News Briefs

Neustar Announces New President and CEO Succeeding Lisa Hook

Neustar Inc. today announced that its Board of Directors have appointed Charles Gottdiener as President and Chief Executive Officer, effective immediately. more

Google’s Loon Announces First Commercial Deal With Telkom Kenya to Provide Internet-by-Balloon

Google's sister-company Loon has announced its first commercial agreement with Telkom Kenya in order to deliver connectivity to the region using a network of giant balloons. more

Protests in Iraq Lead to a Two-Day Internet Shutdown by the Government

Widespread protests in Iraq against the government have lead to a state of emergency where the government has ordered disconnection of the fiber backbone of Iraq that carries traffic for most of the country. more

Google to Deploy Its First Private Trans-Atlantic Subsea Cable

Google today announced plans to launch its latest private subsea cable project dubbed Dunant. The cable will cross the Atlantic Ocean from Virginia Beach in the U.S. to the French Atlantic coast, the company says. more

Cuba Starts Providing Internet on Mobile Phones

Cuba, one of the least connected countries, has started providing internet on the mobile phones of select users as it aims to roll out the service nationwide by year-end. more

Researchers Warn Buried Internet Cables at Risk as Sea Levels Rise

The results of a study presented today at a meeting of internet network researchers depicts critical communications infrastructure could be submerged by rising seas in as soon as 15 years. more

Former ICANN Senior Vice President Kurt Pritz to be Named Chair of Whois Group

"Former ICANN senior vice president Kurt Pritz is expected to be named chair of the group tasked with reforming Whois in the post-GDPR world," reports Kevin Murphy in Domain Incite. more

ICANN Issues Notice of Breach of Registry Agreement to .Pharmacy TLD Operator

The National Association of Board of Pharmacy ("NABP"), the operator of the .Pharmacy top-level domain is in breach of its Registry Agreement with the ICANN according to a letter issued by the agency today. more

DomainTools Sued for Misusing New Zealand’s .NZ Domain Name Registration Information

Domain Name Commission Limited ("DNCL"), New Zealand's overseer for the country's .NZ domain, has filed a lawsuit against the domain name service company DomainTools. more

Anti-Phishing Working Group Proposes Use of Secure Hashing to Address GDPR-Whois Debacle

The AntiPhishing Working Group (APWG) in a letter to ICANN has expressed concern that the redaction of the WHOIS data as defined by GDPR for all domains is "over-prescriptive". more

Doug Madory Reports on Shutting Down the BGP Hijack Factory

A lengthy email to the NANOG mailing list last month concerning suspicious routing activities of a company called Bitcanal initiated a concerted effort to kick a bad actor off the Internet. more

China Has Nearly 3 Times the Number of Internet Users as the US, and the Gap Will Only Widen

China has 772 million internet users, as compared to the United States currently at 292 million. While the US internet penetration has reached 89%, China is only 55% and growing fast. more

Application Fees for New gTLDs Could Be Artificially Kept High

"It's possible that application fees for new gTLDs could be artificially propped up in order to discourage gaming," reports Kevin Murphy in Domain Incite. more

European Data Regulators Throw ICANN Back to the Drawing Board for a Third Time on Whois Privacy

In a letter to ICANN, the chair of the European Data Protection Board (EDPB) makes it plain that even the organization's "interim" plan is fundamentally flawed, reports Kieren McCarthy in the Register. more

Andrew Sullivan Selected as the New President & CEO of Internet Society

The Internet Society announced today that it has selected Andrew Sullivan as the organization's new President and Chief Executive Officer. more