Featured Blogs

Call the Routing Police!

There was a somewhat unfortunate outage for a major communications service provider in Australia, Optus, in mid-November. It appears that one of their peer Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) networks mistakenly advertised a very large route collection to the Optus BGP network, which caused the routers to malfunction in some manner. more

ICANN Announces Blocking Usage Review Panel

Culminating a year-long policy development process, ICANN today launched its new Blocking Usage Review Panel (BURP). The BURP provides long-needed oversight over services that block Internet traffic. "While everyone understands that national laws such as the U.S. CAN SPAM define what traffic is or is not elegible to block, legal processes can be slow and cumbersome," said a spokeswoman. "Since the Internet is global and traffic often traverses multiple countries, the array of different laws cause uncertainty." more

ICANN TMCH: The Haunted Trademark Clearance House

When the fantasy of a universal trademark clearance house was floated in the name of protecting existing trademark owners by the opposing lobbies against the global domain name expansion, particularly the gTLD programs, the domain name industry and ICANN quickly accepted the idea. A universal trademark clearance house is perhaps a greatest idea but in reality a fantasy. Today, at ICANN, the best minds are teamed-up and struggling to get the TMHC (Trademark Clearance House) constructed. more

Nov 25th Deadline To Nominate Technical Community Reps for IGF Multistakeholder Advisory Group (MAG)

Would you (or someone you know) be interested in representing the "technical community" on the Multistakeholder Advisory Group (MAG) of the Internet Governance Forum (IGF)? If so, the deadline to nominate someone (including yourself) is Monday, November 25, 2013. Under-Secretary-General Wu Hongbo of UNDESA has issued a statement on the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) Multistakeholder Advisory Group (MAG) renewal process for 2014 with the stated aim of rotating one third of the MAG members. more

The Web’s Benevolent Dictators

Jeffrey Rosen has a great article in the New York Times Magazine this weekend titled Google's Gatekeepers. In it he deals with the question of whether we are becoming too overly dependent on a few big web companies like Google – and whether it's wise over the long run for us to trust their team of (currently) very nice, well-meaning people who are trying hard to do the right thing when faced with government censorship demands and surveillance pressures. He writes... more

In Broadband, China Is Definitely the Middle Kingdom - 270M In 2015

With a goal of 270M fixed broadband lines in 2015 and near-universal service by 2020, the new "Broadband China" strategy is extraordinary. OFweek, a valuable site in Chinese, breaks the plan into three phases. The first is a full speed stage, ending in 2013, that deploys basic broadband and 3G widely. The second stage, 2014-2015, is dedicated to a further takeup and wider deployment. That will include 400,000+ LTE cell sites. more

Countdown to IANA Transition Is Not the Countdown to Doomsday

I've mentioned the IANA transition in several posts over the last year or so. Personally I'd love to not have to mention it ever again, as it's not the kind of topic that we should be spending too much time thinking about or worrying about. There are plenty of other things out there that cause us all headaches without adding to the list. However the IANA transition is a topic that is of fundamental importance for the global internet community. more

Belgian Incumbent ISP Not Dominant Operator Says Appeals Court

Picture this: the still state-owned (51% of shares) Belgian incumbent telecom and Internet operator, Belgacom, is not a dominant player on the ISP market, according to the Brussels appeals court... It is obvious to every inhabitant of Belgium that the incumbent is everywhere. It owns all the copper pairs to homes and a good deal of the fibre. No single Internet or telephony operator can get into the business without transiting through the Belgacom network at some stage. more

More on ‘Researchers Hijack Storm Worm to Track Profits’

Always good for information on the spam economy, Brian Krebs of the Washington Post has just published a truly fascinating article: Researchers Hijack Storm Worm to Track Profits. Bottom line: a one-in-twelve-million conversion rate of spam to sales seems to be enough to keep the spam economy going. The article covers a project by researchers at UC San Diego and UC Berkeley, who managed to infiltrate the Storm Worm bot network and take over a small portion of it. more

Don’t Make the Internet Safe for Monopolies

This week I'm going to Washington to argue against regulating Internet access as if it were phone service. Twenty years ago I was there for the same reason. My concern now as it was then is that such regulation will damage the economy and reduce opportunity by stifling innovation and protecting the current dominant players from the startups which would otherwise threaten them. more

Corresponding to Trademarks, But Nonactionable Claims for Cybersquatting

The threshold for an actionable claim under the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP) is a trademark in which complainant has rights. "Rights" means a trademark that could have been newly minted a moment before filing the complaint. This is different from the Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act (ACPA) in which trademark owners must have a "mark that is distinctive at the time of registration of the domain name." The difference is important... more

The Competition to Become the Next .eu TLD Registry Is Now Open

I am glad to announce that the European Commission has officially launched the process to select the next Registry for the .eu Top-Level Domain (TLD). This is done through a competitive procedure that will be concluded, by October 2021, with the signature of a service concession contract between the European Commission and the entity that will be entrusted with the organisation, administration and management of the .eu TLD. more

Transition of the Telecoms Industry Is Overdue

It is interesting to observe the changes in the telecommunications environment over the last few decades. Before videotex (the predecessor of the internet) arrived in the late 1970s early 1980s, 90% of telecommunications revolved around telephone calls. And at that time telephony was still a luxury for many, as making calls were expensive. I remember that in 1972 a telephone call between London and Amsterdam cost one pound per minute. Local telephone calls were timed... more

Pulling the Trump Card on Cloud and SDN

Software-Defined Networking (SDN) and Network Functions Virtualization (NFV) have been picking up the pace as of late. A high percentage of communication service providers and large data centers have either added these technologies on their roadmaps, or are already doing small-scale Proof-of-Concepts (PoC) in their testbed environments. more

Internet Society Activities at EuroDIG 2016: Trust, Collaborative Security, Zero Rating and More…

Over the next two days (9-10 June), the European Dialogue on Internet Governance (EuroDIG) takes place in Brussels, Belgium. With a theme of "Embracing the digital (r)evolution", EuroDIG has a full agenda and Internet Society staff will be participating in many aspects of the programme. For us, a primary focus will be at 11:30 CEST (UTC+2) on Thursday, June 9, when our President and CEO Kathy Brown opens the first Plenary with a keynote speech. more