "Voluntary action for Taking Action Against Websites Stealing American Intellectual Property". more

Domain Registrar Hide and Seek

In the past year ICANN has been putting a lot more effort into its compliance activities, which is a good thing, since the previous level was, ah, exiguous. That's the good news. The bad news is that while they're paying more attention to misbehaving registrants, the registrars, gatekeepers to the world of domains, have serious issues that ICANN has yet to address. more

Beyond the Interweb

Today's Internet is a network of networks and seen through the lens of the web. We need to look beyond the engineering history to see the Internet in the context of the broader vision of JCR Licklider, an acoustic psychologist, and his vision of man/computer symbiosis... JCR Licklider would've been thrilled to see such a powerful man-machine symbiosis becoming so normal and having it work so well. Lick, as he was called, can be considered the grandfather of the Internet. more

No False-Starts, Do-Overs, or Mulligans for Email

Josh Baer, former VP of Datran Media and current CEO of OtherInBox has been floating an idea at the DMA's Email Experience Council and a few other places, and recently got some traction in Ken Magill's Magill Report. What Josh is proposing is to create the technical means by which a Sender can decide when email 'expires' and is automatically removed from a recipient's inbox, either by deletion, or perhaps archiving (in the case of Gmail). This would supposedly help the end-user, by removing marketing offers that are no longer available. Why this idea shouldn't happen... more

Net Neutrality Reflection

So this afternoon my charge is to lay out all the Net Neutrality (NN) issues to a bar association that doesn't have a telecom subcommittee... Cringely says that "In the end the ISPs [network providers] are going to win this [network neutrality] battle, you know. The only thing that will keep them from doing that is competition, something it is difficult to see coming along anytime soon..." more

Why Passive DNS Matters in Cybersecurity

Imagine a scenario. Your website analysis shows that your page has stopped receiving visitors, yet there are no complaints that your domain is unreachable. Strange, isn't it? You are certainly wondering: What's going on? Where are my customers? You see, what happened is that you are facing the consequences of the lack of domain name system (DNS) security. more

What to Know About an ICANN Compliance Audit, and How to Handle One if You Are Selected?

Now that new gTLD registries have been operating for more than a year, a few registries have already experienced going through an audit and a few more are now receiving notifications that they are next in line. For all, the process of going through an ICANN audit is a first. Once you receive the Request for Information (RFI), you will have 15 days to respond, or seek an extension of time. Extensions may be available on a case by case basis. more

Ignore The Chicken Littles: Let’s Give New Web Domains a Try

Before the experiment has gotten off the ground, some critics have expressed concern about applications to operate domains referring to a "generic" product or service, like .car, .book, or .app. News reports indicate that Microsoft and other Google competitors have filed complaints about Google's applications, while authors' organizations have raised questions about some of Amazon's applications. These complaints assert that giving these applicants the right to operate these new domains would provide an unfair competitive advantage. more

WSJ on Wireless Network Neutrality

Today's Wall Street Journal had an interesting article (subscription required) on the current state of the wireless walled garden. It cites several recent clashes between handset vendors and cellcos over the extent to which consumers can use their phones to access non cellco content. From the article: "At stake for consumers are what services will be available on their mobile phones and whether they're free or cost a monthly fee. The wireless Web is taking off more slowly in America than overseas, and one reason is that U.S. carriers tightly control what applications are available on mobile devices..." more

Online Critics and Unlawful Harassment from Trademark Holders

The following is based on my experience and interpretation of the UDRP and the relevant laws of the United Kingdom and European Union. This is not legal advice but just my own experience and interpretation. How does a UK citizen create a non-commercial trademark.tld parody criticism website and avoid harassment from the trademark holder? Here are the steps... more

Businesses Beware: Cybersecurity Awareness Varies Based on Job Function

Businesses should consider bumping phishing as an urgent concern in their cybersecurity agendas. To those still unacquainted, "phishing" refers to the use of fake emails, messages, and websites that fool users into giving up access to accounts and information or into installing malware through attachments. It has become quite rampant over recent years. Attackers are using the method as a primary means to breach defenses, and with good reason: they work. more

Rewiring Internet Governance: Choice and Control (Part 2)

It is tempting to write off ICANN as a U.S. foreign policy lackey and that's all there is to say about ICANN. However, if the mantra for rewiring governance means "lets get ICANN" we risk missing forest for trees. ICANN is merely the symptom of a dysfunctional governance predicament that somehow (despite best efforts) skews oversight. Shapiro, for example, regards oversight as a "game" (1994). His "delegation dilemma" or "agency problem" stems from two options, neither of which are attractive vis-á-vis governance. more