Featured Blogs

The Future of Communications Cross-Subsidies

It used to be so much easier to manage a system of cross subsidies for communications. If a regulator wanted consumer services to be subsidized by businesses, rural to be subsidized by urban, local subsidized by long distance, TV production subsidized by distribution, it could just issue an order to make it so. So let it be written; so let it be done. There were few, if any, other suppliers of those services, so there were limited arbitrage opportunities. more

Registry/Registrar Separation: Clarifying the Mess!

Do you keep hearing about this Registry/Registrar Separation (or Vertical Integration) issue but really aren't sure what it's all about? This post should help you to get a better understanding of the details of this saga which is one of the most controversial, yet still unresolved issues within the new gTLD program. more

ICANN Turning 25 - Share Your Memories!

This month marks the 25th anniversary of the formation of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN). A quarter of a century ago, on September 30, 1998, ICANN was officially incorporated as a California non-profit corporation. To commemorate this landmark event, ICANN will be hosting celebrations during ICANN78 in Hamburg, Germany, 21-26 October. more

Pew Research Center on the Pandemic and the Internet – 90% of Americans Say Internet Has Been Important to Them Personally

Pew Research Center conducted several polls asking people about the importance of the Internet during the pandemic. The Pew survey report is seven pages filled with interesting statistics and a recommended read. This blog covers a few of the highlights... 58% of adults said that the Internet was essential during the pandemic - that’s up from 52% in April of 2020. Another 33% of adults say the Internet was important but not essential. Only 9% of adults said the Internet wasn’t important to them. more

Recalling 2017: The Year in Domain Data

It is safe to say that 2017 was a turbulent year in more ways than one. There was the ongoing clash between WHOIS information and user privacy, the hope that top-level domains would finally take off and multiple hacks of large corporations that reignited talks about cybersecurity. While many of these topics are essential and will likely resurface again in the coming year, it is also important to look back at 2017 through unambiguous data. more

Opinion: IP Leasing Should Become a Market Standard

The Regional Internet Registry (RIR) for the Asia-Pacific region (APNIC) recently held its 55th meeting in conjunction with APRICOT, from 20 February to 2 March 2023, in Manila, USA. One of the critical discussions at the conference was centered on the APNIC policy that does not accept IP leasing and has a questionable understanding of its necessity. According to the APNIC policy manual, which was referenced during the meeting, APNIC allocates and assigns resources based on need, and 'leasing is not allowed' nor does it form a basis for further need. more

9 Things You Need to Consider When Choosing a Registrar Solutions Partner for Your New gTLD

The ICANN board has passed a resolution approving the renewal of .INFO, .ORG and .BIZ Registry agreements with the clause on cross -- ownership (aka Vertical Integration) removed. What this means is that these Registries will now be allowed to own, part or whole, of a Registrar business. This will enable them to sell their TLD directly to end customers and also establish a reseller chain thus allowing much greater control and flexibility over sales channels. more

Coachella Unsuccessful in Domain Name Dispute, Failing to Prove Bad Faith Use and Registration

The Complainant is the owner of the well-known Coachella festival. It owns a trademark registration, issued in 2016, for the mark CHELLA. The Respondent asserted that he intended to use the disputed domain name to set up an online women's clothing store but never did so. He claimed that growing up, his nickname was "Chelle" and that he modified that name to make it sound more feminine for use in connection with the store. more

Reexamining Internet Fragmentation

One of the discussion topics at the recent ICANN 75 meeting was an old favorite of mine, namely the topic of Internet Fragmentation. Here, I'd like to explore this topic in a little more detail and look behind the knee-jerk response of declaiming fragmentation as bad under any and all circumstances. Perhaps there are more subtleties in this topic than simple judgments of good or bad. more

The [Dot]Brand Tribes - Part 1

In my last post we talked about the value of introducing new generic Top-Level Domains (gTLDs) to Tribes. We discussed what a Tribe was and how communities of people sharing knowledge and experiences can benefit from new TLDs. In the next three posts from my blog we'll discuss how brand owners can either benefit from creating a tribal home and/or come together with other tribes for the benefit of their members. more

Technology: Doomsday or Godsend – the Choice Is Ours

Following the American insurrection and the role the media played -- social media, particularly the "doomsday scenario," started to appear again in relation to technological developments. Only a few years ago, a group of hi-tech companies, including Tesla, warned against the negative aspects of artificial intelligence (AI). Other technologies that could seriously affect human developments include gene editing, nanotechnology and synthetic biology. more

It’s Auction Time Again

This week ICANN will auction off .WEB or .WEBS. There are seven live applications for .WEB and one for .WEBS. The string contention process decided that the two names are so similar that they'll only assign one of them, so all eight applications are in one auction... There are some deep pocketed bidders in this round including Google, Donuts, web.com which owns Network Solutions and a lot of other web properties, and Schlund which owns the largest web hoster 1&1. more

The Borg in Us All: Is Resistance Futile?

One of the main roles played by science fiction is to portray fundamental issues and questions that face humanity long before they actually become relevant to our daily lives. We cannot always be sure of where our reality ends, and fiction begins. Star Trek storylines including Borgs are a good example. In the storyline, Borgs are part organic, part artificial and created eons ago, yet they seem to presage the challenges in our contemporary personal reality and challenges in the Internet's cyberspace. more

The Verisign Shared Registration System: A 25-Year Retrospective

Every day, there are tens of thousands of domain names registered across the globe -- often as a key first step in creating a unique online presence. Making that experience possible for Verisign-operated top-level domains (TLDs) like .com and .net is a powerful and flexible technology platform first introduced 25 years ago. more

A Tale of Tackling the Digital Divide

A new book came out in November that tells about one of the first attempts to solve the digital divide on a large scale. The book is 'The Charisma Machine: The Life, Death, and Legacy of One Laptop per Child' published by MIT Press and available on Amazon and other places online. In 2005, Nicholas Negroponte, the founder of MIT Media Lab, created a program that he hoped would solve the digital divide in the third world. more