News Briefs

US Copyright Office Expands Security Researchers’ Ability to Hack Without Going to Jail

The Librarian of Congress and US Copyright Office has updated the Digital Millennium Copyright Act extending some essential exemptions ensuring that computer security researchers won't be treated like nefarious criminals for their contributions to society. more

IBM to Acquire Red Hat, Plan to Provide Open Approach to Cloud

IBM and Red Hat, leading provider of open source cloud software, announced today that IBM will acquire all of the issued and outstanding common shares of Red Hat representing a total enterprise value of approximately $34 billion. This changes everything about the cloud market, says Ginni Rometty, IBM President and CEO. "IBM will become the world's #1 hybrid cloud provider, offering companies the only open cloud solution that will unlock the full value of the cloud for their businesses." more

Amazon Gets the Green Light for .Amazon TLD Following Intense Negotiations Involving South America

ICANN has lifted the stop on delegating the .amazon top-level domain, allowing the delegation of the domain to the company Amazon Inc. over the South American region. more

Yahoo Agrees to Pay $50M and Other Costs for the Massive Security Breach Disclosed in 2016

Yahoo today announced it has agreed to pay $50 million in damages and will offer two years of free credit-monitoring services to 200 million people whose email addresses and other personal information were stolen as part of the massive security breach. more

NTIA Chief Suggests “Cooling Off Periods” for ICANN Staff Before Moving On to Outside Jobs

In a statement delivered during the ICANN63 in Barcelona, David Redl,
Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Communications and Information (NTIA) said that while the community has greatly improved ICANN's accountability there is still room left for improvements. more

Easy Access to ICANN, IP Address Data Beats Info on Encrypted Data, Says Telstra Cybersecurity Head

When it comes to fighting cybercrime, "being able to easily access ICANN and look up IP addresses is a lot more important than accessing the minutiae of encrypted data communications," says Jacqueline McNamara, head of cybersecurity at Telstra. more

New Analysis by Web Foundation Shows Dramatic Decline in Internet Access Growth

A striking trend revealed in a report to be released next week by the Web Foundation, an organization set up by the inventor of the world wide web, Sir Tim Berners-Lee, indicates that the rate at which the world is getting online has fallen sharply since 2015. more

Most Government Domains in the US Have Adopted Email Authentication Program to Prevent Fake Emails

According to reports, the majority of the U.S. federal domains have met the deadline to adopt an email authentication program to prevent fake emails from being sent. more

Most Cyberattacks Are From Hostile States, Reports U.K.‘s National Cyber Security Centre

A report from the U.K.'s National Cyber Security Centre blames hostile foreign states for the majority of the 1,167 attacks dealt with in the past two years. more

US Senators Urge Canada to Drop China’s Huawei Technologies in Building Future Telecom Networks

U.S. Senators Mark Warner, a Virginia Democrat, and Marco Rubio, a Florida Republican, both critics of China, have urged Canada to consider dropping China's Huawei Technologies from helping to build next-generation 5G telecommunications networks. more

First Round of GDPR Fines Coming by the End of the Year, Says EU Data Regulator

The EU's privacy regulator is predicting that the first round of enforcement actions under the new General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) will be exercised in the coming months. more

Atallah, ICANN’s Global Domains Division Joins Donuts as CEO

Akram Atallah, head of ICANN's Global Domains Division, has left the organization to join leading gTLD registry Donuts Inc. as its new CEO. more

Google Drops Out of Pentagon’s $10B Cloud Competition, Says Deal May Clash With Its AI Values

Alphabet Inc.'s Google has announced that it will not compete for the Pentagon's cloud-computing contract with an estimated value of $10 billion; says the project may conflict with its corporate values on artificial intelligence. more

Entire Broadband Industry Sues California Over New Net Neutrality Law

Lobby groups representing U.S. broadband industry today filed a lawsuit against California to stop the state's new net neutrality law. more

US Department of Justice Sues California Over Its New Net Neutrality Law

The U.S. Department of Justice on Sunday night filed a lawsuit against California over the new net neutrality law after just an hour the bill was signed. more