News Briefs

Afilias Announces Plan to Raise $100 Million via London AIM Exchange

Afilias, headquartered in Dublin, is set to float on AIM with new shares issued by the company expected to raise approximately $100m. Hal Lubsen, Chief Executive Officer of Afilias says: "Today's announcement is an important step in the next phase of our growth, as we look to be a key player in the new programme of TLDs, and make selective acquisitions to increase the breadth and depth of our services and reach." more

Second Master Class in Internet Governance and Policy by InterConnect

InterConnect announces a second date for its "Master Class on Internet Governance" starting 17 – 21 November 2014. InterConnect provides the following information regarding the course. more

Washington Post: How the U.S. Plans to Avoid a U.N. Vote on the Future of the Internet

Nancy Scola reporting in the Washington Post: "The latest battle over who should run the Internet will be waged in the South Korean port city of Busan over the next three weeks. For U.S. officials headed to the United Nation's International Telecommunication Union's Plenipotentiary Conference, the goal is simple: prevent a vote. In short, the State Department's approach is this: Convince the representatives of the other 192 member countries attending the conference that the 150-year-old U.N. technical body is the wrong forum for existential questions about how the Internet should work." more

European Data Breaches Have Resulted in Loss of 645 Million Records Since 2004

A first-time study of publically-reported data breaches in the 28 European Union member countries, plus Norway and Switzerland, conducted by the Central European University's Center for Media, Data and Society (CMDS) has found that between 2004 and 2014 the continent's organizations suffered 229 incidents covering 227 million personal records.  more

World Economic Forum Announces Plans for Multilateral Architecture to Govern the Internet

The upcoming World Economic Forum (WEF), taking place 21-24 January, 2015 in Switzerland, is dubbed "The New Global Context". The theme aims at reflecting "the period of profound political, economic, social and technological change that the world has entered, which has the potential to end the era of economic integration and international partnership that began in 1989, says WEF's recent announcement." more

A Look at the Security Collapse in the HTTPS Market

While in recent years, HTTPS has become integral part of protecting social, political, and economic activities online, widely reported security incidents -- such as DigiNotar's breach, Apple's #gotofail, and OpenSSL's Heartbleed -- have exposed systemic security vulnerabilities of HTTPS to a global audience. more

European ccTLDs Have Reached 66.5 Million Registrations, CENTR Reports

According to the latest DomainWire, CENTR's quarterly report, european ccTLDs closed August 2014 with 66.5 million registrations -- a net growth of 0.3% over the past 3 months. Chart below shows growth rates (3m averages) for both European ccTLDs and legacy gTLDs over the past 12 months. It suggests a continued trend downward of both TLD types with a stabilization observed since July. more

Map Illustrates Global Internet Population and Penetration

A map released by Information Geographies at the Oxford Internet Institute illustrates the total number of Internet users in a country as well as the percentage of the population that has Internet access. "The distortion in the map paints a revealing picture about human activity on the Internet. China is now home to the world’s largest Internet population at over half a billion. The United States, India, and Japan then follow as the next most populous nations of Internet users." more

FCC Receives 3.7 Million Comments on Net Neutrality

The Federal Communications Commission has finished accepting comments on the controversial net neutrality proposal closing out as by far the most-commented issue in agency's history with a total of approximately 3.7 million replies. The commenting period has been open for five months and was even extended for several days due to frequent issues with the agency's website. more

New Top-Level Domains Shaking the Main Established Registrars, AFNIC Reports

Four of the top ten registrars in the world are not part of the nTLD, says AFNIC in a report released this month. More agile challengers are taking advantage of this situation. "Over and above these methodological considerations, one certain conclusion is that the cards are being reshuffled between the stakeholders. 'Challengers' are arriving thanks to nTLDs, while some incumbents seem slower in taking advantage of these new, still-emerging markets with their 2 million registered domain names compared with a world total of 276 million." more

First World Domain Day Conference Concludes in India

World Domain Day (WDD) was held in India for the first time last month where hundreds gathered to discuss domain names and related markets. Key topics included the announcement of soon to be available domains in a number of Indian languages. more

Open, Inclusive Internet Depends on Enriched Debate About Policy Creation, Says Global Business

At the ninth Internet Governance Forum (IGF) in Istanbul, the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) and the Business Action to Support the Information Society (BASIS) have welcomed the reaffirmation of the IGF's relevance and continued importance as well as the opportunity to work collaboratively with other stakeholders to further improve it. more

WIPO Taking Screenshots of Filed UDRPs

Michael Berkens reporting in TheDomains.com: "WIPO has been taking Screenshots of whatever is on a domain name as soon as a UDRP Is filed and they have been furnishing the screenshot to the UDRP panel who has been taking the screenshot into account as evidence in making their determination... Mr. Berryhill has been working behind the scenes to confirm that WIPO has in fact has been taking a screenshot of the domain name upon receipt of a UDRP complaint and furnishing it to the panel without the knowledge of the domain holder and of course has been telling WIPO why its just plain wrong." more

Non-Commercial Stakeholder Group Releases Statement on ICANN Staff’s Accountability Plan

Non-Commercial Stakeholder Group (NCSG) today released the following statement on ICANN staff's accountability plan... "A number of public comments and discussions in London focused on the inherent conflict of interest behind staff developing its own accountability and transparency mechanisms, so it was surprising to see that input had not been taken into account in the development of this proposal..." more

Global Domain Name Registrations Reach 276 Million, Increase of Over 19M From Last Year

Five million domain names were added to the Internet in the first quarter of 2014, bringing the total number of registered domain names to 276 million worldwide across all top-level domains (TLDs) as of March 31, 2014, according to the latest Domain Name Industry Brief from Verisign. more