Featured Blogs

Is China Preparing to Go its Own Way with its Own Internet Root?

Interesting things happening in China. An article in the English edition of the People's Daily on line is headlined, Decimal network security address begins operation: "China's decimal network security address was officially launched. China has made a fundamental breakthrough in its Internet development; and actual use has been successful. The birth of decimal network technology makes China the only country able to unify domain names, IP addresses and MAC addresses into the text of a metric system..." Someone asked whether this was a rumored IPv9? It appears IPv9 is a project name, not a new protocol. It lumps together several activities, including at least... more

Mooning the Porn Stars

Steve DelBianco did a great job of discussing the rocky relationship between ICANN's Government Advisory Committee (GAC) and the Board of Directors, in his piece entitled ".XXX Exposes the Naked Truth for ICANN". I've been keeping an eye on the adult industry press to see what their reaction is to the .XXX debacle. But before we start, let's get something out of the way. more

COICA and Secure DNS

As a strong proponent of the private right of action for all Internet endpoints and users, I've long been aware of the costs in complexity and chaos of any kind of "blocking" that deliberately keeps something from working. I saw this as a founder at MAPS back in 1997 or so when we created the first RBL to put some distributed controls in place to prevent the transmission of unwanted e-mail from low reputation Internet addresses. What we saw was that in addition to the expected costs (to spammers) and benefits (to victims) of this new technology there were unintended costs to system and network operators whose diagnostic and repair work for problems related to e-mail delivery was made more complex because of the new consideration for every trouble ticket: "was this e-mail message blocked or on purpose?" more

ACPA Applies to Noncommercial Use of Domain Name

A recent decision by the Ninth Circuit confirms that "commercial use" by the defendant is required for a Lanham Act trademark or dilution claim, but is not required in a cybersquatting claim under the Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act (ACPA). Michael Kremer, a dissatisfied hair transplant patient, used the domain name www.BosleyMedical.com as a site critical to the Bosley Medical Institute, a hair transplant clinic. Bosley sued. The district court entered summary judgment for Kremer on the grounds that his conduct was not commercial... more

Domain Registry Locking Program: It Is There for a Reason, So Why Not Use It?

At the beginning of last year, MarkMonitor participated in VeriSign's beta program to test server-level protections which were designed to mitigate the potential for unintended domain name changes, deletions and transfers. When VeriSign finally released their Registry Locking Program to all registrars, I expected to see the owners of highly trafficked sites flocking to this new offering. However, after a review of the top 300 most highly trafficked sites, I was shocked to uncover that less than 10% of these valuable domains were protected using these newly available security measures. more

Finally the .com Discussion is Over…

Well, at least one part of it. As ICANN has announced, the Board approved the VeriSign Settlement Agreement. Now, there will be many questions, many pros and contras, but for me the main question is that finally this discussion is over. Here's what I think about my vote and the agreement itself.  more

Breaking the Mold: Reclassifying Over a Billion .XYZ Domains for Alternative Uses

Three years ago, my team and I launched .xyz with the mission of bringing competition, choice, and innovation on the internet. .xyz was probably the only domain extension that had no built-in meaning, included very few domains priced at a premium, and relied on low margins and high volume. We brought with it the message that .xyz was for every website, everywhere. And instead of targeting one vertical, we connected with the next generation of internet users... more

World Economic Forum Davos 2022: War in Ukraine, Metaverse und Splinternet

The war in Ukraine, Metaverse and Splinternet were among the most discussed items during the recent World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos. The topic of cyber security was primarily about the role of cyberattacks in the Ukraine war. Cyber is not the focus of day-to-day public war reporting but is an integral part of warfare on both sides. This applies above all to the use of "social media." more

IoT Devices Will Never Be Secure - Enter the Programmable Networks

Harvard Business Review just ran an interesting article on the information security aspects of Internet of Things (IoT). Based on the storyline, the smart city initiatives are doomed to fail unless the security of the IoT devices and the systems will be improved. While security of the digital society is obviously a key concern, I am not entirely convinced that relying on the security of individual devices and systems is the best course of action. more

A Psychoanalysis of Corporate Domain Names and Branding - Part II

Naming for today's global e-commerce is very fragmented and every corporation is trying to cope with little or no guidance at all. When a name fails to deliver a clear and distinct message no amount of bizarre branding ideas will ever save it. Now to check on the health of a name here are some key reasons and if not corrected, a name will endlessly shout and eventually die. more

Internet Governance in Transition: The ITU as a Battleground for Rival Visions

During the past few years, the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) has been a battleground where governments promote rival visions of how the Internet should be governed. Although there has been a recent cease-fire as Internet governance debates have focused more on the role of ICANN, those skirmishes may soon restart at the ITU... Co-authored by Ambassador Gross (chair of Wiley Rein's International & Internet Practice), Carl R. Frank, Umair Javed, and Sara M. Baxenberg (members of Wiley Rein's Telecom, Media & Technology Practice). more

Where Are the World’s Most Popular Websites Hosted?

As I do every day, I was perusing Twitter and came across a link for a Business Insider piece on the world's most popular websites by country. Two researchers used web traffic data from Alexa to visually display each country's most visited website. It's an interesting read... But I couldn't help but wonder what the most popular website based in each country was. So, I put the Dyn research team to work and they came up with a comprehensive list. more

Malware Detection Provider Gets Important Victory Allowing It to Flag Unwanted Driver Installer

Despite a recent Ninth Circuit decision denying immunity to malware detection software for targeting competitor's software, court holds that Section 230 protected Malwarebytes from liability for designating software driver program as potentially unwanted program. Plaintiff provided software that works in real-time in the background of the operating system to optimize processing and locate and install missing and outdated software drivers. more

Received a Questionable Email From NABP? It May Be Illegal Spoofing

Has your organization recently received an email claiming to be from NABP's Internet Drug Outlet Identification Program (IDOI)? If so, it is possible that someone is trying to trick you. The NABP IDOI team's email account has recently been illegally "spoofed" by unaffiliated persons or organizations. Email spoofing involves the forgery of an email header so that the email appears to have originated from someone other than the actual source. more

The Real Facts & Stats About ICANN and Its gTLDs: One BIG.FAIL ... So Far?

The crème de la crème, the good, the bad, even the ugly of the Domain Name Industry are attending NamesCon in Vegas this week. 2016 will be a very challenging, absolutely critical year for those attendees and their corporate employers as the Domain Name System (DNS) faces a massive shakeup. In 2015, 287 global brands, worth $trillions headed by Google, Amazon, had their new TLD Registries delegated into the root zone of the Internet. more