Featured Blogs

Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) Industry Soon to Be Largest Source of Co2 Emissions

Although on the production side the tar sands are one of the biggest sources of CO2 emissions, the Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) industry, globally is the fastest growing and soon will be the largest source of CO2 emissions on the consumption side of the equation. ICT emissions are produced indirectly from the coal generated electricity that is used to power all of our devices. Currently it is estimated that ICT consumes around 10% all electrical power growing at about 6-10% per year. more

When Will Google™ Become Generic?

Today, there are hundreds of once highly protected famous name brands, which were backed by multi-million dollar promotional budgets, now commonly used in daily lingo as generic names, as it was their huge popularity that made them lose their trademark protection. So why is the use of famous trademarked names as 'verbs' in our daily language feared by the attorneys representing that mark? Now this calls for a closer look... more

UDRP Dilemma In Proving Bad-Faith Domain Registrations - Part III

In the final part of this 3-part series article, the issue of UDRP in proving bad-faith domain registrations that are held passively is examined with respect to the trademark's characteristics. The registrant's attitude could in some circumstances also be regarded as evidence of bad faith use of a domain name that is held passively. Panels often infer evidence of bad faith of the registrant from an unsatisfactory response or an absence of response to the complainant or if it is impossible to contact the respondent. more

IPv6 Security Myth #5: Privacy Addresses Fix Everything!

Internet Protocol addresses fill two unique roles. They are both identifiers and locators. They both tell us which interface is which (identity) and tell us how to find that interface (location), through routing. In the last myth, about network scanning, we focused mainly on threats to IPv6 addresses as locators. That is, how to locate IPv6 nodes for exploitation. Today's myth also deals with IPv6 addresses as identifiers. more

Business Model Canvas for Cloud Providers

Cloud Computing is not so much about technology but more about the new business models that this technology enables. The question then is, how do these business models look? One of the most inspiring ways of looking at business models is through the so-called "Business Model Canvas". This article explores the basics of cloud computing business models as drawn out on such a canvas. more

2021 Domain Name Year In Review

Is it really 2022? Is it? Although many might view 2021 as another "lost" year due to the pandemic, filled with Zoom™ meetings, virtual conferences, working from home and restricted travel - there were a number of notable domain name stories which deserve to be highlighted. So, without further ado, here are the top 10 biggest domain name stories of 2021 - let's go! more

Dr. Peering Commits Malpractice on Net Neutrality

At Tier1 Research, we hate to call out individuals for wrongdoing, but once in a while, it's absolutely necessary. At the moment, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is in the middle of the rulemaking process for network neutrality, a complex endeavor. While Tier1 is against interference from regulators as a concept, the proposed rulemaking document from the FCC, while vague, is not completely unreasonable... more

Domain Owners Lose Privacy

As facts unfold, and the NTIA's decision to take away our privacy comes to light, it is interesting to see the NTIA struggling to explain its decision. Keep in mind that an "as yet to be identified" bureaucrat made this decision to take away your privacy, did it without notice, and without holding hearings. Those affected were not given an opportunity to explain how the loss of privacy would negatively affect them. Quite simply, this is NOT how our government is supposed to work. We should be outraged... more

Reaction to New Top Level Domains

ICANN's latest announcement of preliminary approval for two new top level domains (.mobi and .jobs) and it's recently ended meetings in Cape Town, South Africa, have sparked off renewed discussions for the introduction of new TLDs -- more specifically, the expansion of sponsored and generic top level domains (TLDs). The following is a collection of recent commentaries made by both technical and non-technical members of the community with regards to the expansion of the domain name space. To add your comments to this collection, please use the comment entry form at the bottom of the page... more

Canon Takes Its .brand to the World, Moves Its Global Site to .CANON

As the .brand movement continues to gain momentum across the globe, this week's announcement of yet another high-profile .brand launch was fantastic news for the industry. Japanese powerhouse Canon publicly announced the transition of its global homepage from www.canon.com to www.global.canon and even created a simple, yet powerful image to highlight the innovative move. more

Chinese IDN in the News

News.com published a well-research article on the Chinese Domain Names by Winston Chai: "This approach works fine in the English-savvy world. However, for non-English speakers, they could be faced with the unenviable task of rote-learning numerical IP addresses, which is highly improbable, or the English spellings of dozens of Web sites they want to access." Just a few points of interest... more

Two Years Later Dozens of Registrars Still in the Shadows

In June of 2008 KnujOn reported that 70 Registrars did not have a business address listed in the InterNIC Registrar Directory. Only after reporting a month later that little had changed did ICANN perform a mass update of the directory. On further inspection we found many of the newly disclosed addresses were phantom locations, false addresses, and PO boxes. more

Policy Failure Enables Mass Malware: Part II (ICANN and OnlineNIC)

On Wednesday September 29th at 1PM there will be a meeting in the Old Executive Building in Washington D.C. with Registries and domain Registrars to discuss illegal Internet sales of prescription drugs. ICANN was originally invited but declined because citing "inappropriateness" . One "U.S." Registrar who definitely will not be in attendance is OnlineNIC more

Freedom of Expression Part 2: Blocking, Filtering and Removing Online Content

The Internet is a catalyst for what has revolutionised and transformed human societies in giving extraordinary access to information that has catapulted development and economic growth. It also comes with threats of exploitation by those who wish to do harm. In Part 1 of these series, we looked at how Twitter banned Graham Linehan for his tweet where we saw that to an extent, it was justifiable under Californian law but that a Judge in the Fiji courts would disagree with. more

Gmail and IMAP and BlackBerry (Oh, my!)

When I was employed, I ran my own mail server and my own BlackBerry Enterprise Server, and I had things tuned pretty much exactly as I wanted them. My incoming mail got some custom processing that looked the sender's address up in my address book and assigned the message a category... I was a very happy email user. Now that I'm on my own, I've decided not to run my own server and all that software, and I've switched to Gmail and the T-Mobile BlackBerry server... Surprisingly, though, I'm mostly still happy... more