Featured Blogs

Who Is Blocking WHOIS? Part 2

We have just returned from the Brussels, Belgium ICANN meeting where we released our Registrar audit, the Internet "Doomsday Book." There are many topics covered in the report, but we wanted to follow up specifically on the issue of WHOIS access and add data to our previous column Who Is Blocking WHOIS? which covered Registrar denial of their contracted obligation to support Port 43 WHOIS access. more

Rebooting Whois

As some readers probably know, I spend quite a bit of my time working on Internet policy related matters. Some of it may appear incredibly boring, but it matters. (If you really want me to explain why it matters I'd be happy to do so!) Since earlier this year I've been part of a small team of people drawn from the four corners of the globe and asked to re-examine "whois". more

Non-Commercial Website Domain Names Using Trademarks

There are now several different courts of appeals that have upheld the right of individuals to post a non-commercial website using the domain name www.company.com, and there are as yet NO appellate decisions that forbid such websites outside the context of the serial cybersquatter who tries to erect a so-called gripe site as a CYA measure after being sued. In fact, it seems to me that we are getting close to the point where companies that sue over such websites have to consider seriously the possibility that they will not only lose the suit, but face a malicious prosecution action... more

More Than Just Forwarding: How .brands Like Apple Can Use Defensive Registrations

The domain industry media was abuzz last week with speculation that tech giant Apple may be gearing up to launch its .apple brand TLD. Rumours began when it was discovered that Apple registered 29 .com domain names that to the untrained eye, appear to be strangely worded. These include the likes of imovieapple.com, macbookproapple.com and ipadapple.com, providing hope to many industry pundits that they could potentially be defensive registrations designed to protect Apple from losing traffic when it begins to utilise its .apple TLD. more

New Mobile Domain Another Bad Idea

You may have seen a new proposal for a "mobile" top-level domain name for use by something called "mobile users" whatever they are. (The domain will not actually be named .mobile, rumours are they are hoping for a coveted one-letter TLD like .m "to make it easier to type on a mobile phone.) Centuries ago, as trademark law began its evolution, we learned one pretty strong rule about building rules for a name system for commerce, and even for non-commerce.
Nobody should be given ownership of generic terms. Nobody should have ownership rights in a generic word like "apple" -- not Apple Computer, not Apple Records, not the Washington State Apple Growers, not a man named John Apple. more

On Mandated Content Blocking in the Domain Name System

COICA (Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act) is a legislative bill introduced in the United States Senate during 2010 that has been the topic of considerable debate. After my name was mentioned during some testimony before a Senate committee last year I dug into the details and I am alarmed. I wrote recently about interactions between DNS blocking and Secure DNS and in this article I will expand on the reasons why COICA as proposed last year should not be pursued further in any similar form. more

Breaking the Internet HOWTO

A number of people, notably Viviane Reding, the European Commissioner for Information Society and Media, have been asking about how to Break The Internet. Since Mme Reding seems to have absolutely no prior experience in the Information Technology, Computing or Telecommunications industries, I have prepared this brief HOWTO. "1. Declare the creation of a new Root Zone. This is the easy bit - all you have to do is spout great volumes of hot air at a conference in Geneva, and then storm out in a huff when other people refuse to take you seriously. Then you get the PFY who services your photocopier to declare the creation of a new European Root Zone! Hooray!" more

The Closing Window: A Historical Analysis of Domain Tasting

I wrote this history and analysis of domain tasting for the ICANN Business Constituency membership. It's by no means perfect but I thought I'd share it with those who would like a bit more color on the subject. "Present day 'Domain Tasting' has its roots in 2001 and 2002 when a small group of ambitious domain registrants persuaded two registrars to allow them to register large blocks of domain names for the purpose of establishing which names garnered type-in traffic..." more

Verizon Mandates IPv6 Support for Next-Gen Cell Phones

Cell phone carriers have seen a huge growth in wireless data usage. The iPhone is selling like hotcakes, and its users generate large amounts of traffic. Not surprisingly, as cellular providers deploy faster network technologies, users generate even more data... more

New York Passing New Domain Name Law

In a move that flies in the face of established international guidelines, the New York Senate is pushing through a bill that would forbid registering the name of a living person with the purpose of selling the domain to that person. The New York Senate's bill is called "domain names cyber piracy protections act" and is championed by State Senator Betty Little (S2306). Generally speaking, registering a person's name solely to sell the domain to that person is a losing cause in UDRP arbitrations. But the New York bill is scary for a few reasons... more

Internationalizing the Internet

One topic does not appear to have a compellingly obvious localization solution in the multi-lingual world, and that is the Domain Name System (DNS). The subtle difference here is that the DNS is the glue that binds all users' language symbols together, and performing localized adaptations to suit local language use needs is not enough. What we need is a means to allow all of these language symbols to be used within the same system, or "internationalization". more

NAT: Just Say No

Fueled by the lack of public IP addresses, 70% of Fortune 1000 companies have been forced to deploy NATs (Source: Center for Next Generation Internet). NATs are also found in hundreds of thousands of small business and home networks where several hosts must share a single IP address. It has been so successful in slowing the depletion of IPv4 addresses that many have questioned the need for IPv6 in the near future. However, such conclusions ignore the fact that a strategy based on avoiding a crisis can never provide the long-term benefits that solving the underlying problems that precipitated the crisis offers. more

DNS, DNSSEC and Google’s Public DNS Service

For some time now we've been tracking the progress of the deployment of DNSSEC in the Internet. Its been a story of an evolution of the measurement technique... In the process we've learned perhaps more than we had wanted to about the behaviour of Flash engines, Apache web servers and FreeBSD system tuning, and also learned much more than we had anticipated about the finer details of Google's online ad presentation behaviour. But one thing we did not see in all of this was any large scale jumps in the level of client use of DNSSEC validation over this period at the start of the year. more

Cricket Liu Interviewed: DNS and BIND, 5th Edition

In follow-up to the recent announcement on the release of the latest edition of the very popular DNS and BIND book - often referred to as the bible of DNS - we caught up with Cricket Liu, co-author and a world-renowned authority on the Domain Name System. more

More Questions About WSJ Claims of Iran DPI

The Wall Street Journal's dubious story about Iran's use of Deep Packet Inspection (DPI) for spying, censorship and disinformation appears in a highly charged atmosphere. The US Republican right wing wants the US to talk tougher to Iran, to bomb-bomb-bomb, invade, or commit "regime change." More questions than mine have surfaced about the WSJ's story... more