News Briefs

Apple CEO Tim Cook Calls for New Privacy Law, Suggests Data Broker Clearinghouse

Apple's chief executive officer Tim Cook has called for the US Congress to introduce a national privacy law, attacking a "shadow economy" where personal data is bought and sold without their knowledge. more

iBreakfast New gTLD Conference in NYC Wed Aug 3rd

Joly MacFie writes to report: "iBreakfast is presenting About the 'Domain' Conference: The Era of New TLDs, this Wednesday Aug 3 2011 at Herrick, Feinstein LLC in NYC. Wendy Seltzer, Esther Dyson, and Annalisa Roger, representatives of dotgay, .berlin, .xxx, plus major registries are among the participants who will discuss how the Internet will be impacted by the coming new TLD rollout." more

New Data Suggests Americans Abandoning Wired Internet Access

According to the latest computer and Internet use data released by NTIA, Americans as a whole are becoming less likely to have residential broadband. NTIA's Chief Economist, Giulia McHenry, in blogs post today wrote: "Americans’ rapid move toward mobile Internet service appears to be coming at the expense of home broadband connections." more

Mobile Internet Usage at 8.5%, Doubled From Last Year

Global internet usage through mobile devices, has almost doubled to 8.5% in January 2012 from 4.3% last year according to a new report from web analytics StatCounter. While this stat excludes tablets, firm's research arm highlights the increasing use of mobile devices to access the internet with market share doubling year on year since 2009. Nokia leads worldwide, most probably driven by its dominance in India. Apple is second globally but leads the US and UK markets. In the UK RIM is second only to Apple. more

Genachowski: FCC Will Enforce Net Neutrality and Watch Any Violations of Principles

US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Julius Genachowski today reaffirmed his commitment to network neutrality and said that the FCC will go after anyone who violates its tenets. "One thing I would say so that there is no confusion out there is that this FCC will support net neutrality and will enforce any violation of net neutrality principles," said Genachowski told The Hill newspaper when asked what he could do in his position to keep the Internet fair, free and open to all Americans. more

UPDATEDMyanmar Internet Down from Massive DDoS Attack

Craig Labovitz of Arbor Networks reports: "Back in 2007, the Myanmar government reportedly severed all Myanmar Internet connectivity in a crackdown over growing political unrest. Yesterday, Myanmar once again fell of the Internet. Over the course of the past several days, Myanmar's main Internet provider, the Ministry of Post and Telecommunication (or PTT for short), suffered a large, sustained DDoS attack disrupting most network traffic in and out of the country." more

UK’s National Cyber Security Centre Reveals Plans to Scale Up DNS Filtering

Speaking at the Billington Cyber Security Summit in Washington DC, Ciaran Martin, head of UK's Government Communication Headquarters (GCHQ) and the first Chief Executive of the new National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC), set out how the new organization will use DNS filters as part of its plan to curb cyberattacks. more

EFF: U.S. Cybersecurity Strategy Likely to Have Serious Implications for Canadians

EFF and several other civil society organizations have declared a 'Stop Cyber Spying Week' in protest of several controversial U.S. cybersecurity legislative proposals, including the bill currently before Congress and the Senate called CISPA... more

Ted Cruz Pushing Bill to Prevent Government Handing Off Internet Oversight Without Congress Approval

Sen. Ted Cruz is circulating a new bill that would prevent the IANA transition without approval from Congress. "Cruz began circulating the legislation last week to colleagues with background information that called it 'our last chance to save internet freedom.'" more

DCA Receives an Injunction It Requested in Its IRP Proceedings

DotConnectAfrica Trust (DCA) received an Injunction it requested in its IRP Proceedings in an arbitration process against ICANN ('DCA Trust vs. ICANN') governed by the International Dispute Resolution Procedures of the ICDR based in New York and the Supplementary Procedures for ICANN IRP Process. more

Domain Name Registrations Reach 220 Million, Close to 5 Million Added in Q3

Nearly five million domain names were added to the Internet in the third quarter of 2011, bringing the total number of registered domain names to nearly 220 million worldwide across all domains, according to the latest Domain Name Industry Brief, published by VeriSign, Inc. more

Open Root Server Network to Close

Alternate DNS root server, the Open Root Server Network (ORSN) is shutting down. The project which began almost six years ago, is set to close at midnight on the last day of 2008. The following is part of the official statement released for the closure: Since start of operation in 2002 ORSN was a political alternative to ICANN/IANA operated root server network. It was also well known for technical innovation by providing IPv6 support before it was introduced in the ICANN/IANA operated root servers..." more

We Will Not Raise Prices Unreasonably, Says .ORG Operator

The operator of the .ORG top-level domain, Public Interest Registry (PIR), issued a statement assuring its community of registrants that it "not raise prices unreasonably." Also, it has no specific plans for any price increases. more

CENTR Publishes the CENTRstats Global TLD Report Edition 2 2022

The latest CENTRstats Global TLD Report has been released, covering the global status and registration trends in all top-level domains (legacy gTLDs, new gTLDs and ccTLDs), with a specific focus on the European ccTLD market. According to the report, the rate of domain name sales, deletions and registrar transfers seem to be gradually returning to pre-pandemic levels. more

Cyber and Telecommunications Defence One of the Fastest Growing Industries in the World

In the past five years, cyber and telecommunications defence has left its niche market to become one of the fastest growing industries in the world. In 2011, governments, industry and ordinary computer users spent roughly £65 billion shoring up their computer networks, a figure that is predicted to double within five years. more