In previous installments we've been looking at aspects of the design of the DNS. In today's grand finale we look at the the subtle but very knotty issue of names inside and outside the DNS. In the early years of the DNS, domain names were typically resolved to A records which were used to identify a host running a service. With the notable exception of e-mail, once the host was identified, the name no longer mattered. more
On Tuesday, Twitter announced the creation of the Trust and Safety Council, a body comprising 40 organisations and individuals from civil society and academia, tasked with "ensur[ing] that people feel safe expressing themselves on Twitter". The move is clearly a response to specific criticism of Twitter and its perceived inadequacies in dealing with hate speech?-- a theme so popular and well-trodden that it recently spawned a parody account. more
This morning I was forwarded a link to the Business2.0 article on domainer Kevin Ham about a half-dozen times and one sent the reddit comment thread on it (titled "This guy is a piece of s**t") and I had to chuckle and replied "I see Techno-Pinkos are out in full force". Some of the comments are just classicly clueless: "He's just a parasite. Someone gaming the system for their own financial ends without providing a useful service to anyone, and making it worse for many." ...Newsflash: Speculation is any time you choose one path, good or service over another in the hopes that you will do better... more
An e-commerce company, Communicate.com Inc., that develops, owns, and operates a network of websites specializing in travel, consumer goods, sports/lifestyle and B-to-B (business to business) has announced that it has entered into an agreement to sell Automobile.com, Exercise.com, Body.com and Makeup.com for $1 million to Manhattan Assets, Inc., a private U.S. corporation. A non-refundable initial payment of $200,000 has been received. more
Why shouldn't there be a .gadi TLD? Why not one for Microsoft? This post is not about alternate roots or why they are bad, this post is about something else. We do need to go over some background (from my perspective) very quickly though. ICANN has a steel-fist control over what happens in the DNS realm. They decide what is allowed, and who gets money from it. Whether it's VeriSign for .com or any registrar for the domains they sell. They decide if .gadi should exist or not. ...What I am here to discuss is why Microsoft, as a non-arbitrary choice this time, indeed, of all the world, should kick it aside, creating an alternate root while at the same time not disturbing the world's DNS. more
How are new technologies adopted in the Internet? What drives adoption? What impedes adoption? These were the questions posed at a panel session at the recent EuroDiG workshop in June. In many ways, this is an uncomfortable question for the Internet, given the Internet's uncontrolled runaway success in its first two decades. The IPv4 Internet was deployed about as quickly as capital, expertise, and resources could be bought to bear on the problem... more
Earlier this month, I had the opportunity to attend the The Emerging Communications (eComm) 2009 conference in San Francisco which was packed with 3 days of fascinating conversations about the future of communications. I absolutely enjoyed talking to various speakers and attendees giving me a deep level of appreciation and perspective on technical, commercial and political issues at hand -- and what is likely to come in the next few years. And speaking of politics, Lee Dryburgh, who founded eComm in early 2008, has generously allowed us to share with you a fascinating panel discussion which took place on day 3 of the conference called "Spectrum 2.0 - What's really happening?" more
A colleague was recently commenting on an article by Michele Neylon "European Data Protection Authorities Send Clear Message to ICANN" citing the EU Data Commissioners of the Article 29 Working Party, the grouping a determinate factor In the impending death of WHOIS. He is on point when he said: What the European Data Protection authorities have not yet put together is that the protection of people's mental integrity on the Internet is not solely due to the action of law enforcement... more
An article in BusinessWeek discusses "domain tasting" and its affects on major brands. The article, titled "The Great Internet Brand Rip-Off", discusses so-called "domain tasting" and how major brands are being exploited through domain tasting combined with typosquatting... It's important to distinguish between the two types of domain tasting... more
There's a thread on NANOG to the effect that Panix, the oldest commercial Internet provider in New York, had its domain name 'panix.com' hijacked from Dotster over to MelbourneIT and it has pretty well taken panix.com and its customers offline. Looks like this may be among the first high-profile unauthorized transfer under the new transfer policy. It begs the question, despite the existence of the dispute policy under the new system, what provisions should there be for a situation like this where every hour causes untold damage to the party in question... more
OECD, Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development, has released a report for policy makers assessing the level of IPv6 deployment around the world. "[T]he timely deployment of IPv6 by network operators and content/application providers is an increasing priority for all Internet stakeholders. In terms of public policy, IPv6 plays an important role in enabling growth of the Internet to support further innovation. In addition, security, interoperability and competition issues are involved with the depletion of IPv4." more
Yesterday was the deadline for the submissions of responses to the .NET re-bid RFP. As of my last count, there are five companies that I am aware of that submitted proposals for the .NET rebid. Three of these were quite publicly announced, Afilias, Denic, and Verisign. The other two bidders are Multi-Stakeholder groups. Sentan and Core++. Sentan appears to be a Joint Venture between .jp and Neulevel, and Core++ is ISC, Telfonica, and .br, with participation from Core, Nida (.kr), and .zaDNA (.za). more
There is something badly broken in today's Internet. At first blush that may sound like a contradiction in terms. After all, the Internet is a modern day technical marvel. In just a couple of decades the Internet has not only transformed the global communications sector, but its reach has extended far further into our society, and it has fundamentally changed the way we do business, the nature of entertainment, the way we buy and sell, and even the structures of government and their engagement with citizens. In many ways the Internet has had a transformative effect on our society that is similar in scale and scope to that of the industrial revolution in the 19th century. How could it possibly be that this prodigious technology of the Internet is "badly broken?" more
I'm an engineer, and I firmly believe that Internet matters and, in general, Information Society, should be kept separate from politics, so usually, I'm very skeptical to talk about those and mix things. Let's start by saying that I'm Catalonian. Despite the dictatorial regime when I was born, forbidden teaching Catalonian, I learned it, even despite, initially for family reasons and now for work reasons, I live in Madrid. However, I keep saying everywhere I go, that I was born in Barcelona... more
With ever more TLDs, where does it make sense to focus resources? After four years and a quadrupling of internet extensions, what metrics continue to make sense in the domain name industry? Which should we discard? And how do you gain understanding of this expanded market? For registries, future success is dependent on grasping the changes that have already come. For registrars, it is increasingly important to identify winners and allocate resources accordingly. The question is: how? more
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