The ICANN gTLD Battlefield - The Fog of War

Concerning ICANN's new generic Top-Level Domain (gTLD) program, why is the Association of National Advertisers whose members spends 400 billion on their 10,000 brands so violently opposed? Bob Liodice President & CEO of ANA recently wrote an article "How to (Unnecessarily) Encumber The Internet And The Economy" in Forbes highly critical of ICANN but clearly missing the mark. This misunderstanding demands clarification, the fog is getting dense so let's explore some facts. more

Silencing the Cold War Hype: Understanding the Road to .ECO

With ICANN's announcement that the application window for new TLDs will be opening in January 2012 there has been an influx of media coverage directed at our bid for .ECO, as well as the bids of many other organizations the world over. To date, many articles related to our bid have drawn immediate reference to the involvement of Mikhail Gorbachev and Al Gore. more

No Spectrum Shortage, Just an Allocation Problem

As a new study from Citi Investment Research & Analysis make clear, the US does not have a spectrum shortage. We've just allowed a relatively small number of carriers to control the spectrum. ... Perhaps if we had an effective "use it or lose it" policy in place, or a heavy tax on unused spectrum a more vibrant market for this spectrum would emerge. more

Google Finds Nothing is Shovel Ready, Not Even for Free Fiber Build

Google is deploying fiber at its own expense in Kansas City, Kansas and Kansas City, Missouri to demonstrate the value of one gigabit (a gigabit is a billion bits -- a lot) per second residential Internet connections and perhaps to show at&t and Verizon and the cable companies how the search giant might fight back if its growth is restricted by their restrictions or limitations. ... Whoops. Google just learned the same lesson that President Obama learned in Stimulus 1 more

Neustar Professional Services: Additional Expertise to Improve Productivity

While it would be nice if your company had IT staff members that were experts in every technology, that is just not realistic. And today, many companies face the challenge of finding the appropriate and specialized expertise that is required to deal with ongoing issues such as network optimization, performance degradations, network risks, and more. more

Munich’s New Domains Conference Reveals Urgency to Act Now

Whoever said there wasn't enough room in Munich this time of year for anything but the mighty Oktoberfest clearly underestimated the draw of the new Top-Level Domain Program and the interest within Europe. The NewDomains.org conference held in Munich over the past two days confirmed three important insights for me; one: there is a large audience of brands and entrepreneurs who still have little awareness about the new Top-Level Domain program; two: those that are aware of the program and would like to participate are seriously behind schedule in preparing their application and strategy to submit to ICANN during the application window from 12 January to 12 April 2012. more

What Is Email Appending and Why Is It Bad?

MAAWG recently released a document on email appending, criticizing the practice and describing it as abusive. But what is email appending? ... This definition is alright but I didn't find it as helpful as it could be. I looked it up on some other sites and I have a better description. more

A Look at the Growth of the Internet Routing System

Geoff Huston, APNIC's Chief Scientist, is visiting the RIPE NCC this week to spend time with his fellow Regional Internet Registries (RIR) colleagues and to strengthen collaboration on shared projects. We've used this opportunity to invite him to produce the 'Interesting Graph of the Week'. Geoff has been monitoring the global routing system for many years. Here are his most recent observations. more

Multi-Stakeholder Debate at the IGF: Lessons from a Safari

Here at the IGF in Kenya, we're debating how governments, private sector, and civil society can improve the multi-stakeholder model that's helped the Internet become such a vital part of life around the world. Makes me think of another kind of multi-stakeholder model I saw last week on a photo safari in Kenya's Masai Mara National Reserve. more

Censorship, Email and Politics

Spamfiltering blocks email. This is something we all know and understand. For most people, that is everyone who doesn't manage an email server or work in the delivery field or create spamfilters, filtering is a totally unseen process. The only time the average person notices filters is when they break. The breakage could be blocking mail they shouldn't, or not blocking mail they should. more